The People’s Republic of China seems very proud of its accomplishments in the last couple of years, but its record on human rights remains abysmally deficient.
The host of the 2008 Olympics celebrated 60 years of Communist rule October 1, Chinese National Day, which marked the beginning of a week-long holiday.
Many Chinese use the occasion as an opportunity to travel to visit family or friends or just to see other parts of the country. An estimated 60 million people travelled during the holiday in 2000, the last year for which estimates are available.
But during this same period of time Christian leaders were arrested or sent on “forced vacations,” so they could not foment demonstrations during the nationalistic celebrations.
Chinese church leaders arrested
Bob Fu
Bob Fu, president of the U.S.-based China Aid Association (CAA) said in October that Pastor Hua Huiqi, upon returning from a “forced vacation,” was again arrested on September 17 in northern Shanxi province. According to Fu, Hua was “arrested, beaten, and interrogated” during the last two years for his church and Bible-teaching work by officials of the Public Security Bureau, one of China’s main law-enforcement agencies.
Pastor Zhang "Bike" Mingxuan (center) visits two pastors: Pastor Shu Wenxiang (left) and Tang Houyong after they were released from one-year prison terms in October. Pastor "Bike" received his nickname for his courageous evangelism efforts on bicycle.
His mother, Shuang Shuying, who had campaigned for rights of Christians, was recently released from a two-year imprisonment on what supporters said were “trumped-up” charges of “damaging government property.”
Fu also said the president of the Chinese House Church Alliance, Pastor Zhang Mingxuan, also known as “Pastor Bike,” was sent on "a forced vacation to Henan [province] on September 23—to allegedly prevent any uprisings in the capital during the National Day celebrations," Fu added.
Chinese mega-church destroyed
"The crackdown by the Beijing Public Security Bureau was foreshadowed by a secret directive sent in early August, calling for the dismantling of six specific Beijing house churches, including Pastor Hua’s and Pastor Bike’s," he explained.
Since June, security forces closed at least 13 churches, Bible-training schools, and homes, forcing the Autumn Rain Church to meet outdoors for nine weeks, and others to file suits against the bans placed on their churches illegally, several Christians said.
Devastated Linfen Church property and two of the pastors arrested and jailed: Pastor Yang Rongli (left) and Pastor Wang Xiaoguang.
"The most devastating [known] church attack occurred the night of September 13 [in Shanxi province]. With shovel loaders, bricks, and batons, nearly 400 local [Fushan County] government officials and hired ruffians demolished 17 buildings of the Church in Linfen," beating and injuring more than 100 church members, some 20 of them seriously, Fu said. Personal properties allegedly were stolen.
According to CAA, the day after the attack Linfen Churh leaders organized a rally attended by 1,000 people to protest the illegal demolition of their buildings. Five were later arrested while on the way to Beijing to file a complaint for the attack. On November 30 the PSB bypassed the court system and sentenced the five to prison terms of three to seven years each. Their alleged “crime” was “gathering people to disturb the public order.”
But the Linfen Church was not the only church targeted by authorities.
“In Beijing in October, authorities locked parishioners of Shouwang house church out of the space they had rented to worship in. In Shanghai, the Wangbang congregation faced a similar lockout. Both congregations had grown to more than 1,000 members,” said a December 10 AP News report.
Persecution continues
Alimjan Yimiti
On December 7 Chinese authorities sentenced Uyghur Christian Alimjan Yimit to 15 years in prison on the apparently contrived charge of “providing state secrets to overseas organizations,” according to CAA. However, the court has refused to say what secret was compromised, and the foreigner to whom Alimjan allegedly gave his secret was allowed to leave the country. At the same time citing “state security,” the government refused to allow his wife and mother to attend his trial.
A U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention rendered its opinion that “Mr. Alimujiang Yimiti [Chinese spelling] has been arrested and is being kept in detention solely for his religious faith and religious activities.”
Alimjan was a worker in an orchard owned by a British firm. Authorities closed the British-owned business and said Alimjan, who converted from Islam to Christianity in 1995, used his work as a cover for spreading the Christian faith, violating the law forbidding religious proselytism in border areas, especially among Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists.
A year in abduction
Gao Zhisheng and his son, Tianyu
Perhaps the most grievous violation of human rights is the apparent abduction and forced detention of human rights advocate, lawyer Gao Zhisheng. Gao disappeared on February 4, 2009.
“Gao Zhisheng has been repeatedly kidnapped, arrested, imprisoned and tortured by Chinese authorities for defending the persecuted. He has been an unyielding voice for justice in the Chinese courts and was even nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008,” Fu said.
The last time he was heard from was when he was able to call his brother from a phone in October and said simply, “I’m O.K.,” before he was disconnected.
CAA has set up a special website, www.FreeGao.com to bring awareness to U.S. Congressmen and Senators, and the public in general. CAA has already presented 100,000 signatures to the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., demanding Gao’s release.
An abysmal record
According to Fu, "China now imprisons more people of faith and conscience than all the countries in the rest of the world combined..." The number of deaths caused by starvation, persecution and execution since the Communist Party of China (CPC) took power in 1949 has been estimated by Western investigators to be 80 million or more. Thousands of Christians were among those executed, according to Christian estimates.
"Over two million Chinese people were executed by [the] CPC, including thousands of Christians. Today, the Chinese people still lack the basic protection of fundamental human rights and freedoms, such as freedom of press, speech, and assembly, as well as association," Fu added.
"The Chinese judicial system is still under the total control of the CPC, without tolerance or independence from the political regime. Millions of Chinese citizens are still being held in Chinese Laogai (labor) camps, black detention cells, and work prisons, for simply exercising their rights—even those guaranteed by their own Chinese Constitution."
He said, "Thousands of Protestant Christians, Catholics, Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists and other faithfuls have been executed or tortured to death in the past 60 years."
At the same time, "millions of them were detained, kidnapped, arrested and sentenced to re-education through labor arbitrarily, without any due process. Hundreds of thousands are still being held illegally today and corrupt local governments deny their citizens’ basic rights," he claimed.
Following the recent 20th anniversary of the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, CAA said it "received and issued over 80 reports exposing 178 incidents of abuse against churches, human rights lawyers, and Protestant Christians in 14 provinces in China."
They include nearly 120 arrests and over 914 cumulative days of forced detention.
Outside observers have said the spread of Christianity is seen as a threat to the atheist-based ideology of China's Communist Party. There are believed to be as many as 130 million Christians in China, an officially "atheist" nation of over 1.3 billion people.
This article was composed with heavy reliance on a report by www.BosNewsLife.org and news releases by Compass Direct and China Aid Association. Photos courtesy of CAA.
