Vatican City - A Chinese Catholic priest who was arrested in November has been subjected to "sexual torture" by prostitutes, the Vatican news agency, Fides, reported yesterday.
Father Li Qinghua (31) is being held in prison in the Xushui region, near Boading south of Beijing, where he is monitored by cameras in his cell while "female personnel, who are prostitutes, try every means to have sexual relations with him", the agency says. The taped videos would be used to "make him confess under blackmail to his contacts with other priests of the Catholic Church" and force him to sign up to the official Chinese Catholic church, which does not recognise the Pope, it said. According to Fides, other priests have been subjected to the same treatment.