Day: August 9, 2021

Authorities in the northern province of Shanxi have detained nine members of the Golden Lamp Protestant church in the provincial capital, Taiyuan, after it refused to join the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-backed Three-Self Association of churches.

Police in Shanxi’s Linfen county detained nine church leaders and members on Aug. 7, including pastor Wang Xiaoguang and preacher Yang Rongli, who have previously been jailed for religious activities.

An unknown number of members of other house churches in the Golden Lamp network were taken to their local police stations for questioning, church members told RFA.

The detentions come amid a series of raids on unofficial Protestant “house” churches in Linfen county, they said.

“They detained Wang Xiaoguang and eight other people,” a Golden Lamp church member said. “It was probably because they were carrying out a house church baptism.”

Yang has already served a seven-year jail term from November 2009 for preaching the gospel and pastoral activities.

Soon afterwards, local authorities demolished a Golden Lamp megachurch in Taiyuan with dynamite.

Yang was released in October 2016 and pressured by religious affairs bureau officials to bring Golden Lamp — which boasts a membership of tens of thousands — under the aegis of the Three-Self Patriotic Association.

Yang refused, and the church has been targeted by the authorities ever since, who have cut off pensions and other state benefits previously paid to Yang and colleagues.

“We won’t change our beliefs, nor will we join the Three-Self Patriotic Association,” the church member said.

“Last time we met with them, they told us that the management of the church has been transferred to the religious affairs department of central government [in Beijing], and is no longer under the control of Shanxi province,” the church member said.

Dangerous foreign import

A legal professional familiar with the Linfen church case, who gave only a surname Li, said Shanxi is among the key areas in China being targeted for a crackdown on Protestant house churches, along with Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui and Henan.

“It has been more than a decade now, since the persecution of the Linfen Golden Lamp church in Shanxi began,” Li said.

“Some of the church members were sentenced back then … this shows that the church has been resisting persecution, and that its Christians are keeping their faith,” he said.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under general secretary Xi Jinping regards Christianity as a dangerous foreign import, with party documents warning against the “infiltration of Western hostile forces” in the form of religion.

Authorities in China are detaining Christians in secretive, mobile “transformation” facilities in a bid to make them renounce their faith, a former inmate of a secret facility told RFA in April 2021.

The man said he was held in a facility run by the CCP’s United Front Work Department, working in tandem with the state security police, for 10 months after a raid on his church in 2018.

Another Christian who asked to remain anonymous said that similar facilities are being used across China, not just for Protestants, but also for members of the underground Catholic church, and of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, a target of authorities since 1999.

The Chinese Communist Party, which embraces atheism, exercises tight controls over any form of religious practice among its citizens.

State security police and religious affairs bureau officials frequently raid unofficial “house churches” that aren’t members of the CCP-backed Three-Self Patriotic Association, although member churches have also been targeted at times.

China is home to an estimated 68 million Protestants, of whom 23 million worship in state-affiliated churches under the aegis of the Three-Self Patriotic Association, and some nine million Catholics, the majority of whom are in state-sponsored organizations.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

A revered Uyghur actor and acting teacher has been detained for three years in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, RFA confirmed last week through sources in the region.

The case of Qeyum Muhammad, known as the “grandmaster of performers” for teaching younger Uyghur performing artists and comedians, was uncovered by the Uyghuryar Foundation, a Norway-based Uyghur advocacy and aid organization which maintains a list of detained Uyghur intellectuals.

The Uyghuryar Foundation has been tracking the actor since his sudden disappearance from the stage, forums, and venues in 2017. He worked as an associate professor at the Xinjiang Arts Institute in the XUAR’s capital Urumqi (in Chinese, Wulumuqi) and was a mentor to the stars when he vanished from public life.

Through calls to people in the XUAR who know Qeyum, RFA has confirmed that that the actor has been in captivity for three years.

