CHINA: DESPITE NEW REGULATIONS, RELIGIOUS POLICY STILL UNDER STRAIN

China Aid Association
FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
http://www.forum18.org/
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
=================================================
10 March 2006
AZERBAIJAN: MOSQUE UNABLE TO INVITE BACK FREED IMAMhttp://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=741
Although freed from jail three and a half years after his arrest on
trumped-up charges, Imam Kazim Aliev is unable to return to his Sunni
Muslim mosque in Azerbaijan’s second city, Gyanja [Gäncä]. “The whole
mosque community wants him to return, but he is not being allowed – we
don’t know why,” he told Forum 18 News Service. Human rights activist
Eldar Zeynalov, who has been helping Aliev refute charges of organising
an
armed uprising, told Forum 18 that the Gyanja police have warned Aliev
“unofficially” not to return to the city if he wants to avoid arrest.
Imam
Aliev categorically denied to Forum 18 the claims of the Military
Counter-intelligence Service. “How can three people organise an
uprising?
All our group did was to discuss Islam.” He noted sadly to Forum 18
that
he has given up trying to return to his old mosque as he knows “one
hundred percent” that if he returned he would be sent back to prison.
6 March 2006
BELARUS: PASTOR IMPRISONED FOR LEADING HOME WORSHIPhttp://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=737
To Forum 18 News Service’s knowledge, the ten-day prison term handed
down
on 3 March to Pastor Georgi Vyazovsky of the Minsk-based Christ’s
Covenant
Reformed Baptist Church for conducting religious worship in his own
home is
the first time for some twenty years that religious worship has
incurred a
prison sentence on the territory of Belarus. “We expected that my
father
would be found guilty,” the pastor’s son Yaroslav Vyazovsky remarked on
the day of the trial. “What we did not expect at all is the punishment
for
his ‘crime’. This was a real shock to all of us who were present.” The
church tried and failed to get re-registration under Belarus’ highly
restrictive 2002 religion law, which in defiance of international human
rights conventions bans all but occasional religious worship in private
homes. District administration leaders sent officials several times to
raid Vyazovsky’s church “with the aim of exposing religious
organisations
without registration”.
8 March 2006
CHINA: DESPITE NEW REGULATIONS, RELIGIOUS POLICY STILL UNDER STRAINhttp://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=740
One year on from the March 2005 Religious Affairs Regulations their
effects are difficult to judge, and repressive actions continue against
many communities. China’s religious policies are under increasing
strain.
Even the definition of “religion” – especially a “legal religion” – is
debated among officials, and a comprehensive religion law (as opposed
to
the Regulations) is awaited. The government seems to favour a law
focusing
on control of religion, but many religious leaders would prefer a law
focusing on protecting religious believers’ rights. Underlying the
debate
– and the increasing strain on government policy – is the fact that
religious faith and practice of all kinds is rapidly growing in China,
making the ideological foundation of religious control increasingly
unreal. The key question facing the government is, will it seek to
create
a better environment for religious practice or will it resist genuine
reform? Resisting reform may – sadly and unnecessarily – be the most
likely direction of current policy.
* See full article below. *
6 March 2006
MACEDONIA: SENTENCE REDUCTION SEES SERBIAN BISHOP FREEDhttp://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=738
The 28 February reduction of the sentence imposed on the head of the
Serbian Orthodox Church in Macedonia, Archbishop Jovan (Vranisskovski),
saw him freed from prison in Idrizovo several days later. But it
remains
unclear how much freedom the Church – which faces strong pressure from
the
government and the rival Macedonian Orthodox Church – will have. Father
David (Ninov) told Forum 18 News Service he hopes charges against other
monks and nuns for “performing unauthorised activities” will now be
dropped, but complained of the government’s continuing refusal to grant
the Church registration. Archbishop Jovan’s lawyer Vasko Georgiev told
Forum 18 he is optimistic that the proposed new religion law will
explicitly guarantee freedom to hold worship services on private
property
“since this is the European standard”. Serbian Orthodox, Protestants
and
others complain that under unwritten rules, no non-Macedonian Orthodox
places of worship can currently be built.
