Ambassador Mark Palmer, Chairman of the Board, Freedom House, and FoFG board member

WASHINGTON, DC, August 25, 2004 — Finance ministers gathering next week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Santiago, Chile should publicly call on China to cease all religious persecution, Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom said today.

Recent developments in China point to increasing crackdowns on Chinese Buddhists, Christians and practitioners of Falun Gong.

“The finance ministers meeting in Santiago need to be pro-active in letting Chinese delegates know that their government’s attacks on believers of any persuasion are unacceptable,” said Center for Religious Freedom Director Nina Shea.

On August 11, as reported in the New York Times, Chinese authorities arrested Yu Tianjian, a prominent Chinese Buddhist who also maintains residency in the United States. Yu recently renovated a Buddhist temple in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia. At his arrest, Yu told associates that he had been charged with “promoting superstition.” Chinese officials confiscated valuable religious objects from the temple, cut off the temple’s utilities, and forcibly evacuated 70 monks from the premises.

Repression of Chinese Christians also appears to continue unabated. According to the Pennsylvania-based China Aid Association (CAA), five Christians in China’s Xinjiang autonomous region, arrested on July 12 after attending a church retreat, now face long prison terms. Luo Bing Yin, an underground leader of the five-million-strong Ying Shang church group in Anhui province, is currently in police detention. He has not been granted a court hearing and charges against him are unknown. Police raided the business of Luo’s family, confiscating computers thought to contain information about Chinese Christians.

The CAA has also reported that on August 6 three other house-church members were sentenced to prison for one to three years in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province. They were charged with providing information on religious repression to overseas publications. On the same day, more than 100 Christians on retreat in Henan province were arrested in a police raid.

The Cardinal Kung Foundation, a Connecticut-based advocacy group, has posted secret documents demonstrating the Chinese government’s campaign against the Catholic Church at: http://www.cardinalkungfoundation.org.

The Falun Dafa Information Center reports increasing government assaults against the 100-million-member Falun Gong meditation and exercise movement. In June and July, 48 Falun Gong members were reported tortured and beaten to death while in custody for refusing to renounce their beliefs. Torture techniques reportedly included brandings with hot irons, electric shock, and pepper oil applied to the mouth and genitals. One Falun Gong member, 32-year-old Zhu Xia, released on April 2 from custody in Xinjin county, Sichuan province, survived multiple rapes and torture, but has not recovered physically or emotionally and can no longer care for herself.

“There can be no justification for the gross mistreatment, imprisonment, and outright killing of Chinese citizens whose only offense is the peaceful observance of their personal religious beliefs,” said Ms. Shea.

Further details are available at http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion.

CHINA: 2004 Crackdown http://www.freedomhouse.org/religion/news/bn2004/bn-2004-08-25.htm

Contact: Carrie MacCarthy, (202) 296-5101 ext. 136