Freedom of Religion

Chinese public security officers detained Lin Daixian, 40, an unregistered Catholic priest, and 10 other Catholics, on July 25 in Pingtan, Fujian province, reports the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a U.S. NGO that monitors the unregistered Catholic community in China. Father Lin is a diocesan priest of the Fuzhou diocese, according to the report. Security officials detained Lin while he was saying Mass with 50 Catholic faithful in a private home in Pingtan. Some of the faithful resisted the officers and were beaten and injured. Lin, a seminarian, and nine other Catholics were taken to the Pingtan City Detention Center. Father Lin was detained three times in 2000 and 2001.

Zhejiang officials demolished a Protestant house church in Hangzhou city on July 29, beat hundreds of church members, and detained more than 50 church members, according to reports of July 31 and August 2 by the China Aid Association (CAA), a U.S. NGO that monitors religious freedom in China. Officials detained three more Hangzhou house church leaders on August 3, the CAA reported the following day. The CAA reported on August 9 that authorities released over 20 of the previously detained members, placed five others in criminal detention under charges of "interfering with the duties of a public security official," and continued to hold over 20 members without charge.

On July 11, Reporters Without Borders reported that documentary filmmaker and blogger Hao Wu had been released by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau (PSB) after being held for 140 days. The PSB never provided a reason for holding Wu, but at the time he was taken into custody on February 22, Wu was shooting a documentary about China's unregistered house churches, the subject of frequent harassment and repression by the Chinese government. On that day, Wu was supposed to meet with Beijing lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who had represented unregistered house church members and whom Wu had wanted to include in his documentary.

Officials detained at least 2 unregistered Catholic clerics and about 90 Catholic laypersons in Hebei province between July 30 and August 2, according to an August 2 report of the Cardinal Kung Foundation (CKF), a U.S. NGO that monitors religious freedom in China, and AsiaNews reports of August 3 and August 11.

The Shuangyashan Municipal Intermediate People’s Court in Heilongjiang province convicted 17 members of the Three Grades of Servants house church on charges of murder and fraud, and defense lawyers said that several confessions were coerced under torture and that the defendants would appeal, according to a July 6 report of the China Aid Association (CAA), a U.S. NGO that monitors religious freedom in China. The government accused the house church members of murdering 20 members of the Eastern Lightning religious group and of unspecified counts of fraud. The court sentenced three of the leaders to death, three others to death sentences with a two-year reprieve (which usually results in commutation to life in prison), and the remainder to prison terms ranging from 3 to 15 years.

Zhang Qingli, the Communist Party Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), challenged the Dalai Lama's credibility as a religious leader and dismissed his approach to resolving the Tibetan issue in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel that was published on August 14. Zhang also defended the record of the Chinese government and the Party on respecting Tibetan Buddhists' right to religious freedom. Spiegel Magazine, an Online publication, published an English translation of the interview on August 16.

Ye Xiaowen, Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA), emphasized the importance of government control over religious communities during an interview with the Xinhua news agency reported in a July 21 Xinhua article. Ye focused on future strategies for government control over religion, though such control has been a longstanding policy. According to the article, "[Ye] said one of the key tasks of the [government's] religion departments...is to actively help the religions get adapted to the mainstream of the socialist society. To this end...the government may suggest realistic directions for the religions from a friendly and constructive viewpoint and channel them to take part in the country's construction."

The Intermediate People's Court in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), sentenced a Tibetan teacher and writer to 10 years' imprisonment in September 2005 on charges of "endangering state security," according to a July 25, 2006, Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD) press release. Chinese security officials detained Drolma Kyab, a middle school history teacher in Lhasa, on March 9, 2005, and the Court sentenced him on September 16. Drolma Kyab was working on unpublished draft commentaries about such topics as Tibetan history, sovereignty, religion, and the location of People's Liberation Army (PLA) bases in Tibetan areas of China, according to the TCHRD release. Official information about the charges against him is not available.