'Bishop of Beijing' dies while under house arrest
Monsignor Mattia Pei Shangde, 83, remained loyal to Vatican
AP (28.12.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (29.12.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Monsignor Mattia Pei Shangde, a Roman Catholic priest loyal to the pope who was imprisoned by Chinese authorities after the Vatican and Beijing severed ties, has died. He was 83.
Pei, considered by some the unofficial bishop of Beijing, died Dec. 24 of kidney failure at a hospital in the city of Zhangjiakou, in Hebei province near Beijing, according to the news service of the Vatican's missionary arm, Fides.
He had been under house arrest since April and had been under surveillance at the hospital, Fides said.
Pei was one of millions of Chinese Catholics who remained loyal to the pope after the Vatican and Beijing broke formal relations in 1951. The rupture occurred after China's new communist rulers kicked out missionaries and forced Catholics to sever ties with Rome.
China's state-sanctioned Patriotic Church doesn't recognize papal authority, including the right to name bishops.
Millions of Chinese Catholics still loyal to the pope worship in underground churches where they risk arrest. Leaders of the underground flock have sometimes been imprisoned, some for years.
Pei entered a seminary in Beijing at age 13 and was ordained in May 1948. He later taught in Catholic school in Beijing diocese. When the communists came to power he was forced to work in a drug factory, and was condemned to 10 years of re-education and forced labour, Fides said. He left prison in 1980.
Pope John Paul II in October appealed to Beijing to normalize relations. China has said it was studying the appeal but says it won't bend on demands that the Holy See sever relations with Taiwan and pledge not to interfere in China's internal affairs.
Pei's funeral will be on Jan. 2 in his hometown Zhangjiapu, in the Zhou Lu district of Hebei province. Fides said police have restricted attendance to village residents, which effectively bars any worshippers from Beijing.
There was no information on survivors, according to Fides.
Back to the Table of Contents
Changes in China's religious policy imminent?
by Paul Davenport
Compass (08.11.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (09.11.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The Chinese government may consider changes in its religious policy at a major religious affairs conference scheduled for later this month, a senior Chinese house church leader confirmed in late October.
Government officials in the Religious Affairs Bureau have reportedly approached several respected house church leaders to effect a rapprochement. These leaders have been asked to influence house church members to consider official registration and to drop what the government sees as their confrontational approach.
At least one leader, however, politely declined to cooperate, fearing that he would become a tool for government manipulation.
Several house church leaders report some easing of pressure since the summer. Possible reasons include China's joining the World Trade Organization and Beijing's obtaining the right to host the 2008 Olympic games, they said.
The Chinese government has also softened its attitude towards the Vatican after Pope John Paul II publicly apologized on October 24 for past mistakes made by Roman Catholic missionaries in China.
Although the Vatican's continued recognition of Taiwan is still a major sticking point, Beijing's conciliatory response is in marked contrast to the hostile rhetoric it employed this time last year when the pope canonized 120 Chinese Catholic martyrs on China's National Day (October 1).
With a new feeling of conciliation abroad, the results of the forthcoming government conference on religious affairs will be awaited with great interest by Christians both inside China and abroad.
It is too soon to say whether significant advances will be made towards genuine religious freedom or whether changes made will be merely tactical and cosmetic with the aim of further dividing and controlling unregistered Protestant house churches and underground Catholics.
Back to the Table of Contents
A bizarre religious sect is preying on China's rural Christian
congregations
by Matthew Forney
Time Magazine (05.11.2001 issue)/ HRWF International Secretariat (30.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Sister Hong's brainwashing session began when her Bible class ended. Five peasant women had led the Catholic nun to a house in a distant village in Henan province two years ago so that she could teach the life of Jesus.
Suddenly, the women vanished and a man entered. For the next five days he refused to let her leave and forced her to debate the Bible. He said the day of judgment is nigh. Jesus has returned. China-the Great Red Dragon from the Book of Revelations-faces destruction. By the end, "I was dizzy. I was confused. He knew the Bible so well," says Sister Hong. Her pleading, plus promises to return, finally won her release. Lightning had struck again.
A fast-spreading sect named Lightning from the East is alarming Christian communities across China by winning large numbers of converts to its unorthodox tenets, often by abducting potential believers. Its followers, who say they number 300,000 but whom observers measure in the tens of thousands, believe that Jesus has returned as a plain-looking, 30-year-old Chinese woman who lives in hiding and has never been photographed.
They credit her with composing a third testament to the Bible, writing enough hymns to fill 10 CDs and teaching that Christians who join her will ascend to heaven in the coming apocalypse. They see signs of doom everywhere, from the perfidy of Communist Party propaganda to anthrax spores in the U.S. postal system. According to one of the group's Chinese leaders who uses the alias "Peter" and moved to New York City last year, "The judgment is ongoing in China and will expand through the world."
The sect-which calls itself "the con-gregation"-operates deep underground. A two-year police campaign against it and other so-called "evil cults," such as Falun Gong, has put 2,000 of its followers in jail, say its spokesmen. Yet by targeting Christian believers it is flourishing-even though its belief that the female Jesus has updated the Bible for China violates core Christian tenets. The appeal seems to be the group's claim to have
improved the Christian faith by putting the end of the world into a Chinese context and offering believers a path to immediate salvation. Official Christian churches, by contrast, downplay the Final Judgment, emphasizing instead codes of behavior. That, plus the sect's insistence that China is "disintegrating from within," appeals to peasants, many of whom are poorly grounded in Christian principles and are angry at a government that has
failed to raise their incomes or curb corruption.
Fearful for their believers' souls and welfare, leaders of China's roughly 60 million Christians have mobilized. Last year a man claiming to be Lightning's coordinator for north China met secretly with a senior aide to a Catholic bishop in Hebei province to try to convert the Catholic leadership there. He failed, and the bishopric has warned clergies to remain vigilant against Lightning. In Henan, the main church in Dengfeng county called a meeting of 70 lay leaders for a two-day training session on Lightning's "heresies"-but since then five of the leaders have joined the sect. Lightning "is the greatest danger we face today," says a minister named Li who no longer allows strangers to worship in his church in Zhengzhou city, where the sect began a decade ago.
Lightning is the most aggressive Christian sect to emerge in China since the revolution, but it follows a beaten path. In the decades before the communists swept to power in 1949, a Chinese missionary known as Watchman Nee built his congregation, the Little Flock, to 300,000 followers in central China. The sect's emphasis on decentralized congregations launched a home-church movement that helped Christianity survive communist
repression. Yet as Little Flock congregations became isolated, they splintered into separate groups. The Shouters, for instance, rewrote the Lord's Prayer to re ad simply, "Oh, Lord Jesus," and taught followers to holler the phrase while stamping their feet in unison. Other offshoots, like the Disciples, believe that the devil exists in all people-and can be beaten out of them.
Today, the Communist Party's restrictions on religion help sects flourish. China's 18 state-sanctioned Protestant seminaries can't graduate enough ministers, and in the countryside, believers commonly outnumber ordained preachers 50,000 to one-not enough shepherds for an expanding flock. The unavailability of rural health-care means that "seven out of 10 converts come to faith through illness" after people pray for their recovery, estimates Faye Pearson, a teacher at China's biggest seminary, in Nanjing. Many of these converts have scarcely read the Bible. Without strong doctrinal leadership, it's a prescription for heterodoxy. "I'm not sure that most rural Christians are well enough grounded in Christianity to even know they're in a sect," says Daniel Bays, a historian of Chinese Christianity at Calvin College in Michigan.
A typical country church, this one outside Dengfeng county is run by a lay minister who has received no special training on dealing with strange sects. It is poor. The pulpit is a red flounce curtain draped over a desk; broken windows let the swirling central China dust coat the whitewashed walls.
The biggest single expenditure this year was the $25 the congregation gave its most desperate members to celebrate the lunar new year. Every Sunday 150 peasants crowd onto low wooden benches to receive the Word, including a gray-haired woman known as Granny He.
