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Sorry - this page has been removed. China executes cult members over McDonald’s murder
(4 months later)
This could be because it launched early, our rights have expired, there was a legal issue, or for another reason. China has executed two members of a banned religious cult, a father and his daughter, for murdering a woman in a McDonald’s restaurant after she rebuffed an apparent recruitment attempt, state media said.
The 37-year-old woman, Wu Shuoyan, was attacked last May in the eastern province of Shandong by members of the Church of Almighty God, which had preached that a global apocalypse would take place in 2012. The case sparked a national outcry after it was revealed that Wu was beaten to death for refusing to give her telephone number to members of the group.
For further information, please contact: Zhang Fan and her father, Zhang Lidong, were executed after the supreme court approved their sentence, the official Xinhua news agency said. It added that they had been allowed to meet family members before being killed.
In earlier reports, state media said Zhang Fan and another cult member had called Wu an “evil spirit” and the group beat, kicked, and stamped on her head until she died on the spot.
The group, which originated in central Henan province, believes that Jesus was resurrected as Yang Xiangbin, wife of the sect’s founder, Zhao Weishan, according to previous Xinhua reports.
In 2012, China launched a crackdown on the group, which called for a “decisive battle” to slay the “Red Dragon” Communist party, and preached that the world would end that year.
Cults have multiplied in recent years but demonstrations have been put down with force by the Communist party and some sect leaders executed.
In 1999, then-president Jiang Zemin launched a campaign to crush the Falun Gong religious group. It was banned as an “evil cult” after thousands of members staged a surprise but peaceful sit-in outside the leadership compound in Beijing to demand official recognition of their movement.