Head of Religious Association: Religious Adherents Not Arrested Due to Their Faith

June 26, 2006

"I have not heard of Christians being arrested because of their faith," Cao Shengjie, president of the state-controlled China Christian Council, said on April 18, according to an article dated the same day in Xinhua (via People's Daily). "Believers have been arrested just because they conducted illegal activities, which should be punished by law," Cao said during an announcement about an exhibition of Chinese Bibles scheduled to go on display in the United States. In fact, such illegal activities include acts connected directly to the manifestation of one's faith. The government employs various legal and extralegal methods to penalize religious adherents engaged in religious practices that it deems illegitimate, including publishing Bibles without government permission.

"I have not heard of Christians being arrested because of their faith," Cao Shengjie, president of the state-controlled China Christian Council, said on April 18, according to an article dated the same day in Xinhua (via People's Daily). "Believers have been arrested just because they conducted illegal activities, which should be punished by law," Cao said during an announcement about an exhibition of Chinese Bibles scheduled to go on display in the United States. In fact, such illegal activities include acts connected directly to the manifestation of one's faith. The government employs various legal and extralegal methods to penalize religious adherents engaged in religious practices that it deems illegitimate, including publishing Bibles without government permission.

Under the Criminal Law, "illegal religious activities" do not form the basis for criminal charges. The Law does not mention "religion" (zongjiao) at all except in Article 251, which penalizes state functionaries who infringe upon a citizen’s freedom of religious belief. Article 300 punishes the formation of "superstitious sects or secret societies" or "[heretical sects]" (xiejiao, often translated as "evil cults" by official Chinese media sources, and as "weird religious organizations" in the official English translation of the Criminal Law). It also punishes the use of such organizations, or using "superstitions," to violate national laws or to commit certain offenses. A 1999 National People's Congress Standing Committee Decision on Banning Heretical Sects further articulates how the government punishes cult activity. The government has labeled as “cults” such spiritual movements as Falun Gong, as well as certain Protestant groups, thus permitting the activities of adherents of such groups to be prosecuted under Article 300. (See, for example, an April 6 press release from the China Aid Association for information about the case of Pastor Gong Shengliang, who was sentenced in his first trial for violating Article 300.) Chinese authorities also punish religious adherents by prosecuting them under other Criminal Law provisions. When Pastor Cai Zhuohua printed religious materials without authorization, authorities classified the action as the crime of disrupting market order under Article 225 of the Criminal Law. In the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where the government includes "religious extremism" as one of the "three evil forces" that it claims threaten stability, authorities have penalized religion-related activities as crimes that endanger state security, among others.

In addition, the Chinese government uses administrative punishments, including "reeducation through labor," (RTL) as a way to fine and detain citizens outside the formal criminal justice system. Administrative punishments can range from a warning or fine to detention in a RTL center for up to three years, with the possibility of a one-year extension. Forms of administrative detention include short-term detention under the Public Security Administration Punishment Law (PSAPL), RTL, forced psychiatric commitment, forced drug detoxification, work-study schools, and detention of corrupt officials under Party rules. (For examples of religious adherents sentenced to RTL centers after they engaged in religion-related activities, see an April 30 press release from the China Aid Association and a 2005 report by Human Rights Watch and Human Rights in China: Devastating Blows: Religious Repression of Uighurs in Xinjiang.) Unlike the earlier Regulations on Public Security Administration Punishment, the PSAPL singles out religion-related activities and spiritual practices for specific penalties. Article 27 provides for up to 15 days of detention and a fine of 1,000 yuan (US $125) for acts including "taking on the name of religion or qigong to carry out activities that disturb public order or harm the health of another" and organizing or inciting others to engage in the activities of "heretical sects, or superstitious sects and secret societies." For more information, see CECC analyses of the implementation of the PSAPL and its effect on Falun Gong members.

The 2004 Regulation on Religious Affairs provides administrative penalties, such as fines, for violations of its stipulations; such administrative penalties also include the possibility of limited short-term detention under the PSAPL. The RRA is not authorized, as a regulation, to provide criminal penalties. At the same time, like other regulations, the RRA includes boilerplate language referring to the necessity of pursuing a criminal investigation if a "crime is constituted." The RRA does not apply this language to all its liability provisions, but includes it, for example, in a catch-all provision assigning liability when "anyone uses religion to carry out such illegal activities as harm State security or public security, infringe upon citizens' right of the person and democratic rights, impair the administration of public order, or infringe upon public or private property[.]"

Authorities also have penalized religious citizens without adhering to legal processes. These abuses of authority lead to further harassment and interference with citizens' practice of religion beyond those methods provided for in Chinese laws and regulations.

For more information, see sections III(b), Rights of Criminal Suspects and Defendants, and III(d), Freedom of Religion, in the CECC 2005 Annual Report.