7 March 2006
TAJIKISTAN: NEW MOVES AGAINST MUSLIMS IN NORTHhttp://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=739
Local schoolgirls who refuse to attend lessons without a hijab (Islamic
headscarf) risk being denied their school-leavers’ certificates (as
happened to at least 23 last summer), while four imams were removed
from
local mosques in late December on government orders, human rights
activist
Islom Pokosov complained to Forum 18 News Service in Khujand in
northern
Tajikistan. He said policy towards Muslims in his region had grown
harsher
in the past six months. Local religious affairs official Abduhakim
Sharipov
admitted the denial of school-leaver’s certificates, but insisted to
Forum
18 that children had to abide by school uniform regulations. He said
the
imams had been sacked for teaching in mosques without a licence from
the
Muslim Spiritual Administration after the Religious Affairs Committee
had
discovered these “abuses of authority” during check-ups of the region’s
mosques. Officially, religious communities are separate from the state,
so
it remains unclear on what basis the Committee conducted the
verification
and ordered the imams’ removal.
8 March 2006
CHINA: DESPITE NEW REGULATIONS, RELIGIOUS POLICY STILL UNDER STRAINhttp://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=740
By Hans Petersen, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>
One year after China promulgated new Religious Affairs Regulations, it
is
difficult to quantify their practical effect on the implementation of
the
Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) religious policies at the grassroots.
One
thing is clear, though – the government’s increasingly hard-line policy
on
religion is itself coming under increasing strain.
The new Regulations – in forty-eight detailed articles – were
promulgated
by the State Council in November 2004 and took effect on 1 March 2005
(see
F18News 18 January 2005
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=491>).
On the surface it might appear that, as China remains a one-Party State
controlled by the CCP at every level, religious affairs are simply a
matter of the Party/State’s fiat. However, the fact that the new
Regulations took six years to draft shows that matters are not quite
that
simple. China still awaits the promulgation of a comprehensive
religious
law (as opposed to mere regulations). The government appears to favour
a
law which focuses on administrative control of religion, whereas many
religious leaders themselves would prefer a law which focuses on the
protection of the democratic rights of religious believers. Both
Christians and Buddhists in China have debated this important issue.
However, religion remains a highly sensitive topic for the government,
which is unlikely to relax its tight control of religious affairs.
On every side, religious faith and practice is burgeoning in China.
Buddhism and Islam are intertwined with the nationalist aspirations for
greater autonomy (or even complete independence) of the Tibetan, Mongol
and Uygur peoples. Buddhism, Daoism and folk-religion are on the rise
among the majority Han Chinese population. The majority of Catholics
are
loyal to the Pope and there is a vigorous network of underground
bishops
and priests. Explosive growth continues among unregistered Protestant
house-churches. As former President Jiang Zemin admitted, “Religion is
no
small affair”.
Even the definition of what is a “religion” – and particularly a “legal
religion” – is under debate, not just among religious communities and
academics but among officials too. Since the early 1950s the CCP’s
religious policies have tolerated only five major religions – Buddhism,
Daoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism (without official ties to
the
Vatican). Only these five religions are allowed legal existence with
their
own “patriotic” religious associations, religious buildings and
seminaries
and tightly-controlled religious publishing outlets. The 2005
Regulations
appear to assume the continuation of this artificial and arbitrary
definition of legalised religions.
In practice, tensions have emerged which make the whole ideological
foundation of control of religious affairs increasingly out of touch
with
reality. For instance, the Russian Orthodox Church still has a small
foothold in both the far north-east (Harbin in Heilongjiang) and the
far
north-west (Xinjiang) of China (and possibly elsewhere). In Harbin it
has
had one active church operating with the full approval of the local
authorities for many years. Yet on the national level, Orthodoxy is
still
not on the approved list of legally-recognised religions and so remains
technically proscribed.
Other Christian denominations are in a similar position to the
Orthodox.
Seventh-day Adventists are allowed to meet separately on
officially-registered Protestant church premises but are not allowed a
legal identity as a separate denomination. Nor are any other Protestant
denominations which were all formally abolished in 1958 when the Three
Self Patriotic Movement forcibly “unified” all the Protestant churches
under CCP pressure. There are clear advantages for government control
in
having a united Protestant church. But should Chinese Christians be
denied
the right to re-establish their former churches (such as Anglicans,
Methodists and Presbyterians) if they so wish? Adherents of the Baha’i
faith, of Mormonism, and of Jehovah’s Witnesses exist in China in small
numbers but are not allowed any legal existence. Hindus, Sikhs and
members
of other faiths visit China and live there to conduct business, but
they,
too, are denied any legal expression of their faith.
More seriously, at least in terms of the numbers of people involved, is
the government’s seeming inability to define clear boundaries between
licit “religion” (zongjiao) and illicit “feudal superstition” (fengjian
mixin). In its first major policy statement on the management of
religious
affairs since the Cultural Revolution, the CCP stated in 1982: “We
should
make a clear distinction between normal religious activities and feudal
superstitious activities. We should not allow those reactionary
superstitious sects and secret societies and sorcerers and sorceresses
that we have banned to resume their activities. We should ban and
severely
punish all those who carry out superstitious activities to lure the
people
and defraud them of their money and property.”
