 |
Religious Freedom
President George W. Bush told students at Beijing's Qinghua University in February 2002, "Freedom of religion is not something to be feared. It's to be welcomed."(22) In his meetings that month in Beijing with President Jiang Zemin, President Bush urged the Chinese leader to grant religious liberty, free jailed Catholic clergy, and pursue dialogue with the Vatican. Nevertheless, despite guarantees in the Chinese Constitution protecting "normal religious activity,"(23) the Chinese government continues to view religious groups as a threat and places strict limitations on religious practice and organizations. However, Beijing's heavy hand has failed to quash what has been called an "astonishing revival" in religious practice and belief in China.(24)
The Chinese government officially recognizes five religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism. National regulations require that religious organizations and individual places of worship register with the Religious Affairs Bureau, a ministry-level component of the Chinese government.(25) All mosques,
churches, temples, and monasteries are forced to submit to state-controlled umbrella organizations that approve the selection of religious leaders, vet religious texts, and oversee religious education. These include the Buddhist Association of China, the China Taoist Association, the Islamic Association of China, the Patriotic Association of the Catholic Church in China, and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee of the Protestant Churches of China. (Islam and Tibetan Buddhism are addressed in the report's Xinjiang-Uighur and Tibet sections, respectively.) Local regulations often are more detailed and restrictive than their national-level counterparts. Foreign domination over religion in China is strictly forbidden.(26)
Many religious practitioners in China reject the validity of worshipping in religious institutions that fall under the auspices of a government controlled by the officially atheist Communist Party. As a result, underground churches and other unsanctioned religious groups are experiencing dramatic growth, despite the risk of punishment of members. Approximately 13 million Protestants are part of China's state-sanctioned church, but analysts estimate that 50 million or more Protestants worship in unregistered house churches.(27) About four million Catholics attend the official church, but perhaps twice that many gather in unregistered churches.(28) Other religious movements, with varying
degrees of orthodoxy, are also growing dramatically.
In addition to laws and regulations making it illegal
to participate in unregistered churches, the Chinese government in recent
years has begun labeling many unsanctioned religious groups as "cults."
Anti-cult measures enacted in 1999 initially were directed at Falun Gong,
a meditation and exercise movement that some critics in China and
elsewhere say exhibits mystical overtones. Falun Gong startled China's
leaders with a massive demonstration outside the Zhongnanhai leadership
compound in Beijing in April of that year. The ban on cults now extends to
other groups and movements.
The anti-cult regulations allow local authorities to classify unsanctioned religious practices as threats to social stability. Those who engage in such religious activities can be arrested as criminals and charged with disrupting social order.(29) Because local officials often have the discretion to determine which religious practices are "cult-like," implementation of the laws is often arbitrary. Some localities adopt a more tolerant approach to private religious practice; others are repressive. David Aikman, a foreign affairs consultant, told a Commission roundtable that "Hunan Province, for example,
which has seen the largest Protestant growth of any part of China in the last 20 years, is particularly harsh upon the unregistered leadership groups in its midst."(30)
One illustration is the case of Pastor Gong Shengliang, founder of the banned South China Church. The unregistered Christian group he founded has grown rapidly over the course of a decade and now has an estimated 50,000 members in eight provinces in eastern and central China.(31) Gong was sentenced to death on December 5, 2001, on charges of "establishing [a] cult organization."(32) He also was accused by authorities in Hubei Province of "raping women and violating social order,"(33) charges that Paul Marshall of Freedom House told the roundtable were "apparently trumpedup."(34) Gong's execution originally was scheduled for January 5, 2002, but has been delayed due to international pressure so that he could appeal. Gong's niece, Li Ying, also a church leader, was given a death sentence, which was suspended for two years.(35)
