Freedom of Religion

The Zhejiang provincial government issued an amended provincial regulation on religious affairs on March 29, making it the fourth provincial-level government to promulgate a new or revised comprehensive regulation on religious affairs since the State Council Regulation on Religious Affairs (RRA) entered into force on March 1, 2005. The Zhejiang regulation amends the provincial government’s 1997 regulation on religious affairs and will enter into force on June 1, 2006.

The state-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA) ordained Wang Renlei as auxiliary bishop of the Xuzhou diocese, Jiangsu province, on November 30, according to remarks by a State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) spokesperson reported in a December 3 Xinhua article (in Chinese and English). The CPA conducted the ordination without Holy See approval, drawing criticism from the Holy See for "subverting the fundamental principles of [the Holy See's] hierarchical structure," according to a December 2 statement (in Italian) on the Vatican Web site.

The nine defendants, who included the owner of the company that purchased the former Church property from the local government and eight of his employees, testified before a Xi'an court on October 17 that they saw the nuns being beaten but did not take part in the beating. Fourteen of the nuns also testified before the court. The judge suggested that the parties negotiate an out-of-court settlement, and negotiations ensued. On October 27, the nuns agreed to accept a payment of 260,000 yuan (US$ 31,000) in compensation for their medical expenses; this is in addition to 90,000 yuan paid to the nuns in 2005. A criminal case against the defendants appears to be pending; the Xi'an court refused the defendants’ request to dismiss criminal charges against them, according to the UCAN account. As of November 7, the nine defendants remained in detention.

Official government repression of Protestant house church members in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) continued in October and November, with three reported incidences of house church members being taken into custody, according to the China Aid Association (CAA), a U.S. NGO that monitors religious freedom in China.

The Gannan Intermediate People's Court in Gansu province sentenced Choekyi Drolma, a Buddhist nun, to three years' imprisonment in December 2005 for "inciting splittism," according to official Chinese information that has recently become available. She was among five Tibetan monks and nuns detained in 2005 in Xiahe (Sangchu), in Gannan (Kanlho) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP) in Gansu. Public security officials detained Choekyi Drolma, along with nuns Tamdrin Tsomo and Yonten Drolma of Gedun Tengyeling Nunnery, and monks Dargyal Gyatso and Jamyang Samdrub of Labrang Tashikhyil Monastery, on May 22, 2005, on suspicion that they circulated and displayed letter-sized posters in Xiahe and other locations that were critical of the Chinese government, according to NGO and news media reports.

Chinese Muslim pilgrims may now only receive hajj visas at the Saudi Embassy in Beijing and only if they are part of a Chinese government-sponsored trip, according to an announcement from the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) reported on October 4 in Ta Kung Pao and October 12 on the SARA Web site. The new measures were established in an agreement signed in May between the state-controlled Islamic Association of China (IAC) and the Saudi Ministry of Pilgrimage. SARA publicized the agreement after a group of Muslims from the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) attempted to obtain Saudi visas via a third country in August and September. As part of the agreement, the IAC will organize a second overseas pilgrimage each year in addition to the main annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

Hebei provincial officials released from detention Catholic Bishop Jia Zhiguo, the unregistered bishop of Zhengding diocese, on September 25 but continued to keep him under surveillance, according to a September 26 report of the Union of Catholic Asian News (via the Indian Catholic). Bishop Jia was detained on June 25, when officials removed him from the hospital where he was recovering from surgery and took him to an unknown location, according to a July 6 report of the Cardinal Kung Foundation (CKF), a U.S. NGO that monitors religious freedom in China. The CKF report said that the religious affairs bureau told some Catholics that Bishop Jia was being sent away for "education." Bishop Jia has been detained frequently in the past.