Antireligious campaigns in the People's Republic of China are a series of policies and practices which have been carried out as part of theChinese Communist Party's official promotion ofstate atheism, coupled with its persecution of people withspiritual or religious beliefs, in thePeople's Republic of China.[3][4][5] Antireligious campaigns were launched in 1949, after theChinese Communist Revolution, and they have continued to be waged againstBuddhists,Christians,Muslims, and members of other religious communities in China.[6]
State campaigns againstreligion have escalated sinceXi Jinping becameChinese Communist Party general secretary in 2012.[7] For Christians, government decrees have mandated the widespread removal of crosses from churches, and in some cases, they have also mandated the destruction ofhouses of worship.[8][9] In Tibet, similar decrees have mandated the destruction ofTibetan Buddhistmonastic centers, sacred sites, and monastic residences; the denial of the Tibetans' right to freely access their cultural heritage; and the ongoing persecution ofhigh Buddhist lamas as well as Buddhist nuns and monks. Thepersecution initiated in 1999 byJiang Zemin againstFalun Gong continues unabated with widespread surveillance, arbitrary detention, imprisonment, and torture. In Xinjiang, the CCP has arbitrarily detained more than a million Muslims ininternment camps. In addition, the CCP's policies have includedforced labor, suppression ofUyghur religious practices, andpolitical indoctrination.
The Nationalist government of the Republic of China banned the professional practices of the "three aunties and six grannies": Buddhist and Daoist nuns, female fortune-tellers, female healers, female shamans, procuresses, female matchmakers, brothel madams, and midwives.[10]: 11 In its campaign against superstition, the Nationalist government condemned men who practiced arts deemed superstitious as disreputable, deeming them "unproductive" and "useless to society."[10]: 12 Male ritual professions condemned in this way included shamans, fortune tellers, and geomancers, among others.[10]: 12
The Communist Party of China's first mass campaign against superstition occurred inYan'an in 1944 and 1945.[10]: 2 The campaign sought to eliminate shamanic ritual practices, reform shamans into productive workers, and to promote public health and hygiene.[10]: 3
CCP's antireligious campaigns dated back to 1949, when the CCP denounced religions as being associated with "foreign cultural imperialism," "feudalism," and "superstition."[11]
During theKorean War, the United States froze all Chinese assets in the United States and banned the transfer of funds from the United States to within the PRC.[12]: 50 Among the effects of these policies was cutting off funding for American-affiliated cultural institutions in China, including Christian colleges and religious institutions.[12]: 50 The PRC responded by nationalizing American-affiliated cultural institutions, including religious ones.[12]: 50
As a result of antireligious campaigns which were waged between 1950 and 1979, all churches,mosques, and temples were closed andre-education was imposed upon clergy.[13]
According toFreedom House, during theCultural Revolution (1966–1976), the CCP "imprisoned thousands of monks and nuns, destroyed all but 11 ofTibet's 6,200 monasteries, and burned sacred texts."[14] The possession of religious texts was also criminalized.[15] Monks were beaten or killed, and many Tibetans escaped with sacred texts andcompiled teachings in exile communities in India.[16]
In 1982, the CCP issuedThe Basic Viewpoint on the Religious Question during our Country’s Socialist Period, commonly known as Document 19, that repudiated certain policies of the Cultural Revolution but also asserted that "communists are atheists and must unremittingly propagate atheism."[17]
On July 20, 1999, the Chinese government, led byJiang Zemin from 1989 to 2002, commenced thepersecution of Falun Gong.[18][19] It called for the "education of Marxist materialism and atheism" to counter Falun Gong.[20] People practicing in public or disseminating Falun Gong books would be jailed, according to state media.[18][21]
TheWashington Post reported that Jiang Zemin alone decided that Falun Gong must be eliminated.[22]Human Rights Watch observed that the persecution against Falun Gong reflects the CCP's belief that "religion is inherently subversive, a vehicle for foreign and domestic anti-China forces."[23]
In December 1999, four high-profile Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced to between 16 and 18 years in prison.[24] 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.[25][26] An April 2000Wall Street Journal 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.[27]
According to reports, Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to medical testing and had their organs forcibly removed since 1999.[28][29][30] 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] It referenced accounts from Falun Gong practitioners who underwent medical testing consistent with the requirements for organ transplants.[31]
In 1989, violent repression spread in Tibet afterprolonged rebellions against Chinese rule. Under the local authority ofHu Jintao, then CCP Secretary of Tibet, possibly hundreds of Tibetans were killed. Martial Law was declared for a year, until 30 April 1990, during which, hundreds more were killed and thousands imprisoned[32] under Jiang's Beijing authority and Hu's local authority. Hu was later promoted to top leadership posts for his work.[33]
In 1991, while crafting policy towards Tibetan Buddhists, Jiang's preliminary decree stated reincarnated lamas must be approved by China's central government.[34] The decree was later revised and termedState Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5 in 2007, during the administration of Hu Jintao.[35]
In 1992, Jiang's government formally accepted the14th Dalai Lama's official recognition and the enthronement ofOrgyen Trinley Dorje as the reincarnated 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, spiritual leader of theKarma Kagyu school. The recognition process was led by the 3rdJamgon Kongtrul, who died in a mysterious car crash earlier in 1992. TheKarmapa, along with theDalai Lama and thePanchen Lama, are highly respected by Tibetans and considered to be living Buddhas. By 1999, theKarmapa escaped to India, afterwards pointing to interference by the Chinese government in his spiritual leadership and studies as his motive.[36][37]
Also in 1992, 13 monks fromDrepung Monastery were arrested on 12 May for protesting peacefully. Samdup was jailed for seven years, and in 2020, became the fourth former political prisoner to die from medical complications within the previous six months.[38]
In 1994, a Chinese policy called "grasping with both hands" was implemented in Tibet, targeting Tibetan Buddhism and culture. It was credited with leading to the2008 Tibetan unrest.[39]
On May 17, 1995, Jiang's government officially reversed its acceptance policy of recognized re-incarnated lamas and of Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leaders, and abductedGedhun Choekyi Nyima, the 11th Panchen Lama, three days after his official recognition by the Dalai Lama.Chadrel Rinpoche and two others involved in the recognition process were also disappeared, then imprisoned. Months later, in November, Jiang's government installed its proxy Panchen Lama,Gyaltsen Norbu. The recognized 11th Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, continues to be forcibly detained in an unknown location.[40][41]
In 1996, Jiang's administration officially banned all photographs of Tibet's spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama.[42]
By March 1998, theCentral 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]
In 2001, the Chinese government began persecuting and forcibly evicting nuns and monks studying atLarung Gar Buddhist Academy andYarchen Gar in Tibet.[44]
Christianity was the religion most systemically discriminated against in China prior to the founding of the People's Republic of China.[45]: 351 Chinese emperors were concerned of whether foreign authorities, particularly the Vatican, would gain control over Chinese Christians.[45]: 351–352 Many Chinese people were concerned that Christianity would replace traditional Chinese cultural identity.[45]: 352
According to Human Rights Watch, Christians who met in private homes, including those involved in underground churches and house churches, and did not register with the authorities, were repeatedly detained, fined, or harassed by the police. On January 27, 1994, Huang Fangxin was arrested and labeled a "ringleader of an illegal religious organization" due to his involvement in "illegal religious" activities, which included organizing a gospel team.[46]
Harsher punishments, including lengthy imprisonment terms, were imposed on those identified by the authorities as leaders of "illegal" religious groups. In 1996, it was reported that some Christians in Zhoukou, Henan Province, were so frightened that they dared not stay in their homes. Instead, they had to sleep and worship in the fields.[47]
In August 2000, the authorities arrested 130 members of an underground Christian church in central China. According to reports, the family church group had 500,000 members and refused to register with the authorities. 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.[48]
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.[49]
On May 18, 1996, state mediaXinjiang Daily under Jiang's administration, published a commentary on the government policy, stating "Freedom of religious belief is not freedom for religion."[47] According toEthan 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.[50] "Each year, about 25,000-50,000 captive Uyghurs go missing," wrote Gutmann.[50] Other reports also concluded the targeted populations of state-sanctioned organ harvest include Uyghurs in Xinjiang in addition to Falun Gong.[31][51]
Under theHu–Wen Administration from 2002 to 2012, land redevelopment was used as a form of religious persecution, while the demolition of spiritually sacred buildings and sites was undertaken.[52]
In June 2005, Gao Rongrong, a 37-year-old accountant from Liaoning Province, died in custody after two years at the LongshanForced Labor Camp.[53] According toAmnesty International, she had been tortured with electric shocks to her face and neck, resulting in severe burns.[53]
In January 2008, police detained musician Yu Zhou and his wife after finding CDs and printed materials about Falun Gong in their car. Zhou was taken into custody and died 10 days later.[54][55] His wife was sentenced to three years in a forced labor camp.[54]
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."[56] "The government's campaign against the group has been so thorough that even long-time Chinese activists are afraid to say the group's name aloud," according to the report.[56]
In 2006, Tibetans were arrested after responding to calls from the Dalai Lama to burn animal skin clothing. Bonfires spread throughout Tibet as a form of defiance.[57]
On 13 July 2007, the State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5 was passed, requiring reincarnated lamas and religious institutions in Tibet to apply for permission with state bureaus so as to be considered legal.[35]
The persecution of Tibetan Buddhists escalated under Hu Jintao, leading to the2008 Tibetan unrest. The uprising is described as the biggest challenge to China's invasion since 1959.[58] As unrest over Chinese persecution grew, waves of protests began, including street demonstrations, which were met with excessive force.[59] A mass arrest of 280 monks at theLabrang Monastery was reported during this time, as was torture during confinement.[citation needed]
A farming boycott began in 2009 in protest for those people detained or "disappeared" into the CCP's custody. Civil disobedience became widespread, as all the monks in a Jomda, Chamdo province monastery deserted in June 2009 instead of participating in "patriotic education".[60]
Acts of self-immolation began in 2009 atKirti Monastery.[61] In 2010, two Tibetan laypeople were killed while trying to stop a mass arrest of approximately 300 monks at Kirti Monastery.[62][63]
In 2011, China's foreign ministry announced only Beijing could appoint the 15th Dalai Lama.[64] A monk at Nyitso monastery, Tsewang Norbu, self-immolated after chanting "Long live the Dalai Lama" and "Tibetan people want freedom". The non-profit organizationFree Tibet said telephone and internet services were subsequently cut to keep the news from spreading, and the monastery's utilities had been repeatedly cut. AuthorTsering Woeser said that Chinese security forces surrounded the monastery on the same night of Tsewang Norbu's death.[63]
The Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party, led by Xi Jinping from 2012 to the present, intensified antireligious campaigns in the country.[65][66] In 2016, Xi called for "improved religious work" by uniting religious and non-religious people, and emphasizing that members of the Chinese Communist Party must act as "unyieldingMarxist atheists".[67]
In September 2019, theUN Human Rights Council was told by theChina Tribunal that the Government of China "is harvesting and selling organs from persecuted religious and ethnic minorities on an industrial scale".[68] 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".[68]
Although Xi Jinping abolished the "reeducation through labor" system in 2013,[69]Amnesty International reported that Falun Gong practitioners are among those particularly at risk of torture.[70] 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.[71] Reports express concerns that the CCP subjects Falun Gong practitioners and ethnic Uyghurs to organ harvesting.[72][73]
According to a report by theTibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, under Xi Jinping, the widespread targeting of Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, together with the persecution of ordainedKhenpos, nuns, and monks, escalated.[74] Han Chinese settling in Tibet also continues.[75]
Massive redevelopment projects, including railways, mines, roadways, dams, and shopping centers forcibly displace Tibetans and erode the environment.[76] From 2015 to the present, farmlands and ancestral nomadic grazing lands are also being confiscated from Tibetans.[77]
Reports state that administrators of monasteries have been replaced by police or by people considered government infiltrators, while military surveillance units have been installed at Kirti Monastery, Yarchen Gar, Shak Rongpo Gaden Dargyeling Monastery, and at other monasteries, along withCCTV cameras.[78][79] 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.[80][81]
Some also express concerns that construction and tourism are eroding Tibetan culture.[82] By 2020, after Chinese state-sponsored tourist agencies funneled people from inner China toLhasa, reports stated that the tourists disrupted ceremonies, were disrespectful to Tibetan customs, and threw trash around sacred sites. Police support the tourists confronted by complaints.[83]
