Presented by Vice Chair Michael Young and Chair David Saperstein
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
Before the Congressional Human Rights Caucus
April 6, 2000
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Commission Vice Chair Michael Young (r) and Chair David Saperstein
(l) testify on religious freedom in China before the Congressional
Human Rights Caucus.
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Introduction
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for
inviting the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to
testify concerning the situation of religious freedom in China.
As you know, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom
is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government that was
created pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, 22
U.S.C. 6401 (note), Pub. L. 105-292, as amended by Pub. L. 106-55.
This bipartisan ten-member commission (including the ex officio
Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom) is charged
with the responsibility of advising the President, the Congress, and
the Secretary of State on matters involving international religious
freedom. For our first annual report, due May 1, we are focusing
primarily on three specific countries--Sudan, China, and Russia--while
not excluding other issues. With respect to the People's Republic of
China (PRC), two months ago we notified the PRC embassy of our interest
in visiting China for the purpose of better understanding religious
issues there. The embassy has yet to respond to our request. We have
conducted research and held hearings on limits to religious freedom in
China. My comments reflect some of our findings.
Chinese authorities have tightened the already narrow circle within
which religious adherents may practice their religions. Protestant
house-churches, the underground Catholic church, Tibetan Buddhists,
Uighur Muslims and Falun Gong practitioners have all felt the squeeze.
The year saw: the continued prohibition of religious belief
for large sectors of the population; the ongoing harassment of
unregistered churches; the assertion of state control over authorized
religions; an increase in the number of sects branded "heretical
cults;" the continued use of notorious extra-judicial summary trials
and the sentencing to re-education through labor camps for so-called
"crimes" associated with religion; and credible reports of torture of
religious prisoners.
At a time when economic slowdown, increasing unemployment, higher
taxes and official corruption threaten to undermine China's primary
goal of modernization, Chinese authorities view the ongoing explosion
of religious activity as a danger to social stability. In recent months
the increasing number, greater organization, expanding national
networks, and growing boldness of religious adherents have shaken
China's leaders and resulted in tighter control of religious affairs.
Continued prohibition of religious belief for large sectors of the population
The right to freedom of belief is explicitly denied to the 60
million members of the Chinese Communist Party, the three million
members of the Chinese military and hundreds of millions of citizens
under the age of 18. Several campaigns to purge the Party and military
of believers have been waged over the last five years. The state has
re-asserted its monopoly over the spiritual education of minors, thus
making participation by children in any religious activity subject to
discipline.
Assertion of state control of authorized religions
Regulations in the PRC now require that all religious groups
register with local units of the Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) in the
Ministry of Civil Affairs and that they affiliate with one of the five
authorized religions: Buddhists, Taoists, Muslims, Protestants and
Catholics. Churches are required to be self-supporting, locally led,
and self propagating. It is in this narrow officially sanctioned space
that people of faith may exercise their religious beliefs--to use a
Chinese metaphor, the "cage" in which the bird of religious liberty
will be allowed to fly.
While in theory registration requirements need not be onerous, and
in fact many congregations operate under RAB auspices with little
interference, serious restrictions on freedom of religious expression
have been reported in recent years. Many of the limits imposed on
registered churches are in violation of accepted international
standards of free exercise of religion.
Human Rights Watch reports that registration oversight of these
authorized religious groups by these associations entails official
scrutiny of membership; ceding some control over selection of clergy,
opening financial records to government scrutiny; restricting contacts
with other religious institutions; accepting limits on some activities,
such as youth or social welfare programs, or building projects;
eschewing evangelism; allowing censorship of religious materials and
interference with doctrinal thought; and limiting religious activities
to religious sites. The state requires that political indoctrination be
an important component of religious training for recognized religious
groups. This often comes at the expense of religious education as is
the case with a recent movement to "reduce the number of years of
seminary training of Catholic priests from the normal five to six years
to two."
Human Rights Watch reports that registration oversight of these
authorized religious groups by these associations entails official
scrutiny of membership; ceding some control over selection of clergy,
opening financial records to government scrutiny; restricting contacts
with other religious institutions; accepting limits on some activities,
such as youth or social welfare programs, or building projects;
eschewing evangelism; allowing censorship of religious materials and
interference with doctrinal thought; and limiting religious activities
to religious sites. The state requires that political indoctrination be
an important component of religious training for recognized religious
groups. This often comes at the expense of religious education as is
the case with a recent movement to "reduce the number of years of
seminary training of Catholic priests from the normal five to six years
to two."
Authorities limit the building of mosques, monasteries, and churches
even for approved groups. They restrict the numbers of students in
Christian seminaries, Buddhist monasteries and Islamic schools. They
proscribe the teaching of certain doctrines and labeled heretical
practices such as exorcism and healing.
Chinese authorities remain deeply suspicious of the involvement of
"hostile foreign elements" in Chinese congregations and severely limit
association between Chinese and foreign religious groups.
Ongoing harassment of unregistered churches
The Chinese strategy is to manage religious affairs within a legal
and bureaucratic framework that places responsibility for developing
religious policy on the United Front Work Department of the Communist
Party and the management of religious issues under the direction of the
government's Religious Affairs Bureau. All religious groups are now
required to register with local RAB officials. The Protestant
house-church movement and Catholics loyal to the Vatican are among
those groups that have resisted registration on principle or been
denied permission to register. While in many areas officials have
allowed the unregistered groups to continue without harassment, in
others, officials have been zealous to the point of abuse in their
campaign to force the registration of places of worship.
Human rights groups report Chinese authorities detained 40
Protestant worshipers in Wugang in October of 1998, at least 70
worshipers in Nanyang in November, and 48 Christians, including
Catholics, in Henan in January of 1999. Authorities detained, beat, and
fined an unknown number of underground Catholics in Baoding, Hebei in
the same month. In April Public Security personnel raided a house
church service in Henan. Twenty-five Christians were detained.
Seventy-one members of the Disciples Sect were detained in Changying in
April. In November of 1999, six leaders of Protestant groups in Henan
were sentenced to re-education through labor. Among Protestants,
leaders of large house-church networks who, in 1998, challenged the
government to a dialogue, have been targeted for arrest. Unauthorized
Protestant places of worship have also been destroyed.
Some observers report a concerted effort to "eliminate underground
bishops and bring them under the authority of the Chinese Catholic
Patriotic Association." This patriotic association is being introduced
into areas in which it never existed before. It is pressing underground
bishops for obedience, not just cooperation. Without consultation of
church leaders, diocese are being re-organized: some recently divided
diocese are being re-united and others have been abolished. On January
6 of this year, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association ordained
five bishops without Vatican approval and over the objections of many
in the Chinese Catholic church. Plans for further ordinations have come
to light.
There are reports of many detentions of Catholic clergy loyal to the
Vatican in recent months in an apparent attempt to force their
allegiance to the official church. One, the young Father Weiping, was
detained in May of 1999 while performing an unauthorized mass. He was
found dead on a Beijing street shortly after being released from
detention. An autopsy was not conducted and the cause of death is
unknown. The Vatican reports that five churches built without
authorization had been razed. 13 were destroyed in the Fuzhou diocese
in Fujian.
Xinjiang and Tibet
Some of the most egregious violations of religious freedom occur in
Tibet and Xinjiang, where ethnic, political, and economic factors
complicate the relationship of the atheist state and large communities
of Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims. In these areas Chinese
controls on information are especially tight. Reporters and foreign
visitors are not allowed independent access to sensitive sites and
individuals.
In these sensitive regions, authorities seeking to crush separatist
activities infiltrate and attempt to dominate religious institutions
which they fear foment opposition to continued Chinese control.
Religious freedoms are curtailed and in response, resistance
intensifies.
Amnesty International reports that authorities in The Xinjinag
Uighur Autonomous Region have closed mosques and Koranic schools,
halted the construction of unauthorized mosques, prohibited the use of
Arabic script, more tightly controlled Islamic clergy, and required
Muslims who are Party members or who work in government offices to
abandon the practice of Islam or loose their positions. The Chinese
press reported that "rampant activities by splittists" justified the
closure of 10 unauthorized mosques, and the arrest of mullahs who it
said had preached "illegally" outside their mosques. It further related
that public security personnel raided 56 mosques.
While allowing some Muslims to make a religious journey to Mecca,
authorities deny that experience to hundreds of Uighurs desiring to do
so.
In Tibet, where Chinese authorities fear growing Tibetan nationalism
and the political and organizational power of the monasteries,
religious institutions are likewise tightly controlled.
