China Cracks Down On 'Doomsday Cults'

Hundreds of members of a Christianity-inspired religious sect have been arrested by Chinese authorities and accused of spreading rumours about the end of the world.

Official state media said the Almighty God group had been using doomsday prophecies linked to the ancient Mayan calendar to encourage followers to rise up against the Communist Party.

More than 400 followers of the sect, also known as Oriental Lightning, were held in just one province, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said.

"These cult members recently latched on to the Mayan doomsday scenario to predict the sun will not shine and electricity will not work for three days beginning on December 21," the state-run news agency Xinhua reported, citing the public security bureau of Xining, capital of the southwestern province of Qinghai.

Police seized leaflets, DVDs, books and other material forecasting the end of the world during raids across eight provinces and regions.

"The investigation into the 'Almighty God' evil sect forms an important aspect of our maintenance stability work and we will closely link it up with our anti-self-immolation fight," CCTV cited Qinghai police as saying.

Nearly 100 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since 2009 in protest at China's rule of its Tibetan-inhabited regions, which include Qinghai.

China's ruling Communist Party has brutally suppressed other religious groups that have refused to toe the party line, including the Buddhist-inspired Falun Gong, which was banned in the late 1990s.

The country has a long history of religiously-inspired anti-government movements, most notably the nineteenth century "Taiping Heavenly Kingdom", led by a man who claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ, gathered hundreds of thousands of followers in an attempt to overthrow the emperor.

Church of Almighty God was reportedly founded in Heilongjiang province in 1989 and later began to teach that Jesus Christ had returned to Earth in the form of a Henan woman named Deng.

On its website, the group calls China "a fortress of demons and a prison controlled by the devil".

The suggestion that the apocalypse is imminent has also been blamed for the stabbing of 23 children at a school in Henan province.

"Initial police investigation found Min (the suspect arrested by police), a long-term epilepsy sufferer, had been strongly psychologically affected by rumours of the forthcoming end of the world predicted by ancient prophecy," the Xinhua agency reported.