Assailants Beat Catholic Nuns Over Xi'an Land Dispute

May 11, 2006

Unidentified assailants beat a group of registered Catholic nuns on November 23 in Xi'an city, Shaanxi province, according to a November 28 AsiaNews report. The nuns were protesting the demolition of a school that the government had promised to sell to the state registered Catholic Church. Five nuns sustained severe injuries and required hospitalization. Hundreds of Xi'an Catholics marched November 27 to protest the violence against the nuns, according to a November 30 AsiaNews report. The Holy See issued a declaration that "the violence practiced in Xi'an against a number of defenseless nuns cannot but be firmly condemned." Authorities in Xi'an subsequently detained 11 men in connection with the beatings, according to a December 8 report (in Chinese) in the Xi'an Evening News.

Unidentified assailants beat a group of registered Catholic nuns on November 23 in Xi'an city, Shaanxi province, according to a November 28 AsiaNews report. The nuns were protesting the demolition of a school that the government had promised to sell to the state registered Catholic Church. Five nuns sustained severe injuries and required hospitalization. Hundreds of Xi'an Catholics marched November 27 to protest the violence against the nuns, according to a November 30 AsiaNews report. The Holy See issued a declaration that "the violence practiced in Xi'an against a number of defenseless nuns cannot but be firmly condemned." Authorities in Xi'an subsequently detained 11 men in connection with the beatings, according to a December 8 report (in Chinese) in the Xi'an Evening News.

The attack on the nuns occurred in downtown Xi'an, on land adjacent to the South Cathedral, the city's main state-approved Catholic church. The South Cathedral was established in 1716 and occupied structures on the disputed land, including a cathedral and elementary school, before Party officials nationalized and seized control of the properties in 1952, according to articles on December 2 in the Washington Post (registration required) and South China Morning Post (SCMP) (subscription required). The State Council ordered government authorities in 1980 to return buildings that had been confiscated from religious bodies. But Xi'an officials did not return the elementary school, saying that the government would take over all basic education functions.

The Education Bureau of Lianhu district in Xi'an closed the school in 2003 and reached an agreement with a local developer to replace the school with a nursery, according to a December 13 report available through the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA) Web site. Despite the government's promise to sell the school property to the church, a demolition crew moved in on November 22 to tear down the school building and a wall between the cathedral and the school. On November 23, workers cut off electricity to the cathedral. Unidentified assailants attacked the nuns the same evening, after the nuns tried to prevent further demolition of the disputed property, according to the Washington Post.

AsiaNews reported on December 12 that the developer enlisted the assailants to settle the dispute through violence. Witnesses speculated to AsiaNews and the SCMP that the assailants had actually been "sent by the government education district" and that "local officials approved the attack in an attempt to resolve the land dispute in their favor." The Lianhu Education Bureau has responded to the incident by offering 3,000 yuan (approximately US$375) as compensation to each nun. According to a December 12 article available through UCA, authorities later raised the compensation to 50,000 yuan (approximately US$6,200) for one nun who required surgery. On December 12, the Xi'an diocese released to Catholic Church media a "Statement from the Xi'an Diocese Bishop Li Du'an on the Incidence of Assault on Catholic Sisters in the Wu Xing Street Church," available through the China Catholic News Web site. Bishop Li confirmed that the government would transfer land ownership of both the cathedral and school to the Catholic Church, but provided no further details about the land contract. Both UCA and SCMP disclosed that the purchase amount would total 6.5 million yuan (approximately US$812,500). Anthony Lam Sui-ki, a senior researcher at the Hong Kong diocese's Holy Spirit Study Centre, told SCMP, "This will set a very bad example if the [Catholic] church has to pay for it." In his remarks to UCA, Lam characterized the Xi'an case as "the first in which the [Catholic] Church has had to buy back its own land."

International media and human rights organizations have recently documented the problem of officially authorized violence against Chinese citizens. Some local Chinese officials have resorted to hiring "thugs" to intimidate or beat activists, critics, lawyers, journalists, or citizens who challenge corrupt practices, according to a November 22 article in USA Today. Human Rights Watch highlighted this issue in a December 8 news release and documented several cases of officially authorized violence in its December 2005 report, We Could Disappear at Any Time: Retaliation and Abuses Against Chinese Petitioners. In October, the CECC reported on two cases of officially authorized violence against Chinese citizens who challenged local government abuse of power. In Taishi village, Guangdong province, officials reportedly employed plainclothes security forces to beat local people's congress deputy Lu Banglie when he attempted to examine villagers' failed efforts to recall an allegedly corrupt local leader. In Shandong province, officials reportedly employed plainclothes security forces to beat lawyers visiting activist Chen Guangcheng while he remained under house arrest for exposing the abuses of population planning officials in Linyi city. The practice of employing plainclothes security forces has allowed local officials to deny responsibility for the beatings, according to the USA Today article. The National People’s Congress Standing Committee passed a State Compensation Law (SCL) in 1994 to provide for compensation when abuse of government power infringes upon individual rights. A January 6, 2005 commentary in the People's Procuratorate Daily questioned whether the SCL is of any practical use to Chinese citizens whose rights have been violated.

For additional analysis on the underlying land dispute, see below.
 


On July 16, 1980, China's State Council issued an Authorization of the Report by the Religious Affairs Office, National Basic Construction Committee, and Other Agencies Regarding Carrying Out Religious Groups' Real Property Policies and Other Issues. Paragraph 3, Subsection 1, of the authorization required the Chinese government to restore to religious bodies their property rights in structures that were previously confiscated. Subsection 3 further required the Chinese government to restore to religious bodies the land use rights in any churches, temples, or other structures attached to those buildings that the government had confiscated during the Cultural Revolution. The local government in Xi'an did not return the school property adjacent to the South Cathedral pursuant to this order and justified this decision on the basis that it needed to take over all basic education functions. The State Council later passed new Regulations on Religious Affairs, effective March 1, 2005. Chinese officials and experts praised the new regulations as an advance in protecting the freedom of religious belief. Provisions in Chapter 5 guarantee additional protection of religious property, but do not address the failure of local governments to return church properties as required by law in 1980.

The government has issued numerous regulations and circulars prohibiting violence, intimidation, and other abusive tactics to relocate residents and make way for new developments. In June 2004, the State Council issued a Notice on Controlling the Scope of Housing Demolition and Relocation in Cities and Towns and Tightening Up Demolition and Relocation Management and urged the prohibition of "methods such as cutting off electricity, gas, or heat, blocking traffic, and other tactics to force residents subject to demolition to move." In August, a Shanghai court sentenced to death two employees of a demolition and relocation company for violent evictions. According to a March 8 China Daily article, the Shanghai municipal government also announced that it will bring criminal charges against those found to cut off power, water, or gas to homes in order to encourage residents to move out. Nonetheless, violence and coercive measures have continued as recently as November 23, through this incident in Xi'an, and a November 30, through forced evictions in Chongqing municipality.