On a chilly night three autumns ago, a young woman in her 20s walked past the chickens scratching in Granny He's courtyard and knocked on her red wooden door. The caller had done her research: she knew Granny He was Christian and that her husband, a teacher, spent time away. They talked about God for two hours that evening, and for longer on subsequent nights.
Then the visitor arranged for a rare luxury-a car to drive Granny He to worship in someone's home. There, she and seven other believers sat facing the preacher. He said the Jesus of the Bible is the old one. The new Jesus has come, and she will destroy the earth. They sang hymns that the new savior had written to the tunes of familiar revolutionary ditties like Communist Party, My Loving Mama. Granny He returned four more times. On occasion, when the spirit moved them, they danced. "I half believed and half doubted," she says. A month later, concerned relatives forbade her to attend any more meetings. Sundays now find her back on the country church's wooden benches, but she sounds ambivalent about Lightning: "I don't think they harm people's spirit."
Granny He's experience was a textbook piece of evangelism. The sect's most trusted members receive a 67-page missionary manual explaining the dos and don'ts of conversion. Do start slowly, lend money, convince converts that God's work is incomplete and, finally, that doomsday is coming and Jesus has arrived to complete that work. Don't tell them until they are firm believers that the new Jesus will destroy the Great Red Dragon, which in the Bible represents Satan but to Lightning represents China. And if anybody asks why the "all-powerful" new Jesus must hide from police, the answer is that "there's a time for secrecy and a time for openness, but she has her plan," says Joseph Yu, a believer who arrived in New York City two years ago.
Sometimes, the plan seems unfathomable. A 60-year-old woman from Zhengzhou says Lightning devotees invited her to teach the Bible in their homes last year. They drove her to an unfamiliar village and presented her with a screaming and trembling man. They instructed her to cast out his devil. She couldn't. Then a Lightning follower prayed and sure enough the devil vanished, proving the woman's God was false, they said. Frightened, she
acknowledged that her God seemed less powerful. Still, they held her nine more days, until her minister tracked her down and sought the police. She is too afraid to be quoted by name. "The other day I dreamed that they piled onto my bed and wouldn't leave," she said in a phone interview.
Lightning from the East has burrowed further underground in China. But already its followers hand out leaflets in Chinatowns in New York City and San Francisco. Lightning could soon strike the West.
With reporting by Joe Pappalardo and Johanna Ransmeier/New York
Back to the Table of Contents
by Erik Eckholm
New York Time (12.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (12.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The Chinese government made its most explicit call yet for international support to fight Muslim separatists in its far West, saying it had evidence of their ties with terrorist groups abroad.
Bolstering its fight against a small separatist movement in the western region of Xinjiang, which is dominated by the Muslim Uighurs, has been an implicit goal of the government since the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. China quickly declared its support for a global antiterrorist campaign and has not objected to a limited American-led military campaign in Afghanistan, with which it shares a short border.
The Uighurs speak a Turkic language and have more cultural affinity with Central Asia than with the rest of China. Internal and exiled groups have called for an independent or autonomous state of "East Turkistan," the name taken by a self-declared republic that existed briefly in the 1940's. There have occasionally been shootings of Chinese officials and bombings in the region, and the local press in Xinjiang frequently reports the arrest or
execution of violent separatists.
Most Uighurs are not involved with any violent insurrection, but economic and cultural resentment of the majority Chinese is widespread. Western governments and human rights advocates charge that Chinese authorities, in their zeal to prevent any moves toward secession, have also suppressed basic legal rights, repressing even peaceful expressions of Uighur nationalism.
Rights monitors abroad have expressed concern that China will exploit the new international antiterror campaign to fend off criticism of its poor human rights record.
At a regularly scheduled press briefing today, Sun Yuxi, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that the Uighur separatists were clearly in the terrorist camp.
"We have conclusive evidence that the East Turkistan elements have participated in terrorist activities," he said.
"It's openly stated in their guidelines that they will engage in violence against China," he said. "We also have evidence that they have colluded with international terrorist groups."
Mr. Sun said that Uighur separatists have engaged in "bombings, assassinations, poisoning, abductions and robbery," threatening the stability not only of China but also of the surrounding region.
"We hope that our fight against the East Turkistan forces will become a part of the international effort against terrorism, and it should also win support and understanding," he said.
Western experts say that small numbers of Chinese Uighurs have trained or fought with the Taliban in Afghanistan and that arms have sometimes been smuggled from Central Asia into Xinjiang. However, there is no evidence that the Taliban or Osama bin Laden have seriously targeted China for subversion.
Islamic fundamentalism is rare in Xinjiang and experts say the low- level conflict there has been driven more by the Uighurs' ethnic and cultural differences than by religion.
Mr. Sun said that because of their record of violent tactics, Xinjiang separatists are "terrorists" and not "freedom fighters." He said that the international community "should not have a double standard" when it comes to fighting terrorism.
In response to Mr. Sun's statement, Amnesty International expressed concern that repression of Muslim groups would increase in Xinjiang, citing reports of a new campaign to suppress terrorist and separatist activities in the region.
Back to the Table of Contents
Future dramatic changes in China's religious policy may be misleading
by Alex Buchan
Compass (09.10.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (10.10.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Dramatic developments are expected in China's religious policy in October and November that will appear to offer an olive branch to underground Catholics and house church Protestants. But two Shanghai-based house church leaders warn, "This olive branch -- though significant -- could have many thorns, and may be painful to grasp."
According to well-placed sources, China's leaders are planning two major propaganda offensives concerning religion this fall. News of the first has already leaked out -- an October 14 conference of Catholic scholars in Beijing to mark the 400th anniversary of Matteo Ricci's mission to China with a reciprocal celebration in Rome. Greetings from the pope will include an apology for Catholic wrongdoing in China, presumably in exchange for Beijing's recognition of a role for the Vatican in overseeing the Catholic Church in China. This would have the potential to unite the 10-million underground Catholics with the five-million-member government-run Catholic Patriotic Association (CPA), which has not been permitted to maintain relations with the Vatican. Eventually, the Vatican is expected to sever links with Taiwan.
Protestants are not to be left out, however. In mid November at a high level religious affairs work conference, Premier Zhu Rongji will introduce new national regulations governing all religious activity in China, which will include for the first time a formal "embrace" (tuanjie) of non-TSPM Protestants.
Normally the government brands any group as "illegal" that refuses to join the official Protestant church, the 13.3-million-member Three Self Patriotic Movement, consigning the 30-70 million Protestantsin autonomous churches to the status of an underground church.
But this may be about to change. Though few have seen the secret draft regulations yet, one source said, "Though quite restrictive, the redeeming quality is that the non-TSPM stream of Protestants will gain some legitimacy, and will be given encouragement to register independently of the TSPM."
Sources have made clear that Bishop Ding Guangxun's controversial war against Evangelicals within the TSPM has already been called off. Said one source, "Orders have come from the highest level to discontinue the 'theological construction campaign.'" The dean of Nanjing Theological Seminary, Ambrose Wang, has already been told to retire Ding's writings from the curriculum.
The two-year campaign to make Chinese theology more socialist brought great resistance from the mainly evangelical pastors within the TSPM, disdain from Chinese religion scholars and great disgust overseas at the coercive methods used. But another source said, "The campaign is over, but it will be allowed to just wither away. Ding's books will be pulled from Three Self bookshelves, but no announcement will be made that it was a mistake."
"Take time to evaluate these changes," warned a Shanghai house church pastor, "because if the government genuinely wants to offer the house churches the hand of friendship, why have they not been in touch with us to see what we want?"
He added, "I know of no house church leader consulted by the government about these changes." Some house church leaders fear that the inducement to register may be a means of isolating diehard house church communities, which would then be singled out for "Falun Gong style persecution."
The religious affairs work conference in November will be attended by all members of the Politburo, and its purpose is to unveil and explain the new national regulations to govern all religious activities in China. These regulations will complement earlier detailed regulations governing foreign religious activities in China. They are also to be distinguished from 1994 national regulations and subsequent local regulations, which focused purely on venues, i.e. congregations and their organization.
