Freedom of Religion
The Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (CFA), in a decision announced on May 5, overturned the convictions of eight Falun Gong practitioners for willful obstruction of police and assault. Hong Kong police arrested the practitioners in 2002 for obstructing a public thoroughfare in the course of a peaceful protest outside the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government. Several demonstrators resisted police efforts to arrest them for the obstruction. In 2002, a Hong Kong trial court convicted the demonstrators of obstructing a public place, willful obstruction of police, and (in the case of one demonstrator) assault. In 2003, a lower appeals court overturned the public obstruction convictions but upheld the willful obstruction and assault convictions.
On April 28, public security bureaus in several Hebei province locations released seven unregistered Catholic priests who had been detained the previous day, reports AsiaNews. Security officers detained the priests while they were attending a religious retreat with Bishop Jia Zhiguo. Local sources said that public security officials detained the priests because the retreat was held outside their home county.
AsiaNews also reports that Yao Liang, auxiliary bishop of Xiwanzi in Hebei province, was detained on March 30, released about April 20, and subsequently detained again. According to the news account, Chinese security authorities are subjecting Bishop Yao to a program of "re-education" to force him to register with the Catholic Patriotic Association, the government-approved Catholic organization.
The Chinese community of Orthodox Christians conducted their first public Easter prayer service since 1957 in a Beijing Catholic Cathedral on May 2, report RIA Novosti and ITAR TASS. Beijing religious authorities granted permission for the prayer service (Easter matins, not the divine liturgy), which was conducted by laymen, since no Chinese Orthodox priests remain in Beijing and Chinese law forbids foreign priests from conducting religious services for Chinese citizens. The Catholic cathedral was the venue because the Chinese government has not permitted Orthodox churches in Beijing to reopen or a new church to be built.
The China Intercontinental Press will soon publish a new edition of "The Jews in China," according to an April 21 Xinhua article. The new edition will be published with text in Chinese, English, and, for the first time, Hebrew. The book provides an introduction to the history of Jews in China, from the Tang Dynasty through the departure from Shanghai of World War II refugees. To read a review of the first edition of this book, click here.
Chinese security officials detained seven unregistered Catholic priests in Hebei province on April 27, reports the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a U.S.-based NGO that advocates for the religious freedom of China’s unregistered Catholics. The seven priests all come from the diocese of Zhengding in Hebei, and were arrested in Wuqiu village of Jinzhou city while attending a religious retreat conducted by Bishop Jia Zhiguo. Bishop Jia had just been released from 24-hour surveillance, maintained between the death of Pope John Paul II and the installation of Pope Benedict XVI (March 30- April 25). Bishop Jia is said to be among the most effective leaders of the unregistered Catholic Church; his diocese is among those most tightly controlled by the Chinese government.
The Gansu Party Organization Department recently published survey findings that provide rare details on the precise number of minority party members within a rural county and an even more unusual acknowledgment of widespread party member acceptance of religion (see 李盛刚，妥善解决少数民族和信教群众居区农村党员信仰宗教问题的积极探索，甘肃理论学看，2004年11月). The Organization Department conducted the survey in Zhangjiachuan Hui Autonomous County, which contains a higher percentage of the Hui Muslim minority (69.5 percent) than any other autonomous county in China. 63.7 percent of county party members there are Hui, while 53.3 percent of the "peasant party members" in the county are Hui.
The following is a translation prepared by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China of the "Measures on the Examination, Approval, and Registration of Venues for Religious Activity," issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs on April 21, 2005. The Chinese text was retrieved from the State Administration for Religious Affairs Web site on January 27, 2006.
Measures on the Examination, Approval, and Registration of Venues for Religious Activity
State Administration for Religious Affairs Decree Number 2
The Chinese government is conducting a "wholesale assault" against the Muslim faith of the Uighurs in northwest China, according to a new report jointly published by Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China, entitled "Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang." The report is based on previously undisclosed regulations and documents intended strictly for internal circulation within the Chinese Communist Party and government organizations. The report’s appendix publishes five of these documents, including a document confirming that a large number of Uighurs have been arrested for alleged religious and state security offenses; a regulation strictly prohibiting minors from practicing religion; and a manual for officials with details on how to repress religion.
Since March 20, the Holy See and the Cardinal Kung Foundation, a U.S.-based NGO monitoring the unregistered Catholic Church in China, have reported six incidents of detention or heightened surveillance of unregistered Catholics.
* On March 20, James Lin Xili, the 86-year-old bishop of Wenzhou in Zhejiang, was detained.
* On March 22, Gao Xinyou, a collaborator in the pastoral care of the laity in Wenzhou in Zhejiang, was detained.
* On March 30, Zhao Kexun, a priest and administrator of the diocese of Xuanhua in Hebei, was detained.