New rules on religious affairs in China will not lead to more freedoms and instead could signal a tougher time for underground churches and groups not officially sanctioned, analysts said yesterday.
The regulations, to take effect on March 1, were made public Sunday by official media which said they were to safeguard religious freedom and human rights.
But the main tone of the regulations has not changed -- they still stress the overruling importance of state interests over religious affairs.
"Religious bodies, activities and believers should abide by the Constitution, laws and regulations to safeguard national unity, racial harmony and social stability," a clause says.
Analysts said the rules, which protect only the legal rights of state-sanctioned religious groups, meant non-state-sanctioned ones such as Christian house churches or other religious sects would be worse off.
"It is a two-edged sword," said Chan Kim-kwong, a China expert at the Hong Kong Christian Council. "In terms of implementation, it is now clear what they should supervise, or what they shouldn't bother with."
Under the clearer regulations, there would be less room for maneuver for individual groups not registered with the state -- as in the often ambiguous rules of the past, he said.
"For those which are not registered, Chinese government's dismissal of them in terms of banning or punishment will be stepped up," he said.
"These groups will have even less room for survival. When the grey areas have gone and if you're not registered, you won't be in the game anymore," he said.
China, largely atheist, officially sanctions five religious groups: Protestant and Catholic Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Taoism.
Chinese are allowed to worship only in state-sanctioned churches and temples and authorities regularly crack down on groups outside of the government's control, shutting underground house churches and arresting practitioners.
The new regulations clarify the areas of supervisory responsibility of various government departments and the sorts of religious activities, projects and publications that should come under state control.
Nicolas Becquelin, research director of Human Rights in China, said it indicated a stepping up of the supervision of religions.
"We're still talking about a socialist atheist state with the dominant ideology that religion is a bad thing," he said. "But over the past 20 years the state has moved from trying to stamp out religion to trying to manage it."
He noted that the rules still required religious groups to register with the state -- a de-facto approval process which has barred myriad groups from being recognized as legal religious entities.
"The government is still using registration to enforce political control and there is no way to appeal the process," Becquelin said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS