Nuns Beaten By Red Guards

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31158, 7 September 1966, Page 7

Nuns Beaten By Red Guards

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) HONG KONG, September 5. Two of the eight nuns expelled from China last Wednesday said they were hit, called “fat pigs,” and made to trample a cross by Chinese Red Guards who took over their Peking convent last week.

They said 13 Chinese nuns who lived in the Franciscan convent with them were "very much more severely treated.”

The two nuns, Sisters Catherine Rogan, aged 65, of Glasgow. Scotland, and Rosa Millesanti, aged 66, of Italy, were talking to reporters after the funeral of an Irish colleague.

Already ill on Wednesday, 85-year-oid Sister Mary Eamonn had to be trundled across the border on a baggage trolley. She died in hospital on Friday.

Sister Rogan said she had no words to describe the actions of the young Red Guards, who seized the convent as part of their campaign to “root out reaction” in the Chinese capital. “They slapped us and I could see hatred in their hearts, and they went mad and stepped on a cross and forced us to do so.” Sister Millesanti said she did not know what had become of the Chinese nuns. About 50 Red Guards came to the convent “for a look round,” then ran about shouting “fat pigs ... we don’t

want you any more” and chalked anti-religious slogans on the walls. Both nuns said Sister Eamonn had been ill in Peking for some time, and the threeday train journey to the border had weakened her. The Chinese said the convent, where children of Peking's small western community went for classes, was a cover for spying and counter-revolution.