Critical to the draft regulations will be the arrangements for registering independently of the TSPM. Reacting to this development, Dr. Carol Lee Hamrin, China scholar and former analyst at the U.S. State Department, said, "Until we actually see the wording of the regulation, it is hard to know quite what to say. On the one hand, if the house churches are to be given a welcome at the government's table on their own terms, this is positive; on the other, if the terms of registration require house churches not to conduct evangelism outside specified areas, then many house churches, whose very identity is evangelism, simply will not register, and they could be more vulnerable as a result."
Dr. Hamrin added, "This possibility underscores the importance of the response by the various religious bodies in China, both recognized and autonomous. Society is no longer just a passive recipient of government policy. For example, what if the house churches decided to register en masse? They would instantly become the vast majority of Protestants. And what if the TSPM churches encouraged local officials to register other groups and refused to be involved either with guarantees or vetoes?"
The fear expressed among some China watchers is that the changes are just another phase of the "nei jin-wai cong tactic" -- internally tight and externally relaxed. Could it be that China is wishing to embrace the house churches, offering them the chance to register in order to exert more control over them now that they have been lured to the surface? Or worse, to pretend to offer such generous terms of registration so that house churches who refused to register could then be safely branded as criminal cults, and dealt with in the same draconian fashion as the government just dealt with Falun Gong members?
Regardless, these changes in process have at least three roots.
One comes from the government's shock in 1994 when far more house churches than expected responded to a registration drive. The Religious Affairs Bureau (RAB) responded negatively to the interest, repressing many that sought legitimacy and putting others on an indefinite wait-list.
Second, the government is genuinely confused about the staggering church growth, particularly on the Protestant side. Said one source, "Senior-level Party officials are appalled that there may be millions of underground Christians running around the countryside that they have absolutely no influence over, and they foresee another Taiping Rebellion if they do not get more control fast."
A third source, according to Dr. Hamrin, is that recent hard-line religious policies linked with RAB director Ye Xiaowen have badly backfired. Last year's ordination ceremony of CPA Catholic bishops was boycotted by many other bishops loyal to the pope, and froze once again the Beijing-Vatican reapproachment. Ding's heavy-handed campaign within the TSPM has alienated younger Chinese church leaders and important foreign evangelical contacts.
Few house church leaders are aware of any changes in the immediate future, but three of them interviewed gave a guarded response. One house church leader from southern Henan province was skeptical of the possibility of registering independently from the TSPM.
"Some government leaders have claimed for a while that this is possible, but the fact is that the system requires us to obtain permission from a TSPM pastor first with which to approach the Religious Affairs Bureau -- this would require a major shift to change," he said.
Another house church leader from Shanghai fretted over the conditions for registration. He said, "The trend in China is for more control, not less, and I think if we were asked to register, there would be lots of regulations we could not subscribe to, for example, committing ourselves not to evangelize outside a 'fixed' area."
The third house church leader was cautiously positive: "It may be that the government realizes they cannot criminalize millions of house church Christians any more, and there would definitely be an enormous appetite for registration if the conditions were right and the restrictions not too burdensome."
Changes in regulations, however, are meaningless without a context of implementation. It will be months before it can be judged exactly how the changes are being applied, or even if they are applied at all. Time -- not headlines and fanfare -- must be allowed to decide whether these changes will be genuinely good for the church in China.
Back to the Table of Contents
Five female Falungong followers tortured to death in China: report
AFP (01.09.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (03.09.2001) C Website: www.hrwf.net/ Email: info@hrwf.net -- Five Chinese women, all detained for following the outlawed Falungong spiritual movement, have died in custody following torture by police, the group's New York-based headquarters said Saturday.
The women, who died in detention centers or police stations in five different provinces around China, were arrested simply for possessing or posting fliers about the government's persecution of Falungong members, the Falun Dafa Information Center said in a press release.
The center cited witness accounts saying the women were severely beaten before they died.
The deaths follow the lead of government directives issued in May to punish more severely anyone caught disseminating information on Falungong or the government's suppression of the group, the center said.
Police and detention center officials contacted by AFP either said they could not comment or did not know the person or incident reported.
One woman from the southern province of Fujian died after only three days in police custody, and witnesses reported her body had received a gaping wound in the waist, the size of a fist, the center said.
Police officials hurriedly cremated her body and prevented acquaintances from viewing the corpse. Her family was pressured not to disclose her death, it added.
Another woman's corpse was covered with wounds but authorities tried to dismiss her death as a suicide, the center said. She was imprisoned after police raided her home and found books about the semi-Buddhist sect.
Police also tried to explain the death of a woman from the northern province of Jilin as suicide, alleging she jumped off a building, the center said. However a witness reported seeing what appeared to be a woman's corpse being thrown off a building.
A woman from northern Heilongjiang province died after two months of abuse at a detention center, where she was beaten unconscious several times but denied medical attention, the center also said.
And another woman from the northern province of Gansu appeared to have died from injuries sustained while being force fed, the center added. She had been on hunger strike and was beaten severely during her detention, it said.
Four of the five women died in August while the other died in July.
The deaths bring the total number of known cases of Falungong members who died in police custody to 272, the center said.
The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, which has been independently verifying the reports, has been able to confirm 156 deaths so far.
Tens of thousands of Falunlong practitioners have been sent to "re-education through labor" centres since the Chinese government banned the group as an "evil cult" in July 1999, while hundreds of practitioners have been given prison sentences.
Beijing considers Falungong a threat to social stability and a challenge to its authority.
Back to the Table of Contents
Refugees from North Korea hunted by the police
in churches
International Herald Tribune (26.07.2001)/ HRWF International Secreatriat (27.07.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - On 26 July 2001, the International Herald Tribune published an article entitled "Fleeing North Koreans Find No Refuge in China". The journalist, Don Kirk, told about the case of a former North Korean soldier who had risen to the rank of sergeant first class in 10 years before fleeing North Korea after his parents died "of fatigue":
"I studied the Bible with pastors in Yanji," he said. "Then I went back home and talked about the Bible with my friends and escaped again. If the police capture me, it will be automatic execution."
In a town by the Russian border southeast of Tumen, a church worker said, "I was taking care of 20 refugees. Now I have only two. They captured all the rest and sent them back."
The penalties that await refugees when they return to North Korea vary widely.
"If they say they just came looking for food, nothing much will happen to them," he said. "If they mention the church, they go to prison. And if they were captured while trying to leave China and go to South Korea, they are killed."
The Chinese authorities, church workers say, often coordinate with the North Korean security police, who have planted spies in churches and refugee shelters in the nearby hills. The North Korean police have on occasion grabbed refugees and taken them back to North Korea - or killed them in China.
A dozen North Korean security policemen invaded the Yanji Christian Church last year as refugees were proclaiming their belief in God. In the fists-winging brawl that ensued, several refugees were seized and hustled out of the church, never to be seen again.
"The Chinese police don't care," said a church worker. The North Korean and Chinese police "were working together."
In the church office, officials said they send refugees away who come asking for help and refused to talk about them. "North Koreans are often making trouble ," a church administrator said. "We have to tell the authorities we give food to the poor and don't ask where they come from."
In a village on the Tumen River, west of Tumen, Kim Young Gul, pastor of a new church built with donations from Korean churches in Canada, said he no longer asked North Korean refugees to attend services at his church.
"Last March, we had a service with refugees, and they got arrested right afterward," he said. "They were sent to North Korea, and the church people had to pay a fine. Every evening, the police come around and isnspect the church to see if they're sleeping here."
Mr. Kim leads refugees instead up a mud track to a shelter beyond a row of hills several miles away. With the local police bribed not to bother them in their shelter, North Korean spies are the biggest problem.
"There have been cases of North Korean spies coming here to kill local people," he said. "They camouflage themselves as refugees. We think that's one reason the Chinese government is saying, 'let's get these North Koreans out of here.'" (IHT 26 July 2001
Falun Gong member said to burn self
Associated Press (24.07.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (25.07.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrxf.net - A 19-year-old follower of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement set himself on fire on a city square in southern China and died
the next day, state media reported.
Luo Guili died of severe burns on July 2 in Nanning, the capital of southern China's Guangxi region, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday. It didn't report why authorities waited three weeks to announce his death.
China says at least four Falun Gong practitioners have killed themselves by self-immolation since the government outlawed the group two years ago. It says others have killed themselves by hanging themselves.
Falun Gong representatives question the government's claims, saying the group's teachings forbid suicide.
Xinhua said Luo started practicing Falun Gong in 1996 as a student at Guangxi's Light Industry School.
After meditating for a while on the square in Nanning on July 1, Luo pulled two plastic bottles of alcohol from a bag, doused himself and ignited it before guards and police could stop him, Xinhua said.
Falun Gong attracted millions of followers in the 1990s with a blend of slow-motion exercises and ideas drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and the group's exiled leader, Li Hongzhi.
Thousands of followers are in jails and labor camps and tens of thousands have been arrested and pressured to renounce the group in the government crackdown. Falun Gong says many followers have been tortured and that 250 have been killed.
The government banned Falun Gong as a threat to Communist Party rule and Chinese society.
On Monday, Chinese President Jiang Zemin arrived in Malta, where several Falun Gong members unfurled a banner near a war memorial he was visiting that said: ''Stop killing Falun Gong practitioners in China.''
China arrests 16 priests of the underground church
Zenit (19.07.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (24.07.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Police in the region of Jiangxi in southeast China arrested 16 priests of the underground Catholic Church loyal to the Pope.
In the middle of the night July 10 the police took Father Liao Haiqing of Yujiang Diocese from his home and then interrupted a study-meeting of 15 other priests of the same district, arresting those present, the Fides news agency reported.
The Italian news agency ANSA says tension in the area is high. There is increased government pressure on members of the underground Church to join the government- ontrolled Catholic "patriotic" church.
Father Liao Haiqing, 71, has already spent 17 years in prison in the 1950s and between 1980 and 1990. The outlawed Yujiang Diocese has about 50,000 Catholics, led by Bishop Thomas Zeng Jingmu, who has spent more than 30 years in prison.
China to admit first missionaries since revolution
by Elizabeth Sullivan
Religion News Service (14.07.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (18.07.2001) - Webite: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - China is letting two foreign missionaries enter the country to work for the first time since the 1949 communist revolution, Chinese officials have announced. Religious leaders in China handpicked the Rev. Carolyn Higginbotham, a Protestant theologian who grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and Antoinette Wire of San Francisco, a Presbyterian educator, for what amounts to a yearlong experiment in religious ministry.
They will be teaching at a theological seminary in Nanjing starting Aug. 1. Other U.S. Christians, assigned through Church World Service, the relief and development arm of the National Council of Churches, and the Amity Foundation, a Chinese Christian organization, have been working in China as teachers at a number of Chinese teachers colleges.
The two new appointments in religious ministry, however, aren't being called "missionaries."
"It's an unfortunate association" with Western interference, said Wenzao Han,78, who leads China's officially sanctioned Protestant church and was himself converted in 1940 by a Presbyterian missionary.
"Now we call them "partners.' If the partners can behave well, like a good partner, then I think the image can be changed," Han said.
The announcement was made in Cleveland at the national United Church of Christ headquarters by Han and Xiaofei Qi, vice deputy of the state ministry that regulates religion in China.
Dale Bishop, who heads "wider church ministries" for the UCC, said the church was "very pleased" to get the invitation to enter China.
Religion is strictly regulated in China. Churches must register or risk being disbanded.
Religious proselytizing by foreigners is outlawed. The requests for the two theologians' Chinese visas had to go through Qi's office.
There also appeared to be political overtones to the timing of the announcement. It came on the eve of critical votes on whether China would get the 2008 Olympics and keep most-favored-nation trading status with the United States.
Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, a critic of China's human rights record, dismissed the move as "a very isolated concession to religious freedom" and "a cynical lobbying effort to get the 2008 Olympics."
Congress must soon decide whether to try to overturn President Bush's decision extending preferential trading rules with China while it continues to negotiate its entry into the World Trade Organization.
But Higginbotham, 43, an expert on Hebraic and Old Testament studies who teaches at Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio, says she is focused on the need for religious training in a nation where the recent growth of worship has vastly outpaced the ability of organized religion to keep up.
There are more than 15 million Christians in China today, according to the United Church of Christ.
Back to the Table of Contents
China sends 12 Christians to labour camps
Reuters (20.06.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (21.06.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Chinese police have thrown 12 Christians in Inner Mongolia into labour camps for up to three years for engaging in "illegal religious activities," a Hong Kong-based rights group said on Wednesday.
They were among 35 people rounded up during a church service on May 26, although 23 were released soon after paying fines of 200 yuan each, the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said.
The centre named Wang Yulan as one of the 12 who were sent to prison on Tuesday, and quoted a Chinese police officer, as confirming Wang would be incarcerated for three years.
Wang's husband was thrown into jail for three years in 2000 for the same offence.
Christianity flourished in China in the late 1970s and there are now at least 55 million Christians in the country.
China's constitution enshrines religious freedom but worship is confined to state-controlled churches. The U.S. State Department's annual human rights report this year condemned Beijing's crackdown on underground Christians.
Back to the Table of Contents
Most in Hong Kong sees no need for anti-cult law- survey
Reuters(06.06.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (08.06.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net Email: info@hrwf.net - A majority of Hong Kong citizens see no need to legislate against cults, as the territory's administration has suggested it might, an opinion poll conducted by an opposition party showed on Wednesday.
The Democratic Party survey also found 56 percent of respondents feared that such laws, which could be used against the Falun Gong spiritual movement, would curtail freedoms.
The poll of 620 people was taken after Hong Kong Chief Secretary Donald Tsang said the government would consider all options including legislation, when dealing with cults, and would also study the approaches taken by mainland China and France.
In the survey, taken between May 30 and June 2, 57 percent of respondents thought Hong Kong did not need anti-cult legislation.
The French National Assembly recently adopted a controversial bill that will allow courts to ban groups regarded as sects.
Falun Gong is banned in mainland China as an "evil cult" but is presently legal in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong, a former British colony which returned to Chinese rule in 1997, had taken a relaxed stance towards the Falun Gong, until the group held a high profile conference condemning Chinese President Jiang Zemin in January.
That prompted Beijing to issue stern warnings that any attempts to turn Hong Kong into a centre for Falun Gong, or an anti-China base, would not be tolerated.
Back to the Table of Contents
Thirty-five Christians arrested in China
Zenit (30.05.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (05.06.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net At least 35 people were arrested recently in Inner Mongolia for holding a clandestine Christian meeting, considered an "illegal religious activity."
The 35 were arrested Saturday during a Protestant celebration in a home in Dongsheng city. The arrested were questioned throughout the night, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
Twenty of the 35 were released the next day after paying a $24 fine, the center said. The remaining 15, including the meeting's organizers, might be sent to re-education work camps, said Frank Lu, director of the center.
Lu said there are 40 million Protestants and 15 million Catholics in China. Half the Catholics practice their faith illegally, that is, not in accordance with the state-controlled Chinese Patriotic Association.
Meanwhile, in a letter to China's ambassador to the United States released Friday, Cardinal Bernard Law registered a formal protest of the reported arrest of "a significant number" of Catholics in China.
"By all accounts, there seems to have been a marked increase in the number and severity of actions taken by the State against many of our fellow Catholics in China, as well as against other religious believers there," said Cardinal Law, the archbishop of Boston and chairman of the U.S. bishops' International Policy Committee. "This is a very disturbing development." Two bishops and several priests are among those reported arrested recently, according to Cardinal Law.
Back to the Table of Contents
Hong Kong group says Christians detained in Inner Mongolia
Reuters (30.05.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (30.05.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Chinese police recently detained 35 Christians in Inner Mongolia for "illegal religious activity" and may send 15 to labour camps, a Hong Kong-based human rights group said on Wednesday.
Twenty of the Christians detained on Saturday in Dongsheng city were released after they paid a fine of 200 yuan (US$24.15) each, the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said in a statement.
The remainder likely will be sent to labour camps, the centre said.
They include Li Haihe, Xu Fan, and Wang Yulan, whose husband was sentenced last year to three years' of labour reform for the same offence.
"When we called the city's Security Bureau, an officer in charge told us Wang Yulan would be sentenced to labour re-education because the offence she had committed was more serious than that of others," the centre said in a statement.
Christianity and Catholicism first began to blossom in China in the late 1970s and the number of followers has been growing steadily, the statement said.
The Hong Kong-based rights group estimated there were now over 40 million Christians and 15 million Catholics in China.
China's constitution enshrines freedom of religion but worship is confined to state-controlled churches.
The U.S. State Department's annual human rights report this year condemned Beijing's crackdown on underground Christians.
Back to the Table of Contents
Falun Gong claims China's president cracked down on sect to solidify power
by Edith M. Lederer
WRNS (25.04.2001) HRWF International Secretariat (26.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Falun Gong claimed Tuesday that China's President Jiang Zemin cracked down on the spiritual movement to solidify his power base against "real or imagined enemies" in his own government and outside the country.
The group claimed it had new information, verified recently by a Communist Party source, about the government crackdown that followed an April 25, 1999, protest by 10,000 Falun Gong supporters. China's communist government banned Falun Gong three months after the Beijing demonstration.
Falun Gong said Jiang, in communications at that time, indicated that he believed neither the group nor its founder, Li Hongzhi, could have amassed such a large power base.
"He voiced suspicions that the practitioners assembled outside the State Council Appeals Office had been orchestrated by rival senior officials within the Chinese government itself or by foreign forces," Falun Gong said in a statement read by spokesman Scott Chinn in New York.
The statement claimed that Jiang, attempted to "solidify his power base" by cracking down on the Falun Gong.
"Consequently, what the world has been witnessing over the past 20 months is a wide section of the Chinese people being used as pawns in a desperate political struggle carried out by Chinese President Jiang Zemin against real or imagined enemies," it said.
A spokesperson at China's U.N. Mission called Falun Gong "a heretical cult" and said its founder, Li, has now "politicized" the movement and is spending most of his time seeking "confrontation with the Chinese government." The spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, said China banned Falun Gong "to safeguard and promote human rights in China" and prevent the movement "from creating social disorder."
Shiyu Zhou, a University of Pennsylvania computer science professor and Falun Gong follower who put together a report on the April 25 incident, said Jiang's statements about the crackdown have circulated in China for months but that the movement only recently was able to verify them through a Communist Party source. He did not produce the documents or further identify the source.
According to the report, Jiang wrote a letter to members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo and other top leaders on the evening of April 25 accusing masterminds working "behind the scenes" at the Falun Gong protest of "planning and issuing commands." The report gave the letter's number and official title.
Zhou was asked whether there was evidence of a disagreement over Falun Gong in the current Chinese government.
He said Falun Gong had no direct information but China scholars have told the movement that their own sources indicated "certain disagreement regarding this issue inside the Communist Party."
The report quoted high-ranking Communist Party officials as saying the two classified documents from April and June 1999 "revealed Jiang's mentality of being overly protective of his personal power and interests, and how, without any concrete evidence, he made the erroneous policy decision to persecute Falun Gong."
China's government considers Falun Gong a cult that threatens public order and communist rule and has led more than 1,600 followers to their deaths, mostly by encouraging them to eschew modern medical treatment.
Practitioners say its exercises and philosophies promoting good health and moral living are drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and Li, the group's U.S.-based founder. It denies causing any deaths, and claims that 191 followers have been tortured to death in police custody.
Back to the Table of Contents
Falun Gong marks anniversary of landmark protest
Nearly 200 Hong Kong Falun Gong followers practiced
without incident
WRNS (25.04.2001) HRWF International Secretariat (26.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - HONG KONG, China -- At least 31 people have been detained by Chinese police after scattered protests in Tiananmen Square timed to coincide with the second anniversary of a mass sit-in by the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement.
The 1999 protest by some 10,000 Falun Gong followers outside Beijing's Zhong Nanhai compound, where China's top leaders live and work, sent shockwaves through Beijing's corridors of power.
As the largest demonstration since the 1989 pro-democracy movement in the Tiananmen Square, the rally prompted the government to ban the movement later in the year, declaring it an "evil cult" that "endangers Chinese society and people".
As well as small scale protests in Beijing, rallies are also taking place in New York City and Hong Kong, where the group remains legal despite the territory being part of China.
In New York Falun Gong leaders marked the anniversary of the protests by unveiling evidence they say shows that Chinese president Jiang Zemin used the crackdown on the group to solidify his power base.
Political struggle
There was a small police presence for the peaceful Hong Kong demonstration Speaking to reporters at a caf in the city, Falun Gong leader accused the Chinese leader of using peaceful followers of the group as "pawns in a desperate political struggle against real or imagined enemies".
Since the group was banned, hundreds of Falun Gong members have been arrested and human rights groups say many of those have been killed whilst in detention.
In Hong Kong, Falun Gong members have obtained a police permit to hold a demonstration in the city's central business district.
Around 185 followers practiced in the garden next to Hong Kong's legislative council building. Organizers say more than 190 people have been killed by Chinese authorities since the sect was banned in China.
Although Falun Gong is a legally-registered organization in Hong Kong, the territory's government has followed Beijing's line labeling the movement as "a cult".
Earlier this year the territory's security chief warned Falun Gong practitioners that the government would not allow it to use religion as an excuse to exploit Hong Kong's freedoms, and undermine order and stability.
Can the Falun Gong outlast crackdown?
by Lisa Rose Weaver
WRNS (25.04.2001) HRWF International Secretariat (26.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Two years into Chinas crackdown on the spiritual Falun Gong sect, the effect on the groups membership is difficult to assess.
Numbers appear to have been reduced and crackdown survivors have become more ragged, at least in Beijing.
The sect's multi-million following may have been reduced by the turn-off publicity surrounding grisly self-immolations. The sect loomed large before the Chinese leadership when more than 10,000 people protested in silence outside Chinas Communist Party headquarters two years ago.
They were asking for formal recognition of the Falun Gong, a sect that blends Bhuddism and Qigong into a system of reverence for a leader in exile. In July,1999, China banned the sect, which set the stage for repressive police tactics against demonstrators and a nationwide crackdown against adherents who continued to practice in public, disseminated Falungong books and videos, or refuse to recant their belief.
Before the Falun Gong was banned in July of 1999, it claimed 70 to 100 million members nationwide C a figure derived from an official sporting association, overlooking the sect's adherence to spiritual Qi Gong.
Practising in secret
Two years after the ban, a spokesman for the Falun Gongs exiled movement based in New York says that so many adherents are practising in secret, an accurate count is hard.
Indeed the intensified search for Falun Gong practitioners slipping into the capital appears to have reduced the ranks of the most hard-core members committed to unfurling banners and shouting slogans on Tiananmen Square.
The increasingly ragged appearance of some members attests to the marginalization from society of those who continue to practice in public.
Beijing is now home to an unknown number of practitioners unwilling to return home, having lost their jobs and ties with society.
Two years on the movement, publicly at least, appears to be loosing steam.
But judging from the officially confirmed numbers of people in detention or labor reform camp as well as the Falun Gong and human rights organizations far higher claims, it appears the government has got much further to go before it can hope to put the sect firmly under its control.
Despite detentions and some deaths of Falon Gong followers at the hands of police, the more hardcore members continue a cycle of confrontation with Chinese police in Tiananmen Square.
Changing the minds
Police win the obvious battle, rounding up practitioners to take them away in vans.
But its much less clear if the campaign against the Falun Gong is changing the minds of its more extreme members.
Chinese observers sympathetic to the governments way of handling the sect say public opinion has swung against the sect and against its leader in exile, Li Hongzhi, largely due to horrifying images of sect members immolating themselves on Tiananmen Square in January of this year.
