In several cities across China, the officials are intensifying their campaign against religion by carrying out propaganda work at schools.
On September 22, a school in Zhejiang’s Wenzhou city held a conference to discuss the issue of religious belief. During the meeting, the school leadership emphasized that the state views religious belief to be conflicting with CCP’s ideology and for that reason, teachers and students must refrain from religious thought as well.
It was revealed that the authorities want the atmosphere at the school campus to be such that teachers neither believe nor propagate any religion. Students should also be discouraged from believing and they shouldn’t have access to any religious content, especially at school.
The same day, the Wenzhou municipal government also held inspections to determine the number of schoolteachers who held positions at government-controlled religious sites across the city.
The next week, at a school in Shanxi’s Shuozhou city, teachers read a CCP-issued document in class and told their students, “You are forbidden to participate in all kinds of religious practices including Catholic, Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic activities. If you know anyone who believes in God, you must convince him or her against it or report the person to a teacher.” At the end of it, the teachers threatened the students saying, “If you know something and don’t speak up, you are covering up a crime.”
Ever since August, authorities in the city have been distributing propaganda materials to newly enrolled students about the government’s efforts towards “cleaning up gang crime and eliminating evil.”
As Bitter Winter reported earlier, this nation-wide campaign is also organized to crackdown on religious beliefs, and the authorities use the same methods as those employed for eliminating gang crime. For example, the propaganda materials mention “reporting locations” where students can report religious individuals.
Reported by Lin Yijiang
