Beijing Curbs Religious Rights

By Maureen Fan - Washington Post
Monday, August 11, 2008 - Web Link
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August 10, 2008

China describes itself as a religiously tolerant society, one that allows its citizens to worship freely. This week, per Olympic tradition, it is extending that same freedom to athletes in the form of worship rooms in the Olympic Village, each dedicated for the world's major religions.

Worshipers also have at their disposal dozens of foreign clerics; 10,000 English-Chinese Bibles emblazoned with the Olympics logo; and an electric organ, for Catholics.

But religious freedom does not extend beyond the heavily secured perimeter fence of the Olympic Green.

In this Olympic year, government officials have sharply tightened restrictions on religion, arresting leaders of unregistered "house churches," stepping up harassment of congregations, denying visas to foreign missionaries and shutting down places of worship, church members and religious activists said.

The crackdown is part of a security campaign that has targeted human rights advocates, domestic dissidents and petitioners -- anyone who might interfere with the ruling Communist Party's efforts to showcase China as a harmonious society in which the government maintains a firm grip on power.

"How can this be called a harmonious society? If it's harmonious, we'd have a right to stay in Beijing and attend the Olympics," said Zhang Mingxuan, a house church pastor and activist who was kicked out of the capital by police recently, temporarily detained Sunday and then arrested again by public security police in Henan province Thursday.