A staff member at the Xinjiang Arts Institute, who declined to be identified so as to speak freely, said that Qeyum had been detained for some time, but did not say when or why he was investigated and detained.

“I would not call it a detention but an investigation, but I do not know much about the reason behind it,” said the staff member.

A second official at the art institute confirmed that Qeyum had worked there and offered to give an RFA reporter a phone number to get more information about him, but no one answered when the number was called.

A third art institute official who oversees political affairs at the college said that authorities had taken away Qeyum three years ago, but added that he did not know what happened to him afterwards.

“I do not know how many years he was sentenced to, but it’s been more than two or three years since he was detained, the official told RFA. “I do not know the reason he was detained.”

The jailing of Uyghur cultural leaders and intellectuals, which has intensified since 2016, is part of a set of policies has been deemed by the U.S. and others as constituting genocide. The abuses also include forced labor at factories and farms, forced birth control, and the detention of up to 1.8 million Uyghurs in a network of internment camps.

Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFA’s Uyghur Service. Translated Mamatjan Juma. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

Hong Kong’s public broadcaster will soon be required to step its “patriotic” content and air shows and movies lauding the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the city’s leader has revealed.

Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) will rebroadcast content produced by China’s state media, to build a sense of patriotism and “Chinese identity” among the city’s seven million residents, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam said on Monday.

Lam told a broadcasting launch event marking the CCP centenary in Hong Kong that RTHK would form a long-term partnership with the state-owned China Media Group and “coordinate with the group’s work on Hong Kong.”

She said RTHK’s TV 31 channel would also be airing a range of dramas and documentaries produced by China’s state broadcaster CCTV.

Lam said she was “a fan” of CCTV, and that the China-produced content would “nurture a stronger sense of patriotism.”

TV31, which has been screening “The Glory of Youth” since July 19 in honor of the centenary, will start to air “The Great Journey,” a film about key moments in CCP history.

RTHK is also expected to produce more of its own programs aimed at promoting the national security law, which was imposed on Hong Kong by the CCP from July 1, 2020, and increased integration with neighboring cities in mainland China.

RTHK said it had a duty to fulfill its mission as a public service broadcaster.

“Broadcasting more mainland programs and developing a long-term partnership with the China Media Group is in line with the charter,” the broadcaster said in a statement on Monday.

‘How can you build your patriotism?’

Wang Songmiao, secretary general of the CCP’s Central Liaison Office in Hong Kong, said in a speech at the same event that it would be fitting for Hong Kong audiences to see more content generated by China’s state-controlled media.

“As we all know, Hong Kong belongs to China, and the CCP is China’s ruling party,” Wang said. “As a citizen, if you don’t have a comprehensive and accurate understanding of the history of your country and its ruling party, how can you build your patriotism?”

“Chinese culture, including party history and national history, is the spiritual bond that maintains all Chinese people, including our compatriots in Hong Kong,” Wang told guests at the launch event.

He said the Liaison Office would also run a series of exhibitions, public forums and educational activities on the history of the CCP and the People’s Republic of China.

Political columnist To Yiu-ming said the move would likely have an impact on people’s sense of what it means to be a Hongkonger.

“Doing more propaganda and reducing criticism will only serve to blur the difference between right and wrong, or even distort them altogether,” To told RFA.

“Public broadcasters are supposed to provide a platform for people to exchange opinions without fear,” he said. “If we start hearing more and more of one side of the debate, the debate will atrophy around a rigid sense of political correctness.”

“This will hinder free discussion, engender fear and prevent impartiality,” he said.

Current affairs commentator Johnny Lau said the move is part of the CCP’s ideological campaign to win hearts and minds in Hong Kong in the wake of the 2019 protest movement.

“They use propaganda as an educational tool, hoping to have more of an impact on the next generation,” Lau said. “Little pink CCP supporters have been absorbing this kind of ideology for a long time now.”

He said that the move marks the “loss” of RTHK as a genuine public service broadcaster, however.

Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.