Religious persecution abroad

The U.S. State Department on July 22 accused China of severely limiting the religious rights of Christians and in some instances actively persecuting members of Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. The report, prepared at the request of Congress, addressed the situation faced by Christians in 78 nations in which the State Department suspected that problems might exist. Although the primary focus was on Christians, problems face by the other minority faiths -- Baha'is in Iran and Buddhists in China, for example -- also were briefly mentioned.

Although a State Department official said China had not been singled out, the report gave more attention to Beijing's policies than to any other government's. Following a 1996 government directive "to suppress unauthorized religious groups and social organizations," said the report, "Chinese authorities in some areas made strong efforts to crack down on the activities of unregistered Catholic and Protestant movements in 1996-97." China requires the official registration of religious groups, but Catholics aligned with Rome and many Protestant churches have declined to comply. They say registration means compromising religious freedom because the government places restraints on doctrinal teachings and activities.

China's unregistered churches often meet in private homes and are known as "house churches." U.S. Christian activists who have long criticized Chinese policies toward Christians say more Chinese belong to the underground congregation than to registered churches. The report stated that house churches have been raided and that leaders "were detained for lengthy investigation, and some were beaten." Local Chinese authorities, the report continued, have used threats, property demolition, interrogation, arrest and "reform-through-education sentences' to carry out Beijing's policy of suppression.

Nina Shea, a Catholic activist in Washington with the human rights group Freedom House, contended that the report could mark a turning point in the effort to galvanize support for Chinese Christians, who she said number more than 40 million. "This report is very important because it has created a peg for people to take note of the issue," she said. "This lends important credibility to what we've been saying all along." According to Shea, China persecutes unregistered Christians more for political than theological concerns. "Chinese official no longer regard religion as the opiate of the masses, but they fear religion because they cannot control it," she said. "Christianity stresses the dignity of the individual, which is something the government rejects."

Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, said the report "makes it clear that we have to take a hard look at the plight of the unregistered churches. This makes it crystal clear that they are being persecuted." Campbell's comment is noteworthy because the NCC has fostered relationships with leaders of registered church groups and has tended to favor a policy of dimplomat discretion about religious liberty in China. The NCC recently hosted a delegation from China's Religious Affairs Bureau that included Ye Xiao-Wen, the director general of the RAB. An NCC news report quoted Ye as saying July 18 in New York that "the situation of religion in China is the best it has been in 20 years." During those same comments Ye attributed questions being raised about religion in China to politicking over whether the U.S. should grant most-favored-nation trading status to China.

Speaking at a news conference July 22, John Shattuck, an assistant secretary of state, maintained that the State Department's report was not intended to single out China. Nonetheless, he said, "those who are seeking to exercise basic rights of freedom of religion in China as elsewhere should take heart" from the report's release. Several Muslim-ruled countries, Russia and other formerly communist and still-communist countries also were criticized in the 83-page report. The report took note of a proposed Russian law -- vetoed July 22 by President Boris Yeltsin -- that would have denied full legal status to all faiths other than that nation's traditional religions, Russsian Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam and Buddhism.

In Saudi Arabia, freedom of religion is nonexistent and non-Muslims face arrest for engaging in religious activities, the report stated. In Pakistan, "Muslim mobs" have destroyed Christian homes and churches, and Christians have been sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy stemming from comments judged anti-Islamic, the report added. In Sudan, which has been wracked by civil war between the Muslim north and the Christian and animist south, churches have been closed, ministers have been harassed, and "there are report that many Christians are victims of slave raids and forced conversion" to Islam.

COPYRIGHT 1997 The Christian Century Foundation
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