Antireligious campaigns in China
[3][4][5] Antireligious campaigns were launched in 1949, after the Chinese Communist Revolution, and they continue to be waged against Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, and members of other religious communities in China.
The persecution initiated in 1999 by Jiang Zemin against Falun Gong continues unabated with widespread surveillance, arbitrary detention, imprisonment, and torture.
[12] According to Freedom House, during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), the CCP "imprisoned thousands of monks and nuns, destroyed all but 11 of Tibet's 6,200 monasteries, and burned sacred texts.
[22] On October 1, 2000, foreign media correspondents witnessed police beating and arresting thousands of Falun Gong practitioners on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing who were protesting against the persecution.
[23][24] An April 2000 Wall Street article described how the Chinese government tortured a 58-year-old woman who refused to renounce her faith in Falun Gong and died in police custody.
[26][27][28] Another report highlighted that the rapid expansion of the organ transplant industry in China coincided with Jiang's launch of the persecution against Falun Gong in 1999.
[31] In 1991, while crafting policy towards Tibetan Buddhists, Jiang's preliminary decree stated reincarnated lamas must be approved by China's central government.
[33] In 1992, Jiang's government formally accepted the 14th Dalai Lama's official recognition and the enthronement of Orgyen Trinley Dorje as the reincarnated 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, spiritual leader of the Karma Kagyu school.
[40] By March 1998, the Central Tibetan Administration reported the Dalai Lama statement that Chinese campaigns of repression had spread beyond monasteries and nunneries, and that Jiang was undertaking "a deliberate policy of cultural genocide in Tibet".
[43] Harsher punishments, including lengthy imprisonment terms, were imposed on those identified by the authorities as leaders of “illegal” religious groups.
The founder of the church, Zhang Rongliang, was charged of leading a "cult" and sentenced to two years in forced labor camp in December 2000.
[45] In November–December 2000, the authorities destroyed, closed, or confiscated about 400 unregistered Protestant and Catholic church buildings in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, alone, as a part of the most destructive campaign since the late 1970s.
[46] On May 18, 1996, state media Xinjiang Daily under Jiang's administration, published a commentary on the government policy, stating “Freedom of religious belief is not freedom for religion.”[44] According to Ethan Gutmann, a China analyst and human-rights investigator, the Chinese government began harvesting organs from members of the predominantly Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority group in the 1990s.
[49] In June 2005, Gao Rongrong, a 37-year-old accountant from Liaoning Province, died in custody after two years at the Longshan Forced Labor Camp.
[50] In January 2008, police detained musician Yu Zhou and his wife after finding CDs and printed materials about Falun Gong in their car.
[51] Human Rights Watch reported in 2005 that Falun Gong practitioners constituted the majority of detainees in the camps examined and endured the "longest sentences and worst treatment.
5 was passed, requiring reincarnated lamas and religious institutions in Tibet to apply for permission with state bureaus so as to be considered legal.
[61] A monk at Nyitso monastery, Tsewang Norbu, self-immolated after chanting "Long live the Dalai Lama" and "Tibetan people want freedom".
[65] The tribunal concluded that religious and ethnic minorities are being "killed to order... cut open while still alive for their kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs, cornea, and skin to be removed and turned into commodities for sale".
[65] Although Xi Jinping abolished the "reeducation through labor" system in 2013,[66] Amnesty International reported that Falun Gong practitioners are among those particularly at risk of torture.
[67] Scholar André Laliberté argues that the CCP continues to target Falun Gong for repression because it perceives the movement as a challenge to its authority.
[72] Massive redevelopment projects, including railways, mines, roadways, dams, and shopping centers forcibly displace Tibetans and erode the environment.
[75][76] Drongna Monastery was forcibly closed in 2013, and its chant master Thardhod Gyaltsen received an 18-year prison sentence in 2014 for possession of a picture and recording of the 14th Dalai Lama.
[92] Radio Free Asia reported that, in early 2024, the CCP intensified efforts to enforce a ban by going door-to-door to prevent Tibetan children from taking private classes and participating in religious activities during school breaks.
Local authorities unanimously decided the condition of the property met the criteria for demolition, as required by the city's planned transportation network project.
[104][105] In Shandong Province, "officials issued guidance forbidding online preaching, a vital way for churches to reach congregants amid both persecution and the spread of the virus".
[111][112][108][113] According to estimates from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, under Xi Jinping, thousands of mosques and Muslim religious sites were damaged or destroyed in China.
[114] The Chinese government has intensified its repression by using artificial intelligence facial recognition cameras against the Uyghurs, both outside and inside places of worship.
The Chinese government states that Uyghurs are being sent to vocational training centers in order to prevent the spread of extremism and to increase their employability.
[129] In June 2020, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act was signed into law in the United States in response to the internment camps in Xinjiang.