Reports also indicate tourism is used to disrupt monastic life within Buddhist monasteries.[62] Monastic residences of nuns and monks were demolished before mass evictions began in 2016 atLarung Gar, in 2019 at Yarchen Gar, in 2013 at Jhada Gon Palden Khachoe Nunnery, and elsewhere. For Yarchen Gar alone, almost six thousand monks and nuns were evicted from their homes.[84] Between 2017 and 2018, at least 4,820 Tibetan and Han Chinese monks and nuns were removed from Larung Gar, and over 7,000 dwellings and other structures were demolished, which began in 2001.[84][85] Reports indicate that nuns and nunneries are targeted for demolition more often than those of monks.[citation needed] Tourist accommodations and roads replaced the residences, or are planned for the sites where residences were demolished. Other monasteries are partially renovated for tourist accommodations, whose proximity disrupts daily life.[62]
After the mass evictions, nuns and monks were bused away, and reportedly detained in re-education centers.[75] Among others, an identified re-education center is named Ningtri.[86] Reports include beatings and the torture of monastics and laypeople at re-education centers, and in jails after arrests.[87]
In 2016, the CCP commenced a campaign tosinicize religion, which intensified after 2018.[88][89] Thesinicization of Tibet was condemned by the Dalai Lama as cultural cleansing.[90]
The ethnic cleansing policies in Tibet were managed by hardlinerChen Quanguo, before his 2016 transfer to govern Xinjiang.[91] A United States Department of State report in 2019 documented incidents of sexual abuse, rape, and gender-based violence at the Chinese detention centers.[92]
In April 2019, the Chinese police-enforced ban against photographs of the Dalai Lama spread to remote areas of Tibet.[93]
Under Xi Jinping's authority, the CCP's cultural and political "Sinicization" policies have been implemented in schools to indoctrinate Tibetan children with the CCP's ideology.[94] According toUnited Nations Special Rapporteurs in 2023, Tibetan children are forced to complete acompulsory education curriculum in Mandarin Chinese as part of the CCP's policy offorced assimilation.[95]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.[96]
The persecution of members of other spiritual organizations is also continuing under Xi Jinping. JournalistIan Johnson noted that officials have targeted Christianity, and Islam, with particular intensity because of their perceived foreign ties.[97] In the Chinese province ofZhejiang alone, over 1200Christian crosses have been removed from theirsteeples since 2013.[98][99]
In August 2017, inShanxi province, a number of Catholic priests and supporters were injured while preventing a government-owned bulldozer from demolishing a church-owned property—an old factory building allocated to the Church as restitution for a church-owned property destroyed in 1992. Local authorities unanimously decided the condition of the property met the criteria for demolition, as required by the city's plannedtransportation network project. However, the diocese complained they were denied an opportunity to negotiate, and were given no assurance of fair compensation.[100][101] In February 2018, government authorities inKashgar, "launched an anti-religion propaganda drive through local police stations", which included policemen erecting a banner proclaiming, "We Must Solemnly Reject Religion, Must Not Believe in Religion".[102]
In December 2018, Chinese officials raided Christianhouse churches just prior to Christmas and coerced their owners to close them down. Christmas trees and Santa Clauses were also removed.[103][104] In 2018, theUnited Front Work Department initiated a crackdown on large outdoor religious statues.[105][106]
The government of China continued topersecute Christians during the 2019COVID-19 pandemic, demolishing the Xiangbaishu Church inYixing and removing a Christian Cross from the steeple of a church inGuiyang County.[107] InShandong Province, "officials issued guidance forbidding online preaching, a vital way for churches to reach congregants amid both persecution and the spread of the virus".[108][107]
In 2020, the Chinese government put additional regulations in place to restrict religious education and proselytizing.[109] It issued new regulations in September 2025, limiting religious activity online to channels registered with the authorities.[110] In October 2025, the Chinese government arrested dozens ofZion Church members in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and other cities.[110][111]
By November 2018, the Chinese government had detained over one million Uyghurs ininternment camps as part of athought reform campaign, "where Uyghur Muslims are remade into atheist Chinese subjects"[52][112][113] and subjected to forced labor.[114][115] For children forcibly taken away from their parents, the Chinese government has established kindergartens with the aim of combating 'three evil forces' (separatism, extremism, and terrorism), and "converting future generations of Uyghur Muslim children into loyal subjects who embrace atheism".[116][117][113][118] According to estimates from theAustralian Strategic Policy Institute, under Xi Jinping, thousands of mosques and Muslim religious sites were damaged or destroyed in China.[119] The Chinese government has intensified its repression by using artificial intelligence facial recognition cameras against the Uyghurs, both outside and inside places of worship.[120][121][122] Government campaigns against Islam have extended to theHui people andUtsul community in Hainan.[123][124][125][126]
Chinese officials did not acknowledge the existence of any sort of internment camps. 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.[127] Muslim prisoners in detention centers and internment camps have faced practices such as beingforce-fed pork.[128] Prohibitions on fasting duringRamadan are couched in terms of protecting residents' free will.[129]
In November 2019, the internment centers were described in the leakedXinjiang papers.[52][130]
A 2020Associated Press investigation found that in an effort to reduce the Muslim population, the state subjects minority women to pregnancy checks and imposes intrauterine devices (IUDs), sterilization, and abortion on hundreds of thousands. While the use of IUDs and sterilization had declined in China, it had sharply increased in Xinjiang.[131][132] TheUnited States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) cautioned that China's oppressive population control policies targeting Uyghurs and other Muslim groups—including forced sterilization—could legally constitute genocide under international law.[133]
TheKaifeng Jewish community has reported increasing suppression by the authorities since 2015, reversing the modest revival it experienced in the 1990s. The observance of public religious services and the celebration of religious festivals likePassover andSukkot have been prohibited, and Jewish community groups have been shut down.[134]
In 2025, the Chinese government banned congregations ofThe Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in China throughout the country.[135]
On September 4, 2000, theU.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a release stating the "already deplorable" China's record on religious freedom had "further deteriorated," citing "reliable press reports" of religious repression against Falun Gong, Zhong Gong, Uighur Muslims, Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians and Tibet Buddhists.[136]
On July 24, 2002,U.S. House of Representatives passed a unanimous resolution (House Concurrent Resolution 188) condemning the persecution of Falun Gong in China.[137]
In June 2020, theUyghur Human Rights Policy Act was signed into law in the United States in response to the internment camps in Xinjiang.[138] In December 2021, theUyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act became law to ensure that American entities do not fundforced labor in Xinjiang.[139][140] The law presumes that all goods originating from Xinjiang, where Beijing has established internment camps, are produced using forced labor.[139][140]
In December 2020, theTibet Policy and Support Act became law in the United States in support of Tibetan Buddhists' right to determine Dalai Lama succession.[141][142]
In March 2023, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023, which would impose sanctions and penalties on individuals involved in state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting, particularly targeting the Falun Gong and Uyghur communities.[143]
In May 2023, U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Jeff Merkley introduced the Uyghur Genocide Accountability and Sanctions Act (UGSA) to hold the CCP accountable for human rights abuses against Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang.[144] In April 2024, the U.S. Congressional Uyghur Caucus introduced the House's version of the UGASA.[145]
In June 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Falun Gong Protection Act, which seeks to impose sanctions on anyone involved in involuntary organ harvesting, with an emphasis on those targeting Falun Gong members.[146][147]
This virulent anti-religion campaign seems to be officially linked to the development plan for western Tibet, for which social stability is necessary (see Part VIII, "Economic Development," below). But the hardening of this policy in Tibet is probably another consequence of the spread ofatheism which was launched in China, in response to the religious problems which are mentioned above, including problems inside the Party.
Interestingly, atheist campaigns were most effective againsttraditional Chinese religions andBuddhism, whereasChristian,Jewish andMuslim communities not only survived these campaigns, but they were some of the most vocal centers of political opposition to the government as a consequence of them.
The Chinese Communist Party has launched a three-year drive to promote atheism in the Buddhist region of Tibet, saying it is the key to economic progress and a weapon against separatism as typified by the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama. The move comes amid fresh foreign reports of religious persecution in the region, which was invaded by China in 1950.
'It's hardly celebrated here at all,' he said. 'We had this break in our history—you know, the missionaries being expelled in 1949 and then the anti-religious campaigns—so a lot has been lost. A lot of people don't really know too much about Lent. We had a service trying to reintroduce the idea and explain it'.