Following the self-immolations, many ardent Falun Gong followers viewpoints changed a great deal. Its as if Li Hong Zhi went up a mountain, and then fell down, says Professor He Zuoxiu, a physicist and expert on the Falun Gong sect.
There were no hard figures of how many practitioners had decided to leave the Falun Gong, but he added that he spoke to several members who had decided to drop the sect.
Since the immolations, Chinas state-run media has broadened its focus to include accounts of Falun Gong followers who, after labor reform, say they changed their views.
After the immolations, they realized and also saw on the Internet that Li Hongzhi was denying that these people who had set themselves on fire were Falun Gong practioners, and that instead it was the Communist Party which had done it. Everyone was very angry. They could not accept this denial, He added.
Cameraman Fan Wen-Chun and I witnessed the self-immolations and were detained by police.
Grisly incident
Speaking to average citizens later that evening, some of whom had heard about the burnings, it was clear that some were genuinely disturbed by the grisly incident.
People differed then in their views on whether the sect threatens social stability, and to what extent the crackdown was justified.
Not all the public shares the governments sense of urgency, a gap some observers think will grow as the Chinese propaganda machine continues to drone on.
I think ordinary Chinese will tire of this. They will ask, what are you fighting for?, asks Dai Qing, an outspoken journalist and commentator.
The real concerns of most Chinese lie closer to their own lives, says Dai.
Ordinary Chinese feel unsafe living in society. Ive had five bicycles stolen, Ive been robbed, my house has been broken into, for example.
"There is so much real crime, while a lot of police resources are instead diverted toward cracking down on the Falun Gong. So people are really tired of this whole thing.
The underlying causes of Falun Gongs popularity include economic marginalization and a spiritual void C both byproducts of Chinas hectic pace of modernization and the loosening of the state-run iron rice bowl of social security.
Rustbelt of factories
Falun Gong began gaining popularity in the mid-1990s in Chinas north C a rustbelt of defunct factories and laid off workers.
One material appeal the group offered was self healing without medicine C significant at a time when the price of medical care was rising just as peoples salaries were falling.
The government claims that Falun Gongs appeal for practitioners to rely on the curative powers of Qi Gong is deadly.
According to official tallies, more than 1,600 practitioners have died by self-mutilation, medical neglect or suicide.
More recently, Beijing added human rights to its arsenal of anti Falun Gong rhetoric. Chinas Anti-Cult Association sent a delegation to Geneva last month take advantage of the international spotlight at the UN Conference there.
Activists showed a banner they said bore the names of more than a million Chinese who had signed onto the idea that the Falungong suppresses the human rights of practitioners.
In China, the Falun Gong made its followers set themselves on fire. Furthermore, they are against the government and have done many things against Chinese law.
"Then in order to gain sympathy from the international community, they made themselves look pitiful and they lied, telling people that their human rights are being suppressed in China, say Si Manan, an anti-cult activist to travelled to Geneva.
But beyond its argument that the Falun Gong is dangerous to the rights of others, theres another reason the authorities are trying so hard to control the sect.
We all know that the government is afraid of any organized opposition. The government of course does not like protests in front of its compounds, or people self-immolating themselves on Tiananmen Square.
"But the government has many other ways of dealing with this, and still they choose to crack down and imprison people. It just doesnt work, says Dai Qin, an outspoken journalists and commentator.
China tightens security on Tiananmen before Falungong anniversary
AFP (24.04.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (25.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Police tightened security on Tiananmen Square in Beijing Tuesday to prevent protests by the outlawed Falungong spiritual group on the eve of a key anniversary.
Plainclothes police and uniformed soldiers were out in force on the square in the city centre scanning for potential protests ahead of Wednesday's anniversary.
Police were seen ordering one woman into a police van after questioning her and two others were also seen being detained. Groups of peasant-like women -- who fit the typical image of Falungong protestors -- were stopped and asked to show their identification.
Soldiers also patrolled the streets near the square, which has been the scene of numerous large demonstrations by Falungong members since the group was banned as an "evil cult" in July 1999.
A fire engine was also stationed on the edge of the square after four people China says were Falungong practitioners set themselves on fire on the main esplanade in January.
Two years ago on April 25, 10,000 Falungong practitioners surrounded the Chinese leadership's Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing to protest against the arrests of some members.
The event stunned the government, which banned the group three months later. The government now considers Falungong the biggest threat to social stability since the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations and has carried out a relentless two-year crackdown to crush the group.
It is common for Falungong followers to turn up en masse in the square on key anniversaries, with police detaining more than 1,000 protestors on New year's Day.
However, fewer Falungong members have protested on Tiananmen Square since the self-immolations, which left two people dead.
Frank Lu, director of the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, said the self-immolations, which were repeatedly shown on state television, had frightened some practitioners.
"In the past, an average of 100 people were arrested each day at the square or elsewhere in Beijing . Now fewer people go out to the square," he said.
A harsher police crackdown has also contributed, he said.
Lu said the government has now ordered anyone who protests on the square to be sent to a labor camp.
Kan Hung-cheung, a Hong Kong-based spokesman for the group, said many Falungong members were now using different tactics to protest dissatisfaction with the ban. Practitioners are stuffing leaflets into mailboxes at housing compounds and putting up posters at night to get their message across, he said.
"Our goal is to let as many people as possible know the truth about Falungong, not to have so many people arrested," Kan said.
Since the ban, 10,000 Falungong members have been sent to re-education through labor camps, 600 to prison terms of up to 18 years and many more remain in temporary detention, Lu said.
Falun Gong issues a new challenge
Spiritual group documents abuse of rights in China
by Charles A. Radin
WRNS (23.04.2001) HRWF International Secretariat (24.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - The Falun Gong movement, which grew up as an avowedly nonpolitical spiritual organization, has launched a pointed, sophisticated effort to document human rights abuses and to challenge Chinese government propaganda targeting the movement.
The face that adherents turn to the public remains serenely focused on healthful exercise and ''truthfulness, benevolence, and forbearance'' advocated by founder Li Hongzhi, all of which are on display regularly in practitioners' silent meditation and exercise sessions around the world.
But in reaction to China's harsh campaign of repression, which the movement says has led to nearly 200 practitioners' deaths and tens of thousands of arrests, public demonstrations of technique, such as one held Tuesday in Harvard Square, now are accompanied by color pictures of wounds inflicted by Chinese police, testimony of victims, and petitions calling on ''all kind-hearted people and governments to help stop this persecution.''
Last week, the organization also released an analysis of a film produced by the Chinese Central Television, which appeared to poke gaping holes in government reports that Falun Gong was behind a group suicide in central Beijing in January.
Even as the United Nations Human Rights Commission declined for the eighth time Wednesday to criticize China, Falun Gong members and China scholars were showing their potential to revive international interest in abuses of human rights in China.
Adherents are typical of human rights campaigners who have put China on the spot over abuses of Tibetans and repression of pro-democracy students in recent decades: Teachers, scientists, students, artists. Young, middle-aged, elderly. Intense and committed.
China's leaders are so alarmed by the Falun Gong movement that they have vowed to wipe out the organization, which by some estimates has more than 100 million adherents on the mainland. In addition to the deaths, thousands have been sent to forced labor camps and hundreds more forced into psychiatric facilities, according to the US State Department and international human rights organizations.
The movement's central aim is ''cultivating mind and nature to increase moral standards,'' says Falun Gong activist Tianlun Jian, an economist who holds a doctorate and who works as a financial analyst in Boston. ''Truthfulness, benevolence, and forbearance are most important. Secondly is exercise, because by exercise you can feel peaceful.''
There is no mystery, scholars and political analysts say, about why the Chinese leadership has singled out Falun Gong from among the many movements in China that claim they can produce health benefits from new syntheses of Buddhism, Taoism, and ancient martial arts exercises.
Falun Gong is growing very rapidly, and its membership within China may now surpass that of the Communist Party. It is well organized. Its members are willing to stand up for it in the face of beatings and imprisonment. It is filling a spiritual void that the government has been unable to address.
