Freedom of Religion

The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of a report that appeared on the Web site of China's national Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force:

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While monitoring postal merchandise, Xian customs uncovered 1,826 VCDs propandizing the "Falun Gong" evil cult mailed from places abroad like America, Japan, and Malaysia. They uncovered a batch of illegal political publications and propaganda materials with reactionary content, and were effective in preventing these illegal political publications from being disseminated in Xian. In 2004, [officials] city-wide confiscated over 260,000 volumes of illegal political publications, and 280,000 volumes of illegal pornographic publications.

The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of a report that appeared on the Web site of China's national Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force:

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The Munich-based East Turkestan Information Center (ETIC)has released the names of several Uighurs who have been unlawfully searched and beaten by Xinjiang police this summer (in Uighur). The report, which lists the badge numbers of the offending officers, recounts how police beat several Uighurs for questioning the illegal searches. According to the report, police searched Uighur businessman Abdu Semet Abliz without cause and released him only after ordering him to shave his beard and mustache. Many Muslims wear beards as a sign of their faith.

Police arrested seven members of an East Turkestan separatist organization in Hetian prefecture in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, according an to August 30 article in the Hong Kong daily Wen Wei Po. The article also reports that since January, Hetian authorities have disbanded six "illegal underground" religious schools and confiscated unauthorized religious books, periodicals, and audio and video tapes. Xinjiang regulations require that all materials with religious content receive approval from the China Islamic Association before publication or dissemination.

Jiang Xiaoyu, Vice Chairman of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Organizing Committee, said that the Committee will not accept interviews with international news media by telephone because the reporters might represent the Falun Gong spiritual movement, according to an August 8 report in The Australian. The report quoted Jiang as saying, "The problem with telephone interviews is that we can't identify the person on the line, which media he represents, and whether he is a journalist or not . . . . For example the Falun Gong cult is illegal in China but they have their own journalists."

The 80,000 volume collection of centuries-old texts at Sakya Monastery will be moved to another location temporarily, according to an August 17 Xinhua report. The texts will be handled carefully under the close watch of Sakya's monks, according to the same report. Each person handling the volumes will be required to sign a log, even though the storage facility is 250 feet from the monastery's main hall. Tibetan worshippers consider the chance to walk through the chamber behind the main altar, where the texts are kept in 30-foot high racks in near darkness, to be of profound religious significance.

The Yili Kazahk Autonomous Prefecture government has banned the Sala branch of Islam in Xinjiang and arrested 179 practitioners, according to the German-based World Uighur Congress and a report by Agence-France Presse on August 19. High-ranking prefectural officials held a special work conference on the Sala "threat" on August 17, according to the Yili Daily. Government officials accused Sala leaders of "cheating and deceiving the masses, and inciting them to worship their religious leaders," and of pressuring followers to make donations to the organization. Officials also accused the leaders of encouraging "transprovincial worship" and "threatening social stability." The Yili press did not mention any arrests.