Over the last twenty years, “folk religion” (however defined) has made
a
major comeback. Forum 18 News Service has observed many people on the
streets reading palms and engaging in other clearly “feudal
superstitions”. In most cases these seem to be tolerated. Further, the
boundaries between what is “religious” and what is magical and
superstitious even within the officially-tolerated religions of
Buddhism
and Daoism (particularly the latter) are far from clear.
At the provincial level, religious affairs regulations issued in recent
years (and which still seem to be in force) appear to reflect this
confusion, at least on paper. In some provinces, “feudal superstition”
is
still clearly condemned. For instance, Article 31 of the Hainan
Regulations (published in Hainan Daily, 22 October 1997) state bluntly:
“Nobody can use religion to undertake feudal superstitious activities
or
to cheat people of their money”. More recently, Article 24 of the
Jiangsu
Regulations (published in Wujiang Daily, 15 July 2002) go even further
in
spelling out what is proscribed: “It is forbidden to carry out the
Bagua
(Eight Diagrams), fortune-telling, physiognamy, glyphomancy, fengshui
(geomancy), exorcism, healing and other feudal superstitious activities
at
[registered] religious sites.”
Even here, however, the Regulation is far from clear: what is the
status
of all these activities OUTSIDE registered “religious sites” (which
clearly refers only to the temples and churches of the recognised five
major religions)? Are these activities banned everywhere else in the
province? Or, conversely, is this a subtle admission of the authorities
that they have lost the battle against “superstition” and can only hope
to
control it to some extent on “patriotic” religious premises?
The religious regulations of several other provinces – such as Zhejiang
and Liaoning – make no mention of the need to crack down on “feudal
superstition” at all. Beijing went further – in 2002 it dropped an
article
from its original draft religious regulations condemning
“fortune-telling,
palm-reading and exorcisms and healings”. When the new law was
publicised
the fact that these activities were now legal was actually highlighted
with the heading: “Beijing Promulgates Its Religious Law:
Fortune-telling
and Exorcism are Legal at Religious Sites”.
In view of this confusion, is it coincidental that in the new March
2005
Religious Regulations there is a deafening silence on this important
and
controversial issue? (The only brief reference which might be taken to
refer to it is the stereotypical and catch-all Article 3 which states:
“No
organisation or individual may make use of religion to engage in
activities
that disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere
with
the educational system of the State.”) Otherwise, no mention is made of
“feudal superstition” at all.
Article 3 also states: “The State in accordance with the law protects
normal (zhengchang) religious activities.” The problem for religious
believers in China is that the CCP fiercely upholds its arbitrary
prerogative to define what is “normal” and what is “abnormal”. One
obvious
implication of the government’s failure to distinguish between
“religion”
and “feudal superstitions” is that religious worshippers will always be
concerned that they could be seen as practising feudal superstitions if
the categories are not clearly delineated. Yet should it be the
government’s right to make such distinctions in the first place?
The government’s arbitrary prerogative also affects children’s rights
to
participate in religious activity. In most other countries, the rights
of
children to attend religious meetings freely are upheld as natural – as
international law requires. In China, however, for many years the CCP
has
strongly discouraged under-18-year-olds from becoming religious
believers.
The March 2005 Regulations make no mention of this ban, and this is
regarded by some as a step forward. The reality seems to be that
whatever
paper regulations may state or not state, the CCP keeps a jealous hold
on
children and youth.
This was dramatically highlighted by reports from the largely Muslim
area
of Xinjiang in north-western China earlier this year. Radio Free Asia
quoted Muslim religious leaders as declaring that children under 18 are
now being forbidden entry into mosques across the region (as are CCP
members). A devout Muslim school teacher has been dismissed after 20
years
service just for being a Muslim. Recent visitors report complaints from
local people in scores of other cases of religious discrimination,
including arbitrary arrests and severe restrictions on religious
activities.
For Chinese Christians, the vexed question of registration of religious
meetings has been a perennial problem. The new Regulations state
categorically that all religious meetings have to be registered and
obtain
permission from the local religious affairs bureau. Article 43 states:
“Where a site for religious activities is established without approval
or
a site originally for religious activities continues to carry them out
after its registration has been cancelled, or an institute for
religious
education is established without approval, the religious affairs
department shall ban such a site or institute and confiscate its
illegal
gains.”
