As every May in past seventeen years, Donglü is surrounded by blue police tents again. The authorities used roadblocks to isolate this Chinese village from the rest of the world, in order to prevent Catholic pilgrims from attending the yearly Virgin Mary parade. The village itself is monitored by security officials. Red banners urge the citizens to maintain order.
Donglü lies only 100 miles from Beijing. According to local parishioners, a Virgin Mary apparition took place here in 1900. At that time, Chinese Christians were one of the targets of the Boxer Uprising violence, so the miracle was an important spiritual boost for locals.
In 1995, more than 30 thousand pilgrims reportedly witnessed an apparition of Mary prompting the Chinese government to use thousands of troops to isolate the village for the whole May. Since then, this has became a regular image of Donglü in May.
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Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.
Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.
Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.