Perhaps most worrisome to the geriatric communists who have dominated China for the past 20 years, Falun Gong bears striking similarities to movements that have arisen often in Chinese history when a tired, deteriorating regime nears its end.
After the failure of the Cultural Revolution, the radical movement of 1966-76 during which the founders of Chinese communism tried but failed to preserve their Maoist ideology, China lurched toward the more materialistic world view of senior leader Deng Xiaoping, a view captured in the Dengist slogan ''To get rich is glorious.''
Hardly were the old communal values laid to rest than deep social and economic fissures opened in society between those who coped readily with the new order and those who could not - or were revolted by the widespread corruption that accompanied it.
''China experienced spiritual directionlessness,'' said Chai-sik Cheng, professor of the sociology of religion at Boston University. ''Something was needed to fill in the emptiness.''
Interest burgeoned in new varieties of qi gong, a strain of spiritual theory dating back thousands of years, and in tai chi chuan, a meditation-in-motion therapeutic exercise with roots in martial arts.
In 1992, Falun Gong emerged, under the leadership of Li Hongzhi, described variously as former security guard and former clerk at a factory in northeast China. The new practice offered a more elaborate theory and philosophy than tai chi and was less fantastic and more rationalistic than qi gong.
Falun Gong was initially praised by Chinese officials, but officialdom soured as the organization grew and showed its broad appeal at demonstrations in major cities. Li moved to New York in 1998, then went underground - moves that a source within the movement said reflected a fear of assassination.
On April 25, 1999, 10,000 Falun Gong followers sat in at the entrance to the Chinese leadership's residential complex in Beijing to protest the treatment of their organization, shocking communist officials who had not believed such a demonstration could be staged on their doorstep without their foreknowledge.
The organization was outlawed July 22, 1999, and the campaign against it intensified, with the government asserting - but offering no proof - that 1,400 people had died as a result of a Falun Gong opposition to modern medical science.
Despite the drum beat of negative propaganda from Beijing, Falun Gong fits none of the broadly accepted criteria used to differentiate cults from other religions and spiritual practices. Members are not asked to give up money or possessions or to separate themselves from nonpractitioners. They are not asked to declare personal loyalty to Li or to Falun Gong. Instruction is free.
Falun Gong does focus on the limitations of Western medicine, but not to the extent that seriously ill people are discouraged from getting treatment.
''People in the sciences are very interested in Falun Gong,'' says Merle Goldman, professor of Chinese intellectual history at Boston University. ''All the people I've met who believe in it are scientists, engineers, quantitative economists.... The most important part to them is the exercises. They feel it gives them good health and a good mental state.''
Back to the Table of Contents
Six followers of Taiwanese Buddhist
movement jailed in China
WRNS (15.04.2001) HRWF International Secretariat (24.04.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - BEIJING, Apr 13, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Six Chinese members of a Buddhist-inspired Taiwanese spiritual group have been jailed for up to eight years by a court in northern China, a court official said Friday. The six, members of the Guan Yin Method movement which claims half a million members in China, were sentenced at a court in the city of Xian in Shaanxi province for printing books propagating the group's views and trying to recruit new members at local universities.
The harshest sentence was handed down to an adherent identified as Liu Shiyao, who was condemned to eight years in jail, while the other terms ranged from three to six years in jail, according to the official.
China has banned the Guan Yin Method movement, calling it an "evil cult" similar to the Falun Gong and slamming it as an "anti-communist organization," the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.
According to the center, the movement alarmed the officially atheist communist party after it started spreading within the party's own ranks.
The sect appeared in China in 1992, four years after its foundation by a Taiwanese woman who is now revered by followers as "Supreme Master Ching Hai" and "Enlightened Master from the Himalayas."
Ching, treated like a queen by her followers, travels the world preaching a mixture of Buddhist and Taoist beliefs, although neither religions recognize her movement.
The movement preaches clean living and high ethical standards, and similar to other groups such as the Falun Gong its adherents engage in meditation and breathing exercises.
The sect, which claims followers in more than 40 countries including Japan, the United States and South Korea, was previously investigated by Taiwanese authorities, but no wrongdoing was found.
The Guan Yin Method group is just one among several targets of a drive by the Chinese government to weed out what it sees as the unhealthy influence of spiritual groups.
The most notorious example is the 21-month campaign against the Falun Gong, which has reportedly led to the deaths of more than 100 adherents while in detention.
Back to the Table of Contents
Falun Gong plans Hong Kong protests on sit-in anniversary
Reuters (23.04.01) - HRWF International Secretariat (23.04.2001)- Website: http://www.hrwf.net Email: info@hrwf.net - Followers of the controversial Falun Gong spiritual movement plan to stage mass protests in Hong Kong on Wednesday demanding that China halts its crackdown against the group.
The protests will mark the second anniversary of a huge Falun Gong demonstration in Beijing which shocked China's leadership, and serve as a dry run for an array of demonstrations planned when Chinese President Jiang Zemin visits the territory in early May.
Falun Gong, which combines meditation and exercise with Buddhist and Taoist teachings, was subsequently banned on the mainland in July 1999 and denounced as an "evil cult," but the group remains legal in Hong Kong.
Spokesman Kan Hung-cheong said followers will hold mass outdoor exercises in Hong Kong and plan to deliver a petition to Chinese officials. "We will have an exercise session and try to hand a petition letter to Chinese officials (in Hong Kong) to ask China to stop suppressing fellow practitioners on the mainland," Kan said on Monday. "We want to tell people that our activities are merely a reaction to the crackdown on the mainland. We are not politically motivated and we will conduct our activities peacefully."
Wednesday is the second anniversary of a large demonstration when 10,000 Falun Gong members surrounded the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. Beijing has accused the movement of trying to overthrow the central government and has waged a relentless crackdown on it.
Human rights groups believe more than 100 Falun Gong members have died of police abuse and thousands are in labour camps, but the group has continued to irk Chinese leaders with small but frequent protests on the mainland. Sporadic protests by the Falun Gong in Hong Kong also have irritated the Chinese leadership and plans by the group to stage demonstrations to coincide with Jiang's May 8 10 visit will likely raise more hackles in Beijing.
Hong Kong was guaranteed a high degree of autonomy after its return to China in mid-1997, but Beijing's increasingly strident attacks against the group have raised questions over how much say the former British territory will really have in its own affairs.
Analysts say the local government may come under strong pressure to curb the group in coming weeks to avoid embarrassing the Chinese leader, who will be in town to attend the 2001 Fortune Global Forum.
Last week, Chief Secretary Anson Chan said Jiang had assured the Hong Kong administration that it will be given full rein to decide how best to handle the Falun Gong. However, rights groups everywhere are closely watching to see if freedoms in the territory would be upheld.
"In May, we will have some petition activities. We won't rule out the possibility of foreign members coming to Hong Kong to join us but we don't know how many will turn up," Kan said.
Overseas followers are expected to converge on Hong Kong about the time of Jiang's visit, which is just days ahead of the anniversary of the movement's founding on May 13.
Deputy police commissioner Dick Lee said on Sunday that Hong Kong was well-prepared to handle security arrangements during Jiang's visit.
The economic forum will also draw key political and business figures from around the world.
China arrests Catholic bishop, priests
Reuters (23.04.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (23.04.2001)- Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - Chinese police arrested a 79-year-old underground Roman Catholic bishop along with several priests and lay Catholics in the week before Easter, the U.S.-based Cardinal Kung Foundation said.
Police arrested Shi Enxiang, the underground bishop of Yixian in the northern province of Hebei, on April 13 Good Friday while he was visiting Beijing, the foundation said in a statement seen by Reuters on Monday.
"While the Christians around the world were observing the holiest week of the year, the underground Roman Catholic Church in China suffered another assault from the Chinese government," foundation president Joseph Kung said in the statement.
Shi, ordained a bishop in 1982, had been in hiding since he escaped arrest in 1996, the statement said. He had spent a total of about 30 years in jail, most recently serving a three-year sentence from 1990-1993, it added.