The profusion of churches seems to have unnerved some Chinese authorities, who have undertaken a campaign to tear down hundreds of crosses, and in some instances entire churches, in Zhejiang, a coastal province where a prosperous Christian community and large numbers of churches have taken root.
Subsequently, a new China was found on the basis of Communist ideology, i.e. atheism. Within the framework of thisideology, religion was treated as a 'contorted' world-view and people were taught to believe that it would eventually disappear, an inevitable result of the development of human societies. A series of anti-religious campaigns was implemented by the Chinese Communist Party from the early 1950s to the late 1970s. As a result, in nearly 30 years between the beginning of the 1950s and the end of the 1970s, mosques (as well as churches and Chinese temples) were shut down andImams were subjected to forced 're-education'.
Seeking a complete annihilation of religion, places of worship were shut down; temples, churches, and mosques were destroyed; artifacts were smashed; sacred texts were burnt; and it was a criminal offence even to possess a religious artifact or sacred text. Atheism had long been the official doctrine of the Chinese Communist Party, but this new form of militant atheism made every effort to eradicate religion completely.
Yet in the first years after Liberation there were places in China where monasteries were destroyed, monks were beaten or killed, copies of the Buddhist canon were burned, and sacred images were melted down for their metal.
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was nominated as the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama the second most important figure in Tibetan religion, culture and politics after the Dalai Lama himself. But China disagreed with the choice and arrested the boy a few days later. Mystery surrounds his fate and outside China he is known as one of the world's youngest political prisoners.
Chinese authorities are skittish about any organization or movement outside party control. In recent years, they have repeatedly tried, without success up to now, to scale back the Serthar settlement and limit study there to nearby residents. This time, according to the International Campaign for Tibet, officials from Beijing as well as the provincial capital, Chengdu, have gone to the site to expel most of the students. The officials have burned down abandoned cabins to limit visitors and declared that the total number of residents should be held to 1,400, according to accounts received by the international campaign.
'There must be effective educational remolding and transformation of criminals,' [Xi] told officials in southern Xinjiang on the second day of his trip. 'And even after these people are released, their education and transformation must continue.' Within months, indoctrination sites began opening across Xinjiang — mostly small facilities at first, which held dozens or hundreds of Uighurs at a time for sessions intended to pressure them into disavowing devotion to Islam and professing gratitude for the party. Then in August 2016, a hard-liner named Chen Quanguo was transferred from Tibet to govern Xinjiang. Within weeks, he called on local officials to 'remobilize' around Mr. Xi's goals and declared that Mr. Xi's speeches 'set the direction for making a success of Xinjiang'.
Police began tearing down crosses in the coastal city of Wenzhou in late 2013, citing building regulations, and have since removed more than 1,200 crosses throughout Zhejiang. The campaign was protested by China's state-approved Catholic and Protestant associations, as well as by Cardinal John Tong Hon of Hong Kong, who appealed to Communist Party chiefs in August to "return to the right path." However, Catholic sources say up to 4,000 crosses may have been targeted for removal from spires and towers, while churches have also been bulldozed and numerous Christians arrested for protesting.
Among those arrested are a prominent pastor and his wife, of theEarly Rain Covenant Church inSichuan. Both have been charged with state subversion. And on Saturday morning, dozens of police raided a children's Bible class at Rongguili Church inGuangzhou. One Christian in Chengdu told the BBC: "I'm lucky they haven't found me yet." China is officially atheist, though says it allows religious freedom.
Christmas is not a recognised holiday in mainland China – where the ruling party is officially atheist – and for many years authorities have taken a tough stance on anyone who celebrates it in public. ... The statement by Langfang officials said that anyone who was caught selling Christmas trees, wreaths, stockings or Santa Claus figures in the city would be punished. ... While the ban on the sale of Christmas goods might appear to be directed at retailers, it also comes amid a crackdown on Christians who are practising their religion across the country. On Saturday morning, more than 60 police officers and officials stormed a children's Bible class in Guangzhou, the capital of southern China's Guangdong province. The incident came after authorities shut down the 1,500-member Zion Church in Beijing in September and Chengdu's 500-member Early Rain Covenant Church last week. In the case of the latter, about 100 worshippers were snatched from their homes or from the streets in coordinated raids.
