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The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief

CHINA: Religious freedom in Xinjiang

Religious freedom in China's north-western Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region of north-western China (previously known as Eastern Turkestan), Forum 18 News Service has found, is dominated by pervasive state control. This affects both the indigenous Muslims, who make up about half the local population, and religious minorities. Control is enacted through national-religious committees, part of the administration of every city, which enforce compulsory registration and approve the appointment of all religious leaders. They must come to meetings of such committees. Forum 18 learnt that at such a meeting in Ghulja in August, officials threatened to dismiss a Patriotic Catholic priest if he preached again against abortion. Children under 18 are officially banned from attending places of worship, though Forum 18 observed that this rule is widely ignored. "We believe that children need to finish their education and develop their personalities before they can make an informed decision as to whether they are believers or atheists," an official of Urumqi's national-religious committee told Forum 18. Contact with fellow-believers abroad remains restricted, leaving smaller religious communities isolated.

CHINA: Xinjiang - Imams and mosque education under state control

The imam of the central mosque in the town of Turpan, north east of China's Xinjiang region, admitted to Forum 18 News Service in early September that the Chinese authorities name all imams to local mosques. Imams also have to attend regular meetings of the national religious committees at their town administration, where they are told what they can do and are ordered to preach peace and condemn terrorism in their sermons. Local adult Muslims, mainly ethnic Uighurs, can learn about their faith only in certain mosques where the imam has gained special approval, while children are banned. "The authorities instruct us to tell parents that their children must complete their education before they can start to attend mosque," the imam reported, though Forum 18 observed some children in Turpan's mosques at Friday prayers.

CHINA: Xinjiang - Mongolian minority isolated from fellow-Buddhists abroad

While ethnic Mongolian Buddhists in China's Xinjiang-Uighur autonomous region say they can generally practise their faith without serious government pressure, some told Forum 18 News Service in the Bortala-Mongolian autonomous prefecture that maintaining contact with fellow Buddhists abroad is almost impossible. They said all visits by lamas from Mongolia require special permission, while they cannot visit foreign Buddhist centres. They added that portraits of the Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, are banned in temples.

CHINA: Xinjiang - Security service investigation followed Orthodox priest's deportation

Kazakhstan-based Russian Orthodox priest Fr Vianor Ivanov had visited China's north-western Xinjiang region to serve the local Orthodox who have no priests, but in December 2003 was detained by Chinese customs, was interrogated for a week, had his religious literature confiscated and was deported. "They questioned me for five hours a day. The special services representatives proved to be amazingly well-informed," Fr Ivanov told Forum 18 News Service. Local Orthodox told Forum 18 in Xinjiang in early September that virtually all the Orthodox believers in the city of Ghulja were questioned by the security services about Fr Ivanov's activity. In Ghulja the Orthodox can at least meet for prayers in church without a priest, but in another Xinjiang town, Tacheng, local Russian Orthodox have had no success so far in applying to rebuild their church.

CHINA: Government blocks religious websites

Chinese web-users are denied access to a range of religious sites based abroad, Forum 18 News Service has found after a two-month survey of how far the Chinese government's Golden Shield firewall, used to censor the internet, affects access to religious websites. Sites blocked include those related to the persecution of Christians and other religious faiths, the Dalai Lama, the Falun Gong religious movement, the Muslim Uygurs of Xinjiang and a number of Catholic sites, including the website of the Hong Kong diocese and the Divine Word Missionaries in Taiwan.

CHINA: Religious Freedom and the Legal System: Continuing Struggle

The Communist party-state remains determined to maintain control over society, using over the past 20 years an increasing number of laws and regulations as a means to this end. In the field of religion, Ye Xiaowen, Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, has publicly stated that "The purpose . . of strengthening the administration of religious affairs according to law is actively to guide the religions to adapt themselves to socialist society." There is a complex web of laws and regulations on religion under which, to take one example, children may not receive religious education, whatever their parents think. The state claims the exclusive right to decide on what are "normal" religious activities and is effectively pursuing a policy of divide-and-rule towards religious communities. Some religious communities de facto accepted this policy, not forseeing that the state's repression of Falun Gong would also lead to measures against, for example, the unofficial Protestant community. The Chinese state's relationship with religion can only improve if the state accepts that laws are supreme – even over the party - and protect individuals and society from arbitrary actions by those in power.

CHINA: For religious freedom, patience may be the virtue

As China's National People's Congress passed constitutional amendments addressing the issue of human rights, outside the congress doors the secret police was crushing possible dissent. Religious believers, including a Catholic bishop and a Protestant house church leader, were among those detained. Two other Protestants who researched the 2003 crackdown on unofficial churches in Hanzhou had just been indicted, while hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners, thousands of Protestants and many Vatican-loyal Catholics and other believers languish in prisons and labour camps. Communist ideological opposition to religion remains strong, despite attempts to couch it in milder terms, combined with fears – rooted in Chinese history – of foreign religious involvement. The Party also fears rival organisations with the power to mobilise adherents. Few believers expect anything more than incremental improvements.

CHINA: Xinjiang religious freedom survey, September 2003

In its survey analysis of the religious freedom situation in the Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region of north-western China (previously known as Eastern Turkestan), Forum 18 News Service reports on the pervasive state control over the religious life of native Muslims, who make up about half the local population. Mosques are strictly controlled by the authorities and all the imam-hatybs are state-appointed. Posters on mosques declare that children under 18 cannot attend, while an unofficial order bans employees of state-run companies from attending under threat of dismissal. Only approved religious literature can be sold. Despite Xinjiang's impressive recent economic growth, Forum 18 found that tension between local Muslims and the Chinese government has not been relieved.