• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS GLOBAL
    • TESTIMONIES GLOBAL
    • OP-EDS GLOBAL
    • FEATURED GLOBAL
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
    • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / Testimonies China

Baoji City Orders to Seal Temples with Bricks and Concrete

12/28/2019Zhou Xiaolu |

The government of this Shaanxi Province city has adopted drastic measures to implement orders from Beijing to eradicate Buddhist, Taoist, and folk religion temples.

by Zhou Xiaolu

Since April, people in Baoji city in the northwestern province of Shaanxi started noticing that doors and windows in some buildings started being blocked with bricks and concrete, and propaganda slogans promoting the core socialist values appeared on them.

To implement the central government’s orders, the municipal authorities have launched a campaign to eradicate temples in the city and its administered counties of Qishan, Qianyang, Mei, and Long, as well as other areas under the jurisdiction. Many Buddhist, Taoist, and folk religion temples that have not yet been demolished were ordered to be sealed with bricks and concrete.

A great many temples are completely sealed and blocked in Baoxi city in Shaanxi Province
Many Baoxi city’s temples have been sealed with bricks.

“All our town’s temples have been demolished, except for two,” a resident in a village under the jurisdiction of Jinqu town in Mei county told Bitter Winter. “One of them, the Guandi temple, was spared for now, because believers managed to persuade the government by saying that the demolition would bring disasters.”

“The state has adopted a national policy that all the temples, licensed or unlicensed, should be sealed,” said a local government official form a Baoji city-administered locality. “Officials from every level of government are very ‘concerned’ about the temples in villages and townships. Group after group of officials drive to temples in various areas every day for investigations and inspections, to make sure that the temples have been closed down.”

A government official told believers while shutting down their temple in March that if it’s doors and windows are not blocked with bricks, they would still manage to sneak in.

Many Buddhist and Taoist temples have also been stifled in the central province of Hubei, closed down or demolished during earlier operations to suppress religions in the area. Because some monks and nuns have returned to the shutdown temples in secret as they had nowhere else to go, local governments now made them impenetrable by blocking their doors and windows.

Many temples in Hubei Province have been completely sealed and blocked
Many temples in Hubei Province have been completely sealed.

“I’ve been a Buddhist nun for more than 20 years. Where should I go now?” a nun from Hubei’s Huangshi city asked when the Religious Affairs Bureau notified her about the closure of her temple last year.

She told Bitter Winter that she had repeatedly applied for official permits for the temple, spending a lot of money, but the government still has never approved her application.

“Officials from the Religious Affairs Bureau said that I could not get the permit even though I had given them money and that the temple would still be sealed and perhaps be demolished,” the nun said.

The nun was devastated when the master, with whom she had practiced Buddhism for years, died from a sudden heart attack several minutes after they received the notice about the shutdown of the temple.

According to some calculations, from April to October, in Hubei’s Jingmen city alone, at least 20 temples were forcibly demolished, 78 temples had their doors sealed and blocked, and the state repurposed one temple.

Tagged With: Buddhism, Taoism

bw-profile
Zhou Xiaolu

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • The Xuanzang Temple Incident: Who Was the Agent Provocateur?

    The Xuanzang Temple Incident: Who Was the Agent Provocateur?

  • Megastatue of Buddha Destroyed in Sichuan

    Megastatue of Buddha Destroyed in Sichuan

  • China’s Strange Battle Against Buddhists Releasing Mineral Water into Rivers

    China’s Strange Battle Against Buddhists Releasing Mineral Water into Rivers

  • Bigu: The CCP Against Taoist Grain-Free Diets and Fasting

    Bigu: The CCP Against Taoist Grain-Free Diets and Fasting

Keep Reading

  • Even Taoists Are Being “Sinicized”: Shanghai Hosted the “First Forum on Sinicization of Taoism”
    Even Taoists Are Being “Sinicized”: Shanghai Hosted the “First Forum on Sinicization of Taoism”

    Taoism is quintessentially Chinese. The campaign confirms that “Sinicizing” religion does not mean making it more Chinese, but more subservient to the CCP.

  • Historical Buddhist Temple Closed in Jiangxi
    Historical Buddhist Temple Closed in Jiangxi

    Not even the fact that it once hosted CCP General Luo Binghui has saved Tianci Ancient Temple in Ji’an.

  • Institute of Tantric Buddhism: The Repression Continues
    Institute of Tantric Buddhism: The Repression Continues

    Founder Master Lobsang Dechen (Wang Xingfu) was sentenced to 25 years as a “cult” leader guilty of fraud and sexual abuse. His disciples continue to be arrested.

  • China Cracks Down on the Bodhi Gong Movement
    China Cracks Down on the Bodhi Gong Movement

    The international group, known internationally as Bodhi Meditation, may now have more practitioners abroad, but is still active in China despite a long repression.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

MOST READ

  • Why the Unification Church Should Not Be Dissolved. 2. Dissolving Would Be Contrary to the Law by Tatsuki Nakayama
  • China’s Strange Battle Against Buddhists Releasing Mineral Water into Rivers by Gladys Kwok
  • Why the Unification Church Should Not Be Dissolved. 3. The Truth About “Spiritual Sales” and “Excessive Donations” by Tatsuki Nakayama
  • China Promotes a “Confucianized” Approach to the Holy Quran by Ma Wenyan
  • Anti-Religious Social Credit Targets Southern Mongolian Peasants by Zeng Liqin
  • France: Rémi Mogenet, a Victim of Anti-Cultism, Testifies by Massimo Introvigne
  • Why the Unification Church Should Not Be Dissolved. 4. The Witch Hunt Should Be Stopped by Tatsuki Nakayama

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY