Freedom of Religion

A Catholic priest in the Xinjiang city of Ghulja (Yining in Chinese) told the Norway-based Forum 18 News Service that government authorities in Xinjiang do not allow minors to attend church services. This information apparently contradicts Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao’s recent statement that "China has no laws prohibiting minors from believing in religion." According to the Ghulja-based priest, police checkpoints at churches prevent minors from attending services; a schoolteacher beat one boy who managed to attend Christmas Mass; and managers at state-owned enterprises threaten to sack employees who attend church.

"China has no laws restricting minors from believing in religion," Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) spokesman Liu Jianchao said at a press briefing on March 15. According to the Ministry’s Chinese language press release: "Liu Jianchao pointed out that the Chinese government respects and protects the religious freedom of all of its citizens. According to the Chinese Constitution and laws, citizens have the right to believe in religion, and have the right not to believe in religion. China has no laws prohibiting minors from believing in religion. Chinese law at the same time stipulates that no individual or organization may use religion to interfere in schools or in public social education. When the reporter followed up with a question on whether parents have the right to educate their children in religion, Liu Jianchao indicated that his understanding was they do."

The Cardinal Kung Foundation (CKF), a U.S.-based Catholic NGO focusing on persecution of the Church in China, called on the Chinese government in a March 23 open letter to release imprisoned Catholic clergy and exonerate them from all criminal charges. The timing of the letter, together with the use of the same prisoner list, associates the CKF petition with the campaign for the release of Catholic clerics in China that the Catholic news service AsiaNews is currently promoting.

Chinese government officials plan to appoint two Catholic bishops to dioceses in Sichuan province without Holy See approval, Catholic World News (CWN) reports. The planned appointments would be a major step backward, since in recent years the Chinese government has made progress toward religious freedom by accepting some Holy See influence in the selection of bishops for the registered Catholic Church. The prospective bishops would preside over dioceses in Leshan and Chengdu in Sichuan province, where they currently serve as priests. The faithful in both dioceses, who number about 140,000, are said to reject both clerics owing to their open political maneuvering. Catholic Church sources elsewhere generally confirm the CWN account.

Government officials in central China have backed the plans of the U.S.-based International Council for Education Development (ICED) to open China’s first privately run university with an openly stated Christian mission.

The Sichuan Islamic Association and the Guangyuan Mosque Management Committee have signed a ten-year contract to convert the first two floors of the Guangyuan Mosque in Sichuan into the "Arabian Nights Discotheque and Bar," according to a posting on the Crescent Review, a major Chinese-language Islamic Web site. The religious leadership reportedly told worshippers that neither the Koran nor the Hadith proscribe such an arrangement, and that the move was necessary to repay the mosque's heavy debt. The Communist Party must approve all clergy and high-ranking religious administrators, who must also register with the state. The person posting to the Web site writes that mosque members are "crying tears of humiliation" and many are "giving up hope in despair."

Nankai University in Tianjin recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Lanzhou Cypress Alley Educational Center for At Risk Students, agreeing to send a group of college volunteers each year to work with the Center’s young minority students. A report announcing the agreement stresses that in addition to helping youngsters in the classroom, the volunteers will show patriotic movies and host other patriotic study sessions to strengthen the minority students’ sense of patriotism, unity, and socialism.

Acknowledging some limited progress in the Chinese government’s human rights performance, a senior U.S. diplomat announced March 17 that the United States would not offer a resolution criticizing China’s human rights record at the annual U.N. Commission on Human Rights meeting in Geneva. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Michael Kozak told a House International Relations subcommittee that the Administration remains "deeply concerned about China’s poor human rights record." Kozak emphasized, however, that, as in previous years, the United States had informed the Chinese government that a U.S. decision to pursue or forego on a UNHRC resolution on China would depend on whether concrete steps had been taken to improve human rights conditions. Ambassador Kozak then listed several limited areas of progress, noting that the Chinese government: