Freedom of Religion

The Catholic online news service AsiaNews announced a campaign March 5 to liberate 37 unregistered Catholic clerics detained or prevented from carrying out their ministries in China. The announcement was timed to coincide with the opening of the annual plenary session of the National People's Congress (NPC). AsiaNews characterized the announcement and the list of clerics as "our petition to the almost 3,000 delegates to the NPC, calling on them to free these bishops and priests, and to allow the people of China to enjoy full freedom of religion."

A number of Christian news agencies, newspapers, journals and Web sites have supported or publicized the campaign. The Pontifical Institute for the Foreign Missions (PIME), a Catholic religious order, produces AsiaNews.

Chinese security officers detained 8 Americans and about 140 Chinese house church leaders at a house church training session near Harbin on February 24, according to a March 2 report by the China Aid Association (CAA), a U.S.-based NGO. Public security officers released the Chinese church leaders relatively soon after interrogating and fingerprinting them and confiscating their cash and cell phones. But security officers interrogated the Americans, along with several Koreans and a Taiwan resident, separately for some 13 hours before expelling them from China.

A new Regulation on Religious Affairs (RRA) will take effect on March 1, 2005, according to official sources. The State Council passed the RRA in July 2004 after a lengthy drafting process, and Premier Wen Jiabao signed a decree promulgating the new regulation on November 30, 2004.

While Chinese officials and experts have praised the law as an advance in protecting the right to freedom of religious belief, others condemn it as tightening the government’s control over religion. The regulation seems principally to be a compilation of existing laws, but some observers believe that the new wording will permit the registration, and hence "legalization," of other religions besides Buddhism, Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, and Protestantism, the five currently permitted.

The China Aid Association reports that on February 10, 2005, Chinese religious activist Liu Xianzhi recounted her experiences with imprisonment and torture in China to an audience at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

During a January 26 press conference, President Bush responded to questions about the themes of his January 20 inaugural address, particularly the role of the United States in promoting liberty around the world. In response to a reporter’s question about China, the President said that he believes that the United States can achieve both human rights and other objectives with the Chinese government, and that while he doesn't expect instant democracy, he expects to see progress toward a goal. The President recalled that when meeting with Chinese leaders during his first term, he has reminded them of the benefits of respecting human rights and human dignity. He specifically mentioned having raised issues concerning the Dalai Lama and the Catholic Church in China with Chinese leaders. The President said he would continue to raise these issues in future high-level meetings.

Reuters reported on January 24 that Chinese government officials ordered senior Tibetan religious leaders in Qinghai province to "urge the faithful to show more support for a top monk anointed by Beijing and on whom the future of the restive region may ride." Anonymous sources said that the officials held the meeting in secret in November 2004, and threatened the Tibetan Buddhist leaders with unspecified punishment if they failed to comply. According to the news account, a provincial religious affairs official said he had not heard of such a meeting, and an official in the Qinghai Communist Party propaganda office denied that it had taken place.

The Cardinal Kung Foundation reported on January 8 that Jia Zhiguo has been released and has returned to his home. Earlier it had reported that local religious affairs officials detained Jia Zhiguo, the unregistered Catholic bishop of Zhengding diocese in Hebei province, in Wuqiu village, Hebei, on January 5. An AFP report said that local government officials either refuse to respond to inquiries about the 69-year-old prelate or declare that Jia does not exist. One of China’s leading underground bishops, Jia Zhiguo presides over a dynamic diocese of unregistered Catholics that has long been a focus of government repression. Bishop Jia has spent a total of about 20 years in jail, and security authorities keep him under close surveillance. He was detained a number of times in 2004, prompting the Holy See to declare the Chinese government’s action against him “inadmissible in a state of law that declares it guarantees ‘freedom of religion’ and ‘respects and safeguards human rights.’”

According to AsiaNews, the Catholic Patriotic Association will collect an admission fee of 50 yuan from worshippers who wish to attend Midnight Mass at the Beijing cathedral on Christmas eve. A shock to Catholic sensibilities, Bishop Fu Tieshan and the Catholic Patriotic Association evidently made the decision to charge the fee, which can be from 1/6 to 1/8 of a Chinese pensioner’s monthly income. The Patriotic Association justifies the fee on the grounds of maintaining public order and security, since the Mass has drawn a very large group of worshippers in recent years. But many believe the CPA has instituted the fee as a way to prevent non-Christians from attending the Mass who are interested in learning about Christianity, particularly non-Christian university students. Chinese religious authorities long have collected fees from those visiting religious sites -- for example, from non-Tibetans visiting Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple, but in this case both Catholics and non-Catholics will have to pay the fee.