CHINA : Special bimonthly FoRB newsletter (01-15.08.2021)
General
16.08.21 – There’s a religious revival going on in China – under the constant watch of the Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1921. For most of those decades, the party sought to restrict or obliterate traditional religious practices, which it considered part of China’s “feudal” past.
03.08.21 – Sentenced up to six years in jail for selling Bible players
Electronic Bibles are popular in China. But not with the CCP, as the Christians operating Shenzhen Life Tree Culture Communication painfully discovered.
02.08.21 – Canadian churches shouldn’t remain silent on religious oppression in China
Canadians are now quite familiar with the many dimensions of the horrific repression of the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang region of China – including brainwashing, torture, rape, forced sterilization and even deaths in the so-called re-education camps.
Uyghur Muslims
11.08.21 – New report documents the complicity of Pakistan and Afghanistan in China’s transnational repression of Uyghurs
The Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs (Oxus) have released a new report documenting the complicity of the Pakistani and Afghan states in China’s transnational repression of Uyghurs.
The report, “Nets Cast from the Earth to the Sky”: China’s Hunt for Pakistan’s Uyghurs, distinguishes different methods by which the Chinese government represses Uyghur communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan and describes how these methods violate international human rights and legal norms.
Catholics
13.08.21 – Cardinal Parolin: Church proud of Chinese Catholics’ ‘witness of faith’
While the Holy See continues to dialogue with the Chinese government, the church is proud of Catholics who have held on to their faith in the country, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state.
Tibetan Buddhists
05.08.21 – Historical Buddhist temple closed in Jiangxi
One would believe that a temple connected with the saga of General Luo Binghui, a Communist civil war hero, would be protected by the CCP itself against the crackdown on unaffiliated Buddhist temples.
05.08.21 – Tibetan monk held in Sichuan’s Ngaba County on unknown charges
Police in western China’s Sichuan province have arrested a senior monk at a Tibetan monastery in Ngaba county on suspicion of holding politically sensitive discussions on the popular WeChat social media platform, according to Tibetan sources.
Protestants
11.08.21 – Christian school raided, teachers arrested in Anhui
At the beginning of August, the arrest of four Christian teachers called Wang Minghai, Wan Hongxia, Han Yanlei, and Xie Zhifeng was formalized in Wuhu, a prefecture-level city in Anhui province.
09.08.21 – Sola Fide golden Lampstand church leaders arrested again in Shanxi
Faithful readers of Bitter Winter may remember that we reported in 2018 on the persecution of the Golden Lampstand Church, a house church in Shanxi’s Linfen city. The congregation is part of a network with more than 50,000 members, and the church had costed nearly 2.6 million USD to build.
09.08.21 – Police in China’s Shanxi detain nine protestant house church members
Authorities in the northern province of Shanxi have detained nine members of the Golden Lamp Protestant church in the provincial capital, Taiyuan, after it refused to join the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-backed Three-Self Association of churches.
02.08.21 – Chinese communist officials forcibly remove crosses from Christian fishermen’s boats
Communist officials in China’s Zhejiang province forcibly removed crosses and other Christian symbols from Christians’ fishing boats and threatened to cancel their fishing permits, according to a report.
Falun Gong
15.08.21 – After losing her son due to being imprisoned for her faith, woman secretly sentenced again
Having served three labor camp terms, a prison term and lost her son in the persecution of Falun Gong, a woman in her late 60s was recently sentenced to another prison term of 6.5 years.
15.08.21 – Having served five years, 65-year-old again faces prosecution for her faith
A 65-year-old Heishan County, Liaoning Province resident is facing prosecution for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Other religions
02.08.21 – Life Zen temple banned as a Xie Jiao and raided
The movement promotes a radical “religious Communism,” eliminating in its communes private property and the family, replaced by free love.