Meanwhile, in China
On persecution of Muslims, Christians, and the Falun Gong.

hina's subdued but inevitable acceptance into the WTO has taken a backseat to more immediate concerns involving the war against terrorism. As the Bush administration focuses on building coalition partners, the State Department has dutifully issued its congressionally mandated Report on International Religious Freedom. Press coverage of religious-persecution issues in Afghanistan has overshadowed the attention given in this annual report to so many of the other countries that tolerate and sponsor religious persecution — like China.

Though signing on with the antiterrorism coalition, China has only stepped up its own persecution of Muslims. It has intensified suppression of Muslims in Xinjiang by claiming that doing so will keep Islamic extremists from gaining a foothold in China's backyard. The report states, "After a series of violent incidents in Xinjiang beginning in 1997 and continuing into 2000, including reported bombings in Xinjiang and other parts of the country attributed to Uighur separatists, police cracked down on Muslim religious activity and places of worship accused of supporting separatism in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region."

Turdi Ghoja of the Uyghur American Association insists, "China wants to take advantage of the global war on terrorism to legitimize its indulgence in killing, torturing and imprisoning Uyghurs. Beijing has already unleashed a terror campaign against Uyghurs to 'stamp out the separatist elements in Xinjiang.' Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Communist Party boss Wang Lequan was quoted by the China News Service on October 24 as saying a high-pressure, strike-hard campaign in which the government would maintain the 'attack initiative, strike early, and deal with the punishment later' would continue. Apparently, China saw the international climate as an opportunity to make the execution list longer this year, without causing too much criticism from the international communities."

One example of the blurring of the PRC's suppression of Islamic militants and religious persecution was reported in a September 26 article in the Times of London, "Alcohol is final insult for the condemned." The ongoing fight for an independent Islamic state in the predominantly Turkic province of Xinjiang, in northwestern China, resulted in a death sentence for two prisoners. Before arriving at the execution site, hundreds of PRC officials conducted a political rally before truckloads of Islamic prisoners — a scene described as a "ghoulish spectacle." "Islamic militants faced the execution squad yesterday, stupefied by drink and driven to their deaths on an open lorry past laughing crowds... They did not realise they would face the executioner within the hour. As a final insult to their faith, they had been fed alcohol with their last meal."

Under the subheading of Restrictions on Religious Freedom, the report confirms: "During the period covered by this report, the Government's respect for religious freedom and freedom of conscience worsened, especially for some unregistered religious groups and spiritual movements such as the Falun Gong. The Government intensified its repression of groups that it determined to be 'cults' in general, and of the Falun Gong. ...Separately, under the guise of urban renewal and cracking down on unregistered places of worship, authorities in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Providence, razed an unknown number of churches and temples in late 2000. However, official persecution of underground Catholic and Protestant groups in southeastern China eased somewhat over the past year."

The report states that the Chinese government continued, and in some places intensified, a national campaign to enforce 1994 State Council regulations (and subsequent provincial regulations) that require all places of religious activity to register with government religious-affairs bureaus and come under the supervision of official, "patriotic" religious organizations. In many parts of the country, the atmosphere created by the nationwide campaign against Falun Gong had a spillover effect on unregistered churches, temples, and mosques.

Media coverage of horrific prison conditions for Falun Gong members confirms the report's findings. The Chinese press reported about Mr. Yau, a 50-year-old man who was arrested and imprisoned on April 28 for distributing Falun Gong material. While in prison, "He was forced to assemble leaves for Christmas trees and inmates would be hit five times for every leaf that failed to pass the quality inspection test. He said he witnessed an inmate being slapped in the face 25 times for making five substandard leaves and an additional two slaps for forgetting to say 'thank you' after receiving the punishment."

One Falun Gong practitioner, Chen Gang, worked for the Beijing office of Carlsberg Brewery. He was arrested, tortured, and remains in prison for being a Falun Gong practitioner. In response to the State Department report, Mr. Chen's sister, Ying Chen — a native-born Chinese woman who now lives in New Jersey-stated: "The appalling crimes that have been committed toward Falun Gong practitioners, and that have gone unpunished and actually rewarded have been far more horrendous than the notorious acts of the Japanese soldiers when they invaded China!"

The government of China has arrested many leaders of the unofficial Roman Catholic and Protestant "house church" movements. Provincial officials confiscated or destroyed up to 3,000 unregistered church buildings and Buddhist shrines in one district alone, in southeastern China last November. Government control over the official Protestant and Catholic churches has increased, as officials interfere in the training, ordination, and assignment of clergy.

Continuing efforts to negotiate with the Vatican also ignore the blatancy of the continued persecution of Roman Catholics inside China. "The Government's refusal to allow the official Catholic Church to recognize the authority of the Papacy in matters of faith and morals has led many Catholics to reject joining the official Catholic Church on the grounds that this denies one of the fundamental tenets of their faith. Catholic priests in the official church also face dilemmas when asked by parishioners whether they should follow Church doctrine about birth control or State family planning policy. This dilemma is particularly acute when discussing abortion."

Father Matthew Koo is a Chinese priest who spent ten years in China's prisons, followed by 19 more years in China's laogai camps, for his dedication to the Vatican. Now living in the United States, Father Koo reflected on the state of religious affairs in China and explained how Roman Catholics in China still have no freedom to worship God publicly. He compares the celebration of Mass in China to that of the early Church. Yet he is hopeful that Communism will not be forever: "We must wait and pray and work at our ministry," he stated.

Some Protestant house-church groups reported in mid 2000 that police detentions and raids of worship services were more frequent than in previous years. In early August, 2000, police detained 31 members of an underground Protestant church in Hubei's Guangshui City. A week later, twelve members of an underground Protestant church in Henan were arrested. In late August, 2000, police arrested 130 members of a house church headquartered in Fangcheng City, Henan, after they held services with three American members of a Protestant fellowship organization.

Earlier this year, California's Channel One program, "Faith in Hiding," documented hundreds of ministers and Evangelical Christians inside China demonstrating the power of faith. They believe that China's government sees religion as a threat and that it presumes the possibility of revolt. Under China's laws, no one under 18 is permitted to practice religion, and preachers must neither speak of the Second Coming of Christ, nor evangelize. House-church Christians expect that preaching the Gospel risks persecution; they risked their lives to appear in the video. Five underground church leaders told the story of a 21-year-old minister who was arrested for preaching, severely beaten, then suspended in air with his hands tied behind his back. He died on October 15, 2000.

In February, 2001, the Tibetan Information Network published a comprehensive study listing a total of 197 Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns detained in China, a majority of whom were imprisoned in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR). In April, 2000, the director of the TAR Prison Administration Bureau told a visiting foreign delegation that there were over 100 monks and nuns in the TAR's three prisons, of whom 90 percent were incarcerated for "endangering state security."

In March, 2001, Chinese officials refused to meet with U.S. diplomats from the Department of State's Office of International Religious Freedom, during their visit to China to examine the situation of religious liberty. Nevertheless, U.S. officials in Washington and Beijing continued to protest Chinese government actions to curb religious freedom, including the destruction of unregistered places of worship in Wenzhou, the arrests of followers of Falun Gong, the crackdowns on Tibetan Buddhists and Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, and the arrests of Christian ministers and believers. The lack of improvement in religious freedom in China was a key factor in the United States's decision to introduce again a resolution critical of China's human rights record at the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva.

At a time when the world's attention is focused on Afghanistan, we must hope that this administration will not forsake its principles elsewhere. As President Bush said earlier this year, "It is not an accident that freedom of religion is one of the central freedoms in our Bill of Rights. It is the first freedom of the human soul — the right to speak the words that God places in our mouths. We must stand for that freedom in our country. We must speak for that freedom in the world."