Freedom of Religion

Chinese officials raided a house church service on May 28 in Xiguan Ma Jia Chang, Fugou county, in Henan province, and detained 28 members of the church, according to a June 8 report of the China Aid Association (CAA), a U.S. NGO that monitors religious freedom in China. Officials released 23 of the house church members on the same day, and thereafter released Liu Yuemei on June 1 after she paid a 1,600 yuan (US $200) fine, and Chang Xinhong on June 8 after she promised to pay a fine.

Imprisoned Falun Gong practitioner Wang Xin becomes eligible for parole between July and October 2006, after having served half of a nine-year sentence in relation to downloading, printing, and distributing Falun Gong materials.

Zhang Qingli, the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) Communist Party Secretary, told senior Party officials meeting in Lhasa on May 16 that the Party is engaged in a "fight to the death struggle" against the Dalai Lama and his supporters, according to a Tibet Daily report published the same day (in Chinese, reprinted on the Web site of Xinhua). For this reason, Zhang said, the Party must push ahead with the patriotic education campaign already underway in TAR Buddhist monasteries and nunneries, the report said.

"I have not heard of Christians being arrested because of their faith," Cao Shengjie, president of the state-controlled China Christian Council, said on April 18, according to an article dated the same day in Xinhua (via People's Daily). "Believers have been arrested just because they conducted illegal activities, which should be punished by law," Cao said during an announcement about an exhibition of Chinese Bibles scheduled to go on display in the United States. In fact, such illegal activities include acts connected directly to the manifestation of one's faith. The government employs various legal and extralegal methods to penalize religious adherents engaged in religious practices that it deems illegitimate, including publishing Bibles without government permission.

Chinese authorities arrested Mr. Naguunbilig, a popular ethnic Mongol medical specialist, and his wife Daguulaa on June 7 for practicing what the authorities call "a Mongol version of Falun Gong" and for holding "illegal gatherings," according to the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center. 41-year-old Naguunbilig is the author of 5 medical books and 11 scholarly papers, and a member of the Chinese Mental Health Society and Chinese Medical Qigong Institute. In 2002, he opened the "Inner Mongolia Aztai Mongol Senior's Health Center," which authorities shut down after his arrest in June. A former employee of the center denied any association with Falun Gong, stating that Mr.

The Chinese government continued to assert its control over the appointment of Chinese Catholic bishops during May, according to Chinese and foreign news sources. Government religious affairs authorities permitted the consecration of one registered bishop who was also approved by the Holy See, but authorities also installed another registered bishop who the Holy See did not approve. The government controlled press also reported prominently the government’s assertion of its right to appoint Catholic bishops. These events followed the consecrations of registered bishops not approved by the Holy See on April 30 and May 2.

Officials detained Chinese Protestants on five occasions since April 26, according to reports by the China Aid Association (CAA), a U.S. NGO that monitors religious freedom in China.

The China Islamic Congress convened its eighth session from May 8 to May 12, according to a May 12 article in Xinhua. The Congress met to define the Islamic Association of China's (IAC) goals for the next five years, the article reported. The IAC is one of the "patriotic religious associations" that the government and Party use to control religion in China. The Congress announced several changes designed to align IAC rules to national government regulations and to further enhance IAC authority over Islamic practice: