U.S. State Department Lists Severe Religious Liberty Violators

Human Rights Advocates Say More Countries Should Have Been Included

by Jeff Taylor

LOS ANGELES (Compass) -- The U.S. State Department’s list of six countries designated as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) for severe religious freedom violations in 2002 has come under fire from religious liberty advocates primarily because of the countries it failed to include.

In a March 5 press statement, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had singled out Burma (Myanmar), China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Sudan for their lack of religious freedom, the same countries designated CPCs in 2001.

“Regrettably, the status of religious freedom has not significantly improved in any of these countries since that time,” the press statement said.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) immediately welcomed the designations, but expressed disappointment that six other countries were not included.

The USCIRF, which was established by the U.S. Congress in 1998 to give independent policy recommendations to the administration and Congress of the U.S. government, had recommended last September that the State Department also designate India, Laos, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan and Vietnam as CPCs.

“For three years, the Commission has recommended Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, and Laos for CPC status because of their deplorable religious freedom violations, yet none has been named,” said USCIRF chair Felice Gaer in a March 5 press release. “Even the State Department’s own report states that religious freedom ‘does not exist’ in Saudi Arabia.”

Commission spokesperson Anne Johnson told World Net Daily (WorldNetDaily.com), “The State Department has already said there is no religious freedom in Saudi Arabia. It would seem logical that they would take the next step.”

The designation of “countries of particular concern” is one of the ways the U.S. government can address religious persecution and pressure governments to reform. Depending on the situation or how a country responds, the U.S. Secretary of State can make or remove a CPC designation at any time.

“Advancing religious freedom remains a high priority of U.S. foreign policy, both as a universal human right and as a cornerstone of stable and free societies,” State Department spokesman Boucher said.

By law, the administration has 90 days to identify policy measures it will use in dealing with the CPCs.

But the USCIRF is concerned the State Department is not going far enough in dealing with human rights violators.

“In the past, the State Department has taken no additional policy action against CPCs, explicitly relying instead on pre-existing sanctions simply to meet requirements under the law. While this may be technically correct under the statute, it is indefensible as a matter of policy,” Commission chair Gaer said.

Saudi Arabia is a flash point in the religious liberty debate because of its lack of religious freedom and the politics of oil and war in the Middle East. The Muslim nation says it recognizes the rights of non-Muslims to worship in private, but in practice this right has often been denied. Scores of Christian guest workers have been arrested, imprisoned and deported during the last few years for holding private prayer meetings. And a Saudi citizen who converts from Islam to another faith risks death.

Open Doors, a Christian mission that focuses on countries where Christians are persecuted, ranks Saudi Arabia second on its World Watch List (WWL), just behind North Korea. The WWL ranks countries according to the severity of Christian persecution.

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Recommended Countries of Particular Concern

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) recommended last September that the countries listed below be designated as “countries of particular concern” (CPCs) by the U.S. State Department because of each country’s lack of religious freedom. In early March, Secretary of State Colin Powell named only six from the list as CPCs. These USCIRF country summaries can be accessed on the Internet at www.uscirf.gov.

Burma: The Burmese government persists in exercising strict control over all religious activities and imposing severe restrictions on certain religious practices. Members of the Burmese military have reportedly killed members of religious minorities or instigated violence by the Buddhist majority against them. Police and military personnel have failed to protect religious minorities during periods of violence. The plight of religious minorities in Burma is made worse by the widespread social tensions -- encouraged by the regime -- between the Buddhist majority and the Christian and Muslim minorities there. Other severe violations of religious freedom have included forcible conscription of religious minorities as military porters and death for those who refuse.

China: The Chinese government continues to confine, torture, imprison, and subject individuals to other forms of ill treatment on account of their religion or belief, including Protestant Christians, Roman Catholics, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, and others, such as members of Falun Gong, that the government has labeled “evil cults.” In fact, in the past year, official respect for religious freedom in China has diminished. Chinese government officials have continued to claim the right to control, monitor, and restrain religious practice in that country. As part of China’s crackdown on religious and spiritual believers, individuals have been charged with, or detained under suspicion of, offenses that essentially penalize them for manifesting freedoms of religion or belief, speech, association, or assembly. In addition, several prominent religious leaders have been detained, often on reportedly dubious criminal charges, such as rape and other sexual violence, or financial crimes. The crackdown against religious believers was authorized at the highest levels of the government, according to reportedly official documents obtained by human rights non-governmental organizations.

India: In 2002, at least 1,000 Muslims were killed and more than 100,000 forced to flee their homes as a result of violence by Hindu mobs in Gujarat state after 58 Hindus were killed on a train in Godhra. Christians, too, were victims in Gujarat when many churches were destroyed. The state government has failed to hold key violators accountable for these abuses.

Iran: The government of Iran engages in or tolerates systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention and executions based primarily or entirely upon the religion of the victims. Minority religious groups that are not officially recognized by the state and those perceived to be attempting to convert Muslims suffer particular repression. Civil and human rights apply on the basis of one’s religious affiliation, and only to those groups officially recognized by the government as legitimate.

Iraq: For decades, the government of Iraq has conducted a brutal campaign of murder, summary execution, arbitrary arrest, and protracted detention against the religious leaders and followers of the majority Shi’a Muslim population. Shi'a Muslims also continue to face harassment, destruction and desecration of property, and decimation of leadership. The Iraqi government has also sought to undermine the identity of minority Christian (Assyrian and Chaldean) and Yazidi groups, and members of these groups have faced repression, forced relocation, and denial of political rights.

Laos: Government officials in Laos continue to arrest, detain, and imprison members of minority religions on account of their faith. In some instances, officials attempted to force Christians to renounce their faith. A Commission delegation visited Laos in February 2002.

North Korea: Religious freedom remains non-existent in North Korea, where the government has a policy of actively discriminating against religious believers. The North Korean state severely represses public and private religious activities. The Commission has received reports that officials have arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and sometimes executed North Korean citizens who were found to have ties with overseas Christian evangelical groups operating across the border in China, as well as those who engaged in such unauthorized religious activities as public religious expression and persuasion.

Pakistan: In 2002, there has been an upsurge in attacks targeting Pakistan’s Christian minority and the Government has failed adequately to protect religious minorities from sectarian violence. Discriminatory religious legislation, including the blasphemy and anti-Ahmadi laws, helps create an atmosphere of religious intolerance. Blasphemy charges, often false, result in lengthy detention and sometimes violence, including fatal attacks, against religious minority members as well as Muslims. American journalist Daniel Pearl was forced to “confess” his religion as Jewish before being beheaded on a training video by Islamic extremists.

Saudi Arabia: As noted in past years by the State Department, religious freedom “does not exist” in Saudi Arabia. The government vigorously prohibits all forms of public religious expression other than the government’s interpretation and presentation of Sunni Islam. Last year, numerous foreign Christian workers were detained, arrested, tortured, and subsequently deported. Shi’a clerics and religious scholars are detained and imprisoned for their religious views, which differ from those of the government. Other severe violations include torture and cruel and degrading treatment or punishment; prolonged detention without charges; and flagrant denials of the right to liberty and security of the person, including coercive measures directed against women and the extended jurisdiction of the religious police, who exercise their vague powers in ways that violate others’ religious freedom.

Sudan: The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has identified Sudan as the world's most violent abuser of the right to freedom of religion and belief. In the Commission's view, the Sudanese government has committed genocidal atrocities against civilian populations in the South and in the Nuba Mountains. Religious conflict is a major factor in Sudan’s ongoing and prolonged civil war. In the context of the civil war, government and allied forces continue to commit egregious human rights abuses, such as forced starvation as part of the denial of international humanitarian assistance, abduction and enslavement of women and children, the forcible displacement of civilian populations (e.g., from oil-producing regions), and aerial bombardment of civilians, including church property, and of humanitarian facilities.

Turkmenistan: The government severely restricts religious activity other than by the government-sanctioned Sunni Muslim Board and the Russian Orthodox Church. Members of unrecognized religious communities -- including Baha’is, Baptists, Hare Krishnas, Jehovah’s Witnesses, independent Muslims, Pentecostals, and Seventh-day Adventists -- have reportedly been arrested and detained with allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, imprisoned, deported, harassed, and fined; they have had their services disrupted, congregations dispersed, religious literature confiscated, and places of worship destroyed.

Vietnam: The government continues repressive policies toward all religions and their followers. A Commission delegation that visited Vietnam in March 2002 found that religious dissidents remain under house arrest or are imprisoned, including Father Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly, who was detained after submitting testimony to the Commission in 2001. In addition, government officials continue to suppress organized religious activities and to harass leaders and followers of unregistered religious organizations, as well as clergy members of officially recognized religious groups

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Shanghai House Church Leader Sent to Labor Camp

Philip Xu Guoxing Faces Third Confinement in 14 Years

by Xu Mei

NANJING, China (Compass) -- Philip Xu Guoxing, a prominent Shanghai house church leader, was worshipping with some 20 other Christians at his home on December 8 when police officers stormed into the meeting and arrested everyone present.

Officers confiscated Christian books, videos, a computer -- even the stools. All the other Christians were eventually released, but Xu was kept in detention. In early January, Xu was sentenced to 18 months in a labor camp to undergo “re-education through labor.” Only then did authorities inform his mother. Neither she nor his family was ever notified about the formal charges or a trial.

This is Xu’s fourth arrest in 20 years and the third time he has been sent to labor camp for the “crime” of preaching the gospel, according to a report broadcast by the BBC World Service on January 15.

Xu, 47, was one of the first Chinese citizens to go to the United States in 1980 to study under China’s “open door” policy. He returned in 1982 a dedicated Christian and in the next few years established a network of house churches in Shanghai and the surrounding rural areas of Jiangsu province.

Previous Arrests

On March 14, 1989, Xu was arrested in connection with a “thorough investigation” and interrogated. However, authorities concluded that he “had no political motivation, no intention of collecting money nor (was guilty of) sexual misconduct.” He was released on June 16 the same year.

However, following the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in June 1989, the whole country came under tighter control. Xu was re-arrested on November 6, 1989, while holding a Bible study in Shanghai and sentenced to three years of “reform through labor.” He was sent to a labor camp at Dafeng in northern Jiangsu.

The daily diet at the Jiangsu camp was a bowl of soup and a vegetable. Prison guards regularly beat Xu and he often fainted from exhaustion. However, he witnessed openly for Christ and many of his fellow prisoners became Christians; so many, in fact, that he was transferred to another prison and kept under closer guard.

A head of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau offered Xu his freedom to go to America or Hong Kong if he would cease preaching the gospel, but he refused. He served his sentence and was released in 1992. He married in 1994 and his wife, also a committed Christian, gave birth to their daughter in 1995.

In 1997, the Chinese government began an enforced process of registration of all religious meetings. Many house church leaders, including Xu, felt in all conscience that they could not accept state interference in the free worship and evangelism of the church. Police and Religious Affairs Bureau informants took video of Xu’s house church in Shanghai.

On July 18, 1997, Xu was suddenly re-arrested and sentenced to a further three years “re-education through labor.” His family was not informed of the action. In February 1998, a top U.S. delegation for religious freedom visited Shanghai, but Xu’s family was prevented from meeting with them. The following year when U.S. President Clinton visited China, family members were kept under close surveillance and warned not to make contact with him.

Xu was due for release on June 12, 2000, but authorities arbitrarily detained him until July 17. He was in very poor health, so his family tried to persuade him to leave China. But he decided to stay for the sake of the gospel.

Fourth Arrest

Since March 1999, local police in Shanghai have sent officers to Xu’s house every Sunday to turn away worshipers. Nevertheless, they keep coming, awaiting the moment of the police shift change to enter worship.

The many years of suffering endured on Philip’s behalf have taken their toll on Xu’s 8 year-old daughter, his wife, his elderly mother and other close family members.

Xu’s fourth arrest just before Christmas reveals that no softening of Chinese government policy towards the house churches is underway. China hopes to showcase itself as a modern and open society during the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008. However, its continuing campaign against peaceful Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, shows that it has a long way to go to convince the world that it truly is an open society.

 Copyright 2003 Compass Direct

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Police in China Conduct Mass Arrest of Christians

Detentions Stem from Policy of Labeling Unregistered House Churches as ‘Cults’

by Xu Mei

NANJING, China (Compass) -- According to the Communist Chinese internal magazine People’s Security Report, 176 house church Christians were detained on December 27, 2002, and January 6, 2003. The Hong Kong newspapers South China Morning Post and Ming Pao Daily publicly revealed full details of the detentions on January 21.

On Christmas Day, police in Neixiang county, Henan province, learned of “illegal” house church gatherings which were supposedly “severely damaging the production and orderly life of the surrounding people.” They immediately dispatched a squad of People’s Militia to keep the meetings under surveillance. After three days, officials concluded that the gatherings were “nests of heresy.”

The Neixiang police raided the Shilipu meeting point while the Christians were meeting on December 27 and arrested all 78 worshippers, including leaders Liu Jiading and Wang Aimei. They also confiscated 120 Christian books.

On January 6, the police learned of other “illegal” Christian meetings led by Ding Yutang and Wang Yiqin. Both were preaching and evangelizing at meetings in Qiliping and Xiaguan townships attended by over 100 people. The people knelt on the floor, bowed their heads in prayer and often were weeping. The police determined that this was “a cult organization.” They surrounded both meetings, made arrests and confiscated 182 books, 120 tapes and nine video CDs.

According to the police account, the Christians ranged in age from 15 to 45 and belonged to the Total Scope Church (Quanfanwei Jiaohui). The church is associated with Peter Xu Yongze, who was arrested in 1988 while on his way to see Billy Graham in Beijing.

Evangelical Christians who stress the importance of the “born again” experience, Total Scope members vigorously deny charges that their church is a cult. Among the “heretical” magazines confiscated were copies of Christian Life Quarterly, a well known evangelical publication edited in Deerfield, Illinois, and widely distributed among Chinese scholars both in mainland China and overseas.

 Copyright 2003 Compass Direct

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Letters from China

Christians Reveal Personal Trials and Triumphs

Anhui

“Our house churches here are now under pressure and persecution. The authorities are demanding all preachers to have registration certificates. All preachers have to be vetted, and all church work must be managed and overseen by the relevant government departments. But when we discovered this was the state interfering with religion and that this mixing of politics and religion was not in accord with Scripture, we refused to accept it. So now we are under persecution. They have come many times to our Bible studies (our monthly meeting for church workers from 18 counties has over 1,000 attending) to broadcast the government’s religious policy through loudspeakers as well as loud pop music and threats that they will arrest us. But thank God, though we have been unable several times to complete our Bible study, the Christians are unafraid and keep coming. They have a determination to suffer if need be. The last two days, the authorities have set up two loudspeakers permanently on telephone poles near our meeting. I am worried and don’t know what we should do. Please pray for us.”

-- Letter from Mr. Yuan, dated October 15, 2002

Beijing

“The police are already keeping me under surveillance because I go on the Internet nearly every day to do a Bible correspondence course. A few days ago, a friend telephoned me to say that her house church had been notified that all meeting points must register and amalgamate with the open [TSPM government-supervised] churches in the city; otherwise they will be fined. But they do not want to merge because they have heard the leaders in some of these churches squander the believers’ offerings.”

-- Letter from Mr. Yao, dated October 15, 2002

“At present, the cult ‘Lightning from the East’ is disrupting the church by sheep-stealing. Please pray for the house churches. The government is ordering them to register, but then saying that house churches do not meet the conditions to register. Please pray for the church.”

-- Letter from Mr. Ma, dated October 21, 2002

Chongqing

“Last Sunday we started a Sunday School in our church for the first time. We have never had one before this, so we have no experience. Ten children attended, including my nine-year-old son. We taught them to sing John 3:16 and how to pray. Our church is registered with the government. But in the countryside, the Public Security have found many house churches and forbidden them to meet. Spiritually they are very needy. They have to constantly change the venue of their meetings. Otherwise they will be investigated and their Bibles confiscated. We often go to the countryside to preach to help them. But the farmers’ level of education is low. ‘Lightning from the East’ is now damaging our churches, and cults are springing up continually.”

-- Letter from Miss Su, dated November 26, 2002

Guangxi

“Although we are placed in an environment which is not ideal, we still can see the grace and blessing of God. When I think of the Lord on the cross, I do not consider what I am suffering to be anything at all. There are many evangelists who are suffering far greater persecution than I am. The leaders of my work unit sought me out for a ‘chat.’ They told me I must either renounce my faith or resign from the Communist Party. I have decided to leave the Party next year. I seize every opportunity to share the gospel with people or to give out gospel tracts.”

-- Letter dated November 8, 2002

Henan

“Our fellow workers have gone far away to preach the gospel, for instance, to Hunan and Hebei. We have also sent people to preach one after the other to Buddhist Tibet. We have also sent people to Yunnan. But we cannot discuss church affairs with the government people. We would definitely end up in jail!”

-- Letter from Mr. Wang, dated November 11, 2002

“We have many sects in the Nanyang region of Henan:  Lightning from the East, the Three Self, Justification by Faith, Blessed Rice, Head Covering sect, etc. So the churches are very unstable. Moreover, recently many house churches have been broken up by the local police. So many believers and those who have become inquirers do not dare to meet together.”

-- Letter from Miss Dian, now a migrant worker in Guangdong, dated November 5, 2002

Hunan

“Government departments often interfere with our house churches because we have not done things through them. We have no good preachers. Can you send some Christian books? Our brothers and sisters are longing to receive them.”

-- Letter from Mr. Zhou, dated November 1, 2002

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