Religious minorities face societal discrimination in China: Report
Jun 02, 2022
Washington [US], June 3 : Revealing the true colour of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and throwing light on so-called religious freedom in China, an international report released by the United States has stated that religious minorities including Christians, Muslims, Tibetans in Beijing are not allowed to practise their faith.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday made this assertion as he released the 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom.
The report said that Christians, Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners reported severe societal discrimination in employment, housing, and business opportunities in China.
Blinken made this assertion as he released the 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom.
The Chinese government recognizes five official religions -- Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. Only religious groups belonging to one of the five state-sanctioned "patriotic religious associations" representing these religions are permitted to register with the government and officially permitted to hold worship services, although other groups reported meeting unofficially.
According to the report, NGOs and media continued to report deaths in custody and that the government tortured, physically abused, arrested, disappeared, detained, sentenced to prison, subjected to forced labor and forced indoctrination in CCP ideology, and harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups for activities related to their religious beliefs and practices.
The NGO Human Rights Without Frontiers estimated the government imprisoned 2,987 individuals for exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief as of December 7 last year.
According to Minghui, a Falun Gong-affiliated publication, 101 Falun Gong practitioners died during the year. Both Minghui and the Falun Dafa Infocenter reported police arrested more than 5,000 practitioners and harassed more than 9,000 others, US Report on International Religious Freedom stated.
The annual report of The Church of Almighty God (CAG), authorities arrested more than 11,156 of its members and subjected them to physical abuse, including beatings, sleep deprivation, and being forced into stress positions, resulting in the death of at least nine individuals.
Furthermore, China prohibited private tutors, including those based abroad, from using textbooks "propagating religious teachings" and closed several informal, religiously affiliated schools.
During the year, officials across the country shut down religious venues, removed religious apps from app stores and censored religious content from the popular messaging service WeChat.
Going further, it is reported that Chinese authorities censored online posts referencing Jesus or the Bible and there were continued reports that authorities destroyed public displays of religious symbols throughout the country.
