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On this Tuesday, March 27, 2018, photos, Catholic religious paintings and Bibles are exhibited behind the bars of an underground Catholic church in Jiexi County, Guangdong Province (south). A group monitoring Christianity in China said the government was intensifying a crackdown on congregations in Beijing and several Chinese provinces, destroying crosses, burning Bibles and ordering supporters to sign papers denying their faith. (AP Photo / Andy Wong)
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On Tuesday, March 27, 2018, photos and Catholic religious figures are exhibited behind bars of an underground Catholic Church in Jiexi County, Guangdong Province (south). A group monitoring Christianity in China said the government was intensifying a crackdown on congregations in Beijing and several Chinese provinces, destroying crosses, burning Bibles and ordering supporters to sign papers denying their faith. (AP Photo / Andy Wong)
BEIJING – According to the pastor and a group that monitors religion in China, the Chinese government is stepping up crackdowns on Christian congregations in Beijing and several provinces, destroying crosses, burning Bibles, closing churches and ordering supporters to sign papers renouncing their faith.
The campaign reflects a desire to "sinify" religion by demanding loyalty to the officially atheistic communist party and eliminating any challenge to its power over people's lives.
Bob Fu, of the US-based China Aid group, said last weekend that the closing of churches in central Henan and a large church in Beijing in recent weeks represent a "significant escalation" of repression.
"The international community should be alarmed and outraged by this flagrant violation of freedom of religion and belief," he wrote in an email.
Under President Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, believers are seeing their freedoms shrink dramatically even as the country is in full religious renaissance. Experts and activists say that, by consolidating his power, Xi is carrying out the most serious systematic crackdown on Christianity in the country since freedom of religion was enshrined in the Chinese constitution in 1982.
Fu also provided video footage of what appeared to be stacks of burning Bibles and forms indicating that the signatories had renounced their Christian faith. He stated that it was the first time since Mao's radical cultural revolution of 1966-1976 that Christians had been forced to make such statements, on pain of expulsion and loss of social benefits.
A Christian pastor from Nanyang City, Henan, said crosses, Bibles and furniture were burned during a raid on his church on September 5th.
The pastor, who asked not to be identified by name to avoid the repercussions of the authorities, reported that several people entered the church when it opened at 5 am and began to withdraw. Objects.
He said that the church had discussions with local authorities that had asked him to "reform", but no agreement had been reached or no official document had been issued.
Chinese law requires religious worshipers to worship only in congregations registered with the authorities, but several million belong to so-called clandestine or house churches that defy government restrictions.
A local official reached by phone the government of Nanyang City challenged the story, saying the authorities respected religious freedom. The man refused to give his name, as is the case with Chinese bureaucrats, while a person answering the phone from the local office of religious affairs said it was "unclear" at this time. subject.
In Beijing, the church of Sion was closed Sunday by about sixty officials who arrived at 16:30. Accompanied by buses, police cars and fire trucks, the church's pastor, Ezra Jin Mingri, said on Monday. Sion is known as the largest house church in Beijing, with six branches.
Officials said the rallies were illegal and sealed off church property, Jin said, after already freezing the pastor's personal property in an apparent attempt to force him to comply with their demands.
"The churches will continue to grow, blocking the sites will only intensify the conflict," Jin told the Associated Press by phone.
A notice published Sunday on the Chaoyang District Government's Beijing website said Zion's church had been closed because it had not been registered with the government.
All officially recognized religions in China appear to have been affected by repression. In the most extreme example, about 1 million Uyghurs and other members of minority Muslim groups in the north-west of the country have been arbitrarily detained in initiation camps where they are forced to report Islam and to show loyalty to the Communist Party.
The government says it is taking the necessary steps to eliminate extremism, but denies the creation of camps.
China has about 38 million Protestants, and experts have predicted that the country will have the largest Christian population in the world in a few decades.