Local police often deem as "cult-like" practices that are accepted in mainstream religions in other Asian and Western nations. Praying for the sick, printing religious material, and conducting ecumenical relations between churches have all been cited as illegal activities in China. "The result of these new laws and the move against so-called cults has been a marked deterioration in religious freedom in China over the last year," Marshall told the roundtable.(36)
The Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China earlier this year released secret documents smuggled out of China that allegedly detail government repression of unauthorized religious groups. The documents, issued between April 1999 and
October 2001, indicate a systematic and determined effort by officials at the national, provincial, and local level to suppress religious practice carried on outside of government control. Measures to be taken against banned religious groups include surveillance, interrogation, arrest, and confiscation of property. One document warns that some religious groups had formed political front organizations in an attempt to evade the crackdown: "Discover them quickly, strike them when they appear, and decisively punish them by law, so as to destroy them in the cradle." Falun Gong, the Unification Church, and underground Protestants and Catholics are among the religious groups cited.(37)
The documents reveal a suspicion within the Chinese leadership that Western nations supported democratic and religious freedoms in China as part of an effort to foment unrest, especially as China prepared to enter the World Trade Organization. In addition, Chinese
authorities accuse the Vatican of "waiting for an opportunity" to incite religious believers to rebel.(38)
China remains reluctant to normalize relations with the Vatican, despite recent overtures from the Holy See. In October 2001, Pope John Paul II issued a statement in which he apologized for past church "errors" and "failings" with respect to China. He also expressed the hope that "concrete forms of communication and cooperation between the Holy See and the People's Republic of China may soon be established."(39) China's Foreign Ministry responded by calling on the Vatican to "break relations with Taiwan" and to stop using religion "to interfere in China's internal affairs."(40) But Thomas Quigley, of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told
a Commission roundtable that many leaders within China's official Catholic Church have already established links with the Vatican, possibly with Beijing's tacit approval. According to Mr. Quigley, "The vast majority of all the registered bishops have been reconciled with Rome, which the government obviously knows."(41)
Meanwhile, Chinese authorities continue to wield a heavy hand against leaders of the underground Catholic Church. In February, the Vatican's official news agency, ZENIT, issued a list of 33 Catholic bishops and priests who were arrested, detained, or placed under house arrest in recent years. The best known, Bishop James Su Zhimin of Baoding, Hebei Province, was reportedly arrested in October 1997. His whereabouts remain unknown.(42)
Chinese authorities are carrying out a harsh crackdown on Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in northwest China. The crackdown, carried out under the guise of anti-terrorism measures, extends to "religious extremism" and "illegal religious activities."(43) The Chinese government has imposed strict limitations on Muslim worship. Religious education in schools and universities has been banned, and those under the age of 18 are not allowed to participate in religious activities.(44) Authorities closely monitor the work of Xinjiang's imams, or Muslim clerics, and in 2001 required them to attend 20-day "patriotic re-education" sessions to study Communist Party ideology and China's "antisplittism" law.(45) (See the "Xinjiang-Uighurs" section of this report.) There are 35,000 mosques in China, and more than 45,000 imams, all of whom must be approved by the government.(46)
Three years after Chinese authorities banned Falun Gong, government suppression of the spiritual movement continues. Human rights groups have reported that thousands of practitioners have been arrested or detained for their beliefs. Human Rights Watch
noted "substantial evidence that torture and other abuses are common" for Falun Gong practitioners in prisons, re-education camps, and other facilities.(47) Unconfirmed reports
suggest that scores, and possibly hundreds, of Falun Gong practitioners
have died in police custody since suppression of the group began in 1999.
Erping Zhang, President of the Falun Gong International Committee for
Human Rights, told a Commission open forum, "We are . . . sad to report
that, in the year 2002, the repression has only worsened."
(Illustrative legal provisions include: PRC Constitution, Article 36; PRC Criminal
Law, Article 300 - 1979, amended 1996; Detailed Rules on Implementing the Provisions
on Managing the Religious Activities of Aliens in the PRC - 2000; Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Banning Heretical Cult Organizations, Preventing and Punishing Cult Activities - 1999; Regulations on the Registration of Social Organizations - 1998; Measures for the Annual Inspection of Places of Religious Activity - 1996; Measures for the Registration of Places for Religious Activities - 1994; Regulations on Managing Places for Religious Activities - 1994; Provisions on Managing the Religious Activities of Aliens in the PRC - 1994; Implementing Measures on Managing the Registration of Religious Social Organizations - 1991)(48)
Footnotes
22: President Bush at Tsinghua (Qinghua) University, White House News Release, 22 February 2002, (12 September 2002).
23: Chinese Constitution, art. 36.
24: Religious Freedom in China: Staff Roundtable of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China [hereinafter "Religious Freedom in China: Commission Roundtable"], 25 March 2002, Testimony of Paul Marshall, Senior Fellow, Center for Religious Freedom, Freedom House.
25: Regulations on Managing Places for Religious Activities [Zongjiao huodong changsuo guanli tiaoli], issued 31 January 1994.
26: Chinese Constitution, art. 36.
27: Religious Freedom in China: Commission Roundtable, Marshall Testimony.
28: Religious Freedom in China: Commission Roundtable, Testimony of Thomas E. Quigley, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
29: Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on Banning Heretical Cult Organizations, Preventing and Punishing Cult Organizations [Guanyu chudi xiejiao zuzhi, fangfan he chengzhi xiejiao huodong de jueding], issued 30 October 1999.
30: 30 Religious Freedom in China: Commission Roundtable, Testimony of David Aikman, Foreign Affairs Consultant.
31: Center For Religious Freedom, "Freedom House Calls On President Bush To Protest China's Plan To Execute Christian Leader," 3 January 2002, (20 August 2002).
32: Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States, "Chinese Embassy Spokesman: Gong Shengliang is Guilty of Establishing Cult Organization and Raping Women," 9 January 2002, (2 August 2002).
33: Ibid.
34: Religious Freedom in China: Commission Roundtable, Marshall Testimony.
35: Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States, "Gong Shengliang is Guilty of Establishing Cult Organization and Raping Women."
36: Religious Freedom in China: Commission Roundtable, Marshall Testimony.
37: The Committee for Investigation on Persecution of Religion in China, "Religion and National Security in China: Secret Documents from China's Security Sector," 11 February 2002, (31 July 2002).
38: Ibid.
39: Message of Pope John Paul II to China, 24 October 2001, (3 September 2002).
40: Religious Freedom in China: Commission Roundtable, Quigley Testimony.
41: Ibid.
42: Center for Religious Freedom, "List of 33 Bishops and Priests Arrested or Restricted in China," 21 February 2002, (31 July 2002).
43: See, e.g., Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, "Country Report on Human Rights Practices - 2001, China, including Hong Kong and Macau," 4 March 2002, 7, (20 March 2002) [hereinafter "State Department Human Rights Report, China"]; Human Rights Watch, Human
Rights Concerns in Xinjiang, October 2001; Amnesty International, "China's Anti-Terrorism Legislation and Repression in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region," March 2002, 10-12, (1 April 2002).
44: Commission Staff Meeting with senior officials of the Legal System Committee of the People's Congress of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Justice Department, 16 May 2002 [hereinafter "Staff Meeting with Xinjiang People's Congress and Justice Department"].
45: See, e.g., Vivien Pik-Kwan Chan, "Mosque Leaders' Re-education Campaign Stepped Up," South China Morning Post, 14 November 2001, (1 August 2002); Human Rights Watch, China Human Rights Update, February 2002, 11.
46: BBC, "Islam in China," (23 September 2002).
47: Human Rights Watch, Dangerous Meditations: China's Campaign Against Falungong, January 2002, 4.
48: The discussion of
each issue in Section 4 of the report is followed by a list of key
national laws, regulations, and decisions related to that issue area. The
lists are not exhaustive, but rather illustrative, and are intended to
provide the reader with a starting point for understanding relevant law.
For example, local laws and regulations, which often are more detailed and
more restrictive than their national-level counterparts, are not
included.
|
|
|
Back To Top
Previous Page