China's constitution enshrines freedom of religion but worship is confined to state-controlled churches.
About 12 million Roman Catholics worship in underground churches and unofficial prayer meetings, the statement said.
The foundation said that police also arrested Li Jianbo, 34, a priest in Hebei's Mancheng county while he was in Xilinhot in the northern region of Inner Mongolia.
Another priest, Lu Genjun, 39, was sent to a labour camp for three years after his arrest shortly before Easter in Hebei's Baoding county, it added.
Authorities sentenced another priest in Hebei, surnamed Yin, to three years in a labour camp in April, the statement said without giving further details.
Police arrested two other priests on April 13, one in Fu'an in Fujian province and one in Fuzhou in Jiangxi province, along with 13 underground Catholic worshippers in Jiangxi, it said.
The U.S. State Department's annual human rights report this year condemned Beijing's crackdown on underground Christians.
European Parliament resolution on freedom of religion
in the People's Republic of China
HRWF International Secretariat (19.02.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net
The European Parliament,
- - having regard to its previous resolutions on the human rights situation in China, on Tibet and on the Union's priorities and recommendations for the March 2001 session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva,
- - having regard to the conclusions of the EU-PRC summit meeting of 21 December 1999 and the Council conclusions of 22 January 2001 on the EU-PRC dialogue on human rights,
- - having regard to Article 18 on freedom of religion of the United Nations" Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
- A. whereas, in its report (COM(2000)552 final) on the implementation of the communication "Building a comprehensive partnership with China", the Commission notes that the situation in China has regressed in terms of respect for civil, political and religious rights, a finding which is endorsed in the conclusions of the General Affairs Council of 22 January 2001,
- B. whereas, ever since making it compulsory for places of worship to be registered in 1994, the authorities of the PRC have been unceasing in their efforts to further limit the exercise of the freedom of religion,
- C. whereas State control over religion is already evident in the restricted number of religions that are officially recognised, and whereas any religious activity that has not been registered by the official associations is regarded as illegal,
- D. whereas, although the zeal with which the policy of repressing religious activity is enforced varies depending on the attitude of the local governments, in the supposedly autonomous Region of Tibet that policy is pursued systematically and implacably,
- E. whereas the religious, cultural and national heritage of the Tibetan people is threatened with extinction,
F. whereas the Falun Gong organisation was officially declared illegal in China on 22 July 1999, an arrest warrant was issued for its founder, Li Hung-Zhi on 29 July, and in the last two years, according to reports, some 50 000 members of the Falun Gong movement have been arrested, of whom almost 25 000 are now in prison, have been sent to forced labour camp or have been forcibly committed to mental hospitals, while to date 137 of them have died after being ill-treated or tortured in the course of their arrest or detention,
- F. noting that since 1989, when the Vatican set up its own Bishops" Conference, tensions between the authorities in Beijing and the non-official Catholic Church have increased significantly and many prominent members of the clergy of the non-official Catholic Church are still in prison, or have had restrictions placed on their freedom of movement, as a result of their refusal to support the official Church,
H. drawing attention to the policy of expulsion and systematic arrest of foreign Protestant priests and the harassment to which members of unregistered Protestant churches are subjected by the administrative authorities,
I. condemning the destruction of mosques and the arrest of persons who have taught the Koran without having received prior authorisation from the authorities,
- 1. Calls on China to release all those detained or imprisoned for peacefully exercising their internationally recognised rights to freedom of belief, religion and conscience;
2. Calls for the constitutional right to freedom of religion and belief to be fully guaranteed together with the exercise of the associated rights of freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of association and freedom of assembly;
- 3. Regrets that, after having signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the PRC has still not finalised the ratification and implementation processes;
- 4. Reiterates its condemnation of the continued and severe violation of human rights in Tibet and the ongoing discrimination practised against the Tibetan people by the PRC authorities on the basis of race or ethnic origin or religious, cultural or political beliefs;
- 5. Invites the PRC government to allow Falun Gong practitioners to practise their fundamental right to freedom of conscience, expression, association and assembly in accordance with the PRC constitution;
6. Calls for the European Union and its Member States to submit a resolution to the United Nations" Commission on Human Rights at its meeting in Geneva to condemn all violations of religious rights and, in particular, those directed against Tibetan and Mongolian monks, certain Christian churches and certain Muslim communities and adherents of the Falun Gong movement;
- 7. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the parliaments of the Member States, the Office of the UNHC for Human Rights and the PRC Government and Parliament.
Back to the Table of Contents
Euro MPs set to pressure China over Falungong, religious rights
AFP (15.02.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (19.02.2001) Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net The European Parliament on Thursday demanded that China halt its crackdown on the Falungong spiritual movement and guarantee freedoms for all religious faiths.
In a resolution approved late Thursday, the EU's elected chamber "invites the PRC government to allow Falungong practitioners to practice their fundamental right to freedom of conscience, expression, association and assembly in accordance with the PRC constitution."
Authorities in China have conducted an 18-month crackdown on the sect, which has been banned there as an "evil cult".
It also condemned "the continued and severe violation of human rights in Tibet" and "the destruction of mosques and the arrests of persons who have taught the Koran" without official authorization.
It urged the European Union and its member states to submit a resolution to the UN Human Rights Commission "to condemn all violations of religious rights," especially those aimed at "Tibetan and Mongolian monks, certain Christian churches and certain Muslim communities."
It also calls upon Beijing to "fully guarantee" constitutional rights to freedom of religion and belief, along with freedom of conscience, expression, association and assembly.
The resolution was drafted by the five biggest political groups in the European Parliament, virtually assuring that it would be adopted.
Back to the Table of Contents
Are 10,000 Falun Gong followers in labor camps?
Associated Press (18.01.2001)/ HRWF International Secretariat (24.01.2001) - Website: http://www.hrwf.net - Email: info@hrwf.net - In a rare official glimpse into China's use of labor camps to crush the banned Falun Gong sect, a state newspaper reported Thursday that one camp has held at least 470 group followers. China's government has refused during its 18-month crackdown on the sect to say how many Falun Gong practitioners have been sent to labor camps. A Hong Kong rights group estimates that at least 10,000 are being held in 300 camps nationwide.
The Legal Daily said the Masanjiazi Education Through Labor Center in northeastern Liaoning province held an award ceremony Wednesday for detained Falun Gong followers, apparently to reward those who had renounced the sect. The newspaper said 47 Falun Gong followers were granted early release, 86 were allowed to serve out their sentences outside of the camp and 337 had their sentences reduced making a total of 470 people.
The report did not say how many sect followers in total were in the camp. In an indication the numbers likely exceeded 470, the report said the camp extracted 4,200 letters of repentance and written denunciations of Falun Gong and its U.S.-based leader, Li Hongzhi, from detained sect members. Labor camp sentences are imposed without trial. The government says no sect members are in labor camps purely for practicing Falun Gong and that most of those held were sentenced for protesting the ban on the group.
The Legal Daily said the Masanjiazi camp started receiving female Falun Gong members at the end of October 1999. At that time, protests against the ban surged and the government tightened anti-cult regulations to facilitate efforts to crush Falun Gong.
Meanwhile, a senior local legislator who waved a Falun Gong banner and shouted slogans during a protest on Tiananmen Square has been expelled from the Communist Party, the official Guangzhou Daily said. Luo Jianzhong's participation in the Oct. 18 protest "created an extremely bad political impression," the newspaper said. Luo, who headed the executive committee of the local People's Congress in central Hubei province's Shiyan city, also distributed Falun Gong leaflets twice in October, the newspaper said.
The government banned Falun Gong in July 1999, saying it threatened social order and Communist Party rule and led 1,600 followers to their deaths, mostly by encouraging them to forgo modern medical treatment. Followers of Falun Gong, which attracted millions of Chinese adherents in the 1990s, say the sect's slow-motion meditation exercises and beliefs based on Buddhism, Taoism and Li's unorthodox theories promote health and good citizenship.
Back to the Table of Contents