In reality, there are more Christians across China worshipping in
“illegal” churches (whether Protestant house-churches or “underground”
Catholic churches loyal to the Vatican) than there are attending the
“patriotic” churches. Chinese Christians are law-abiding but many
refuse
to countenance State interference in the churches’ internal spiritual
affairs. At the end of 2005, senior house-church leaders in Shanghai
and
Beijing confirmed to Forum 18 that they had not heard of any
house-churches registering under the new March 2005 Regulations.
In 2004-5 a few younger Beijing house-church leaders (mostly young
professionals) had been considering whether to attempt registration
directly with the government, while avoiding control by the Three Self
Patriotic Movement, which they found theologically abhorrent. However,
such hopes were brutally stifled when in December 2005 and January 2006
police raided Beijing house-churches largely attended by
university-educated young professionals. Just after Christmas 2005
Pastor
Jin Tianming, who pastors at least nine house-churches in the
university
Haidian district, was held overnight at a police-station for
questioning.
China Aid reported that dozens of other leaders in his church were also
interrogated.
Then, on 8 January 2006 and again on 15 January four police agents
rushed
into the apartment building where members of the Beijing Ark House
Church
were holding their normal Sunday worship meeting and told the
congregation
that they were an “illegal religious meeting-place” because it was not
registered. Many of the members are prominent lawyers and writers.
More sinister was the alleged murder attempt on Gao Zhisheng, a
prominent
Christian lawyer who has taken up cases of brutality against both the
proscribed Falun Gong practitioners and house-church Christians in
Xinjiang. On the afternoon of 18 January a car with a deliberately
covered
number plate suddenly accelerated and tried to run down Gao, who only
escaped death by throwing himself into an alley. He has subsequently
launched a hunger strike for “the restoration of human rights in
China”.
The authorities could not have given a more brutal rebuff to the
conciliatory stance of the Beijing Christian intellectuals. It appears
to
be a clear signal to the house-churches that registration directly with
the authorities, while maintaining continuing independence from the
Three
Self Patriotic Movement, is not an option.
The new Regulations have a whole chapter (no. 5) containing eight
articles
dealing with “religious property”. Article 30 states: “No organisation
or
individual may encroach upon, loot, privately divide up, damage,
destroy,
or illegally seal up, impound, freeze, confiscate or dispose of the
legal
property of a religious body.”
This seems to guarantee watertight protection for the property of the
five
legal religions. But events over the last year, particularly with
regard to
seizures of Catholic property, show that paper regulations count for
little
in reality.
The most horrifying incident came last November in the central city of
Xi’an, when armed thugs attacked Catholic nuns peaceably demonstrating
for
the return of property legally theirs. Several nuns were badly injured
and
had to be hospitalised, with one losing her sight in one eye. The
brutal
assault drew widespread international condemnation and outraged the
Chinese Catholic community who tried to share the news before the
authorities clamped down on websites based in China.
Demonstrations also took place for similar reasons in Tianjin while, as
UCANews reported in October 2005, in Hanzhong the (patriotic
state-approved) bishop had earlier issued an urgent appeal accusing the
city’s Civil Affairs Bureau of denying the church’s legal right to its
own
property. In all these cases, it seems the Catholic Church had fallen
foul
of greedy developers allied with corrupt officials seeking to get their
hands on valuable church property.
In conclusion, the year that has passed since the promulgation of the
new
Regulations has seen no hint of liberalisation of religious policy –
rather the reverse. Religious policy is still implemented by fiat by
the
CCP in an arbitrary fashion according to its own political requirements
rather than by the rule of law. The situation is increasingly serious
both
internally and internationally. Inside China, religious believers of
all
hues are much more vocal in demanding their rights. To them, the CCP’s
religious policies appear repressive and moribund. Overseas, China’s
image
has received severe blows. In the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics,
international attention on religious freedom violations and human
rights
more widely is likely to increase.
The government of Hu Jintao has taken a step backwards even compared to
that of Jiang Zemin, himself no liberal. The top-heavy structure for
controlling religious affairs seems to be creaking at the seams.
Greater
freedom for China’s hard-pressed religious believers seems to be only a
matter of time as economic and social forces converge to loosen the
CCP’s
control. Will the government bow to the inevitable and seek to create a
better environment for religious practice or will it resist genuine
reform
to the last? The events of the last year show that the latter outcome
is –
sadly and unnecessarily – more likely.
For analyses of other aspects of religious freedom in China, see
<http://www.forum18.org/Analyses.php?region=3>
For an analysis of religious freedom in Xinjiang, see
<http://www.forum18.org/Analyses.php?region=72>
A printer-friendly map of China is available from
<http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=asia&Rootmap=china>
(END)
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