In an action denounced by the Dalai Lama, authorities of the Tibet
Autonomous Region and the RAB in Beijing approved the selection of a
boy as the reincarnation of the sixth Reting Lama. This is the latest
in a campaign to control the future leadership of Tibetan Buddhism. In
1995 the Dalai Lama identified the young boy Gendun Choekyi Nyima as
the reincarnate Panchen Lama. The Chinese immediately denounced the
Dalai Lama's choice, detained the boy and his family, and pushed the
acceptance of their choice, Gyaltsen Norbu. Chinese authorities
continue to hold the Panchen Lama at an undisclosed location and refuse
all requests to visit him put forward by official and unofficial
foreign delegations. Chinese authorities have no more authority to
select reincarnated lamas than they do to select Catholic bishops.
Each of Tibet's major monasteries is overseen by a Democratic
Management Committee, members of which are vetted by authorities for
their political reliability. The Committee regulates religious affairs,
finances (90% of which come from private donations), security, and
training. It enforces limits on the number of monks and nuns within
monasteries and conducts invasive "patriotic" education campaigns that
force monks and nuns to denounce the Dalai Lama and accept the
Chinese-selected Panchen Lama. Simple administrative actions can have
devastating effects on religious institutions. Chinese authorities in
Qinghai ordered all Tibetan Buddhist monks over 60 to retire. At one
temple, 49 of the 52 monks were over 60. With the monastery reduced to
a skeletal staff, young monks were sent back to their villages to
attend state-run schools.
Authorities limit the religious festivals Tibetans are allowed to
observe, the rituals monks are allowed to perform, and the courses of
study monasteries are allowed to teach. In 1995, Chinese authorities
asserted that "a sufficient number of monasteries, monks and nuns now
exist to "satisfy the daily religious needs of the masses." The Party
Secretariat of the Lhasa City Administration announced that it would
not allow more monasteries to be built and that monasteries constructed
without permission would be destroyed.
Increase in the number of sects branded "heretical cults" and banned
Article 300 of the Criminal Law, as amended in 1997, and as
interpreted by the People's Supreme Court and the National People's
Congress, stipulates that central authorities have the right to
delegitimize any belief system they deem to be superstitious or a
so-called "evil religious organization." Leaders of these so-called
cults are subject to "resolute punishment." In the absence of a clear
definition of terms, Chinese authorities have wide latitude for using
the designation "cult." Even private religious practice is forbidden to
members of groups declared by Chinese authorities to be "evil cults."
Falun Gong, a syncretic meditation and martial arts organization
whose spiritual teachings draw on Taoist and Buddhist belief systems,
has been the target of a virulent anti cult campaign. On April 25,
1999, 10,000 practitioners staged a peaceful demonstration outside the
residential compound for top Party officials in central Beijing. The
gathering was prompted by reports of police violence against fellow
practitioners in Tianjin and by an official ban on publishing Falun
Gong materials. In the months that followed, the group was declared an
"evil cult" and by year's end the government acknowledged having
detained more than 35,000 adherents. Some detainees were tortured. Zhao
Jinhua was reportedly beaten and killed while in Shandong jail. Others
have been held in mental institutions for "re-education." In closed
trials Falun Gong leaders received prison sentences for from 6 to 18
years. Many of those who have told their stories to outside media have
been severely punished.
The law has been used against a number of other religious groups. In
January of this year, Zhong Gong, a meditation and exercise sect
claiming 20 million practitioners, was added to the list. Also banned
are a sect with Buddhist origins, Yi Guan Dao, and at least 10
evangelical Protestant groups including the China Evangelistic
Fellowship in Henan province.
Conclusion
China's policy on religious freedom grows out of an ideology that
holds that religion is antithetical to Marxism's "scientific" world
view. Eventually, when societal conditions improve, religion will
"wither away." Until that time it is tolerated as, they believe, an
imperfect component of the "initial stage of socialism" but must also
be controlled by the state to serve goals of socialism. Thus China
defines and allows a limited range of what authorities consider "normal
religious activity." This activity is controlled within a bureaucratic
and legal framework true to the ideological roots of the CPC.
And at the end of the day, authorities can and do circumvent the law
altogether when they perceive their interests to be at risk.
Consequently, "dealing with 'illegal' religious activity according to
law" means that freedom of speech, assembly, association, and religious
exercise as set forward in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and the UN International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights are
routinely denied. As a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council,
China should show leadership and start living up to them. Thank you.
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