Hunan Authorities Issue New Legal Measures To Regulate Folk Belief Venues

Authorities in Hunan province have passed new legislation that strengthens legal protections for folk belief practices, but that also subjects them to increased government scrutiny. The Hunan Province Provisional Measures for the Management of Venues for Folk Belief Activities (Provisional Measures), issued by the Hunan province Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) in August 2007, mark China's first comprehensive provincial-level legal measures dedicated solely to activities related to folk beliefs [minjian xinyang huodong]. The Provisional Measures follow earlier steps from Hunan province to regulate such practices. Article 48 of the Hunan Province Regulation on Religious Affairs (Hunan RRA), issued on September 30, 2006, provides for the registration of venues for folk belief activities, building off of 2005 provisions that outline the establishment of a management system for folk beliefs and a 2002 directive to channel folk beliefs into the scope of management by religious affairs departments in the province. (See three undated news items from the Hunan province RAB, likely from 2006 (report 1, report 2, report 3), that discuss the background to these legislative developments.) Outside of Hunan province, neither the national Regulation on Religious Affairs (national RRA) nor other publicly available provincial-level regulations on religion recognize folk beliefs or provide for the registration of venues for folk belief activities, though some local governments have reported on regulating folk beliefs. (See, for example, a February 6, 2007, article from China Ethnicities News (CEN) and a February 13 CEN article for information on developments in cities in Fujian province, and an October 16 article from the Hebei province Ethnic and Religious Affairs Department for news on developments in a county within Hebei.) The national RRA does not explicitly designate Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, and Protestantism as China's only state-sanctioned religious groups, but in practice, the government has created a legal and policy framework that recognizes only these groups for limited state protection. At the same time, the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) maintains an office that carries out research and formulates policy positions on folk beliefs and religious communities outside the five recognized groups. See the SARA Web site for more information.

The Provisional Measures articulate some protection for venues for folk belief activities, but also subject such sites to requirements that are stricter than those imposed on general venues for religious activities. Key features of the Provisional Measures include:

• Defining Venues for Folk Belief Activities. Article 2 defines venues for folk belief activities to mean temples with "the characteristics of primitiveness, localism, diversity, historical tradition, and primordial religions." It also extends the definition to temples for ethnic minority beliefs. It excludes the "religious activity venues" designated in the Hunan RRA, as well as Confucian temples and ancestral halls. Article 3 forbids venues for folk belief activities from carrying out such "feudal superstitious" activities as rites to expel illness and exorcise demons [qubing gangui], "spreading rumors to deceive people," performing trance dances [tiaoshen fangyin], and other "illegal" activities.
• Registering Venues. The Provisional Measures provide for the registration of existing folk belief activity venues, but do not establish a mechanism to allow for the construction and subsequent registration of new sites. (See Articles 4-7.) Article 4 states that "in principle," no new venues for folk belief activities may be built, and "in general," no venues that have been destroyed may be rebuilt. The article allows for the rebuilding of venues of "historical stature" and "great influence" upon consent of the provincial RAB. The requirements are stricter than those provided for in the national RRA and related measures on registering religious venues, as well as those in provincial regulations, including Article 13 of the Hunan RRA, which encompass the registration of new venues for religious activities as well as existing ones. In those cases, registered religious organizations apply to register venues. The Provisional Measures, however, do not establish a framework for organizing and registering communities of people who practice folk beliefs. Article 5 specifies that a venue's management committee, which serves as the internal managing body at each site, apply to the county-level RAB to register the venue for folk belief activities. Article 3 stipulates that "participants" in folk belief activities carry out such practices at registered venues.
• Government and Party Control. Although all national and local regulations on religion establish active state control over religious organizations and venues, the Provisional Measures are more explicit in providing for direct state control. Article 8 states that members of a venue's management committee must endorse the leadership of the Communist Party, as well as submit to the administrative management of the government. Neither the national RRA nor other provincial regulations issued after the national RRA include this precise stipulation, and none mentions the Communist Party.

The limited scope of the Provisional Measures and their lack of stock language stating protection for freedom of religious belief suggest that Hunan authorities have not expanded the definition of protected forms of religious expression to fully encompass folk belief practices, even as RABs in the province regulate venues for folk belief activities. The Provisional Measures thus reinforce the central government's adherence to a narrow definition of religion rather than to broader understandings articulated in international human rights standards that include folk, spiritual, and other beliefs. In addition, the registration process stipulated in the Provisional Measures gives authorities the discretion to deny state sanction to those venues deemed to support cults or superstitions. Nonetheless, the Provisional Measures provide a degree of legal status to some venues for folk belief activities, which may signify a broader trend in accommodating some folk belief practices. SARA authorities visited Hunan province and indicated an interest in drawing on experiences there to draft national documents on the regulation of folk beliefs, according to an article from the Hunan RAB (undated, likely from 2006).

For additional information, see a previous analysis of the Hunan RRA and Section II--Religious Freedom, in the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 2007 Annual Report (via the Government Printing Office Web site).