• 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 / Pictures

Buddhist, Taoist Temples Destroyed Secretly at Night

08/24/2019Zhou Hua |

Authorities across China are demolishing places of worship at odd hours to avoid protests from believers, who are left with no chance to voice their grievances.

by Zhou Hua

Bitter Winter has disclosed numerous incidents of demolished Buddhist and Taoist temples that authorities are cracking down on using a variety of pretexts. Believers lose their places of worship and also suffered considerable financial losses. Threatened and intimidated by the CCP, they have no choice but to suffer in silence.

Temple demolished despite believers’ pleas

Miaolian Temple, a Buddhist temple in Wu’an, a county-level city in the prefecture of Handan, in the northern province of Hebei, was destroyed on May 22. The original temple had a history spanning over 200 years. In 2015, local believers and monks raised money to rebuild it on the site of the old temple. Since then, the temple has served as an important religious activity venue for the local people.

The main hall of Miaolian Temple before it was demolished.
The main hall of Miaolian Temple before it was demolished.

The government claimed that the temple was “unlicensed” and “occupied arable land.” According to village residents, on the day of the demolition, officials expelled all nuns and lay Buddhists from the temple. In an attempt to save their place of worship, believers got on their knees and pleaded with government officials for leniency. “This is a national policy,” one of the officials said arrogantly. “The temple must be demolished! It’s futile for anyone to try stopping it.”

Miaolian Temple has been turned into ruins.
Miaolian Temple has been turned into ruins.

One of the villagers refused to give up. Officials threatened that her son would lose his job if she continued obstructing their work and carried her away from the venue. Another villager was arrested for trying to block the demolition.

After a standoff that lasted until dusk, officials lied to the villagers that they would not demolish the temple’s main hall, and only the side halls would be taken down. But after the villagers had dispersed, the main hall was nevertheless destroyed at night.

Infuriated by the duplicity of the government, one believer commented, “The government not only arrested people and demolished the temple, but even wanted to haul away and sell the steel reinforcing bars left behind after the demolition. They’re no better than bandits and robbers!”

One more temple in Wu’an was also forcibly demolished on the grounds that it “illegally occupied arable land.” More than a dozen statues inside the temple were smashed.

“The temple was rebuilt on the site of an old temple. It didn’t occupy any arable land at all. We received consent from the Land Bureau to rebuild the temple, but now the government is framing us for illegally occupying arable land,” the temple’s owner said helplessly. “Who can resist CCP’s policies?”

Taoist temple secretly demolished early in the morning

On June 6, at 4 a.m., more than 100 personnel from several government departments, including the county’s Religious Affairs Bureau and Public Security Bureau, brought in two large excavators and a front loader to a Taoist temple in Shuangyashan city in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang. The person in charge of the temple never received any prior notice about the planned demolition. Moreover, he was away on a trip that day.

The Taoist temple in Shuangyashan city was razed to the ground.
The Taoist temple in Shuangyashan city was razed to the ground.

According to eyewitnesses, along with the temple building, all statues and other valuables inside it have been turned it into a pile of ruins.

The scene of forced demolition of the Taoist temple.
The scene of forced demolition of the Taoist temple.

A local believer told Bitter Winter that when the temple was built in 2013, its owner signed a land- use contract with the village committee. Despite this, the temple was ordered to be destroyed because it “did not register with the Religious Affairs Bureau.”

The believer also revealed that the temple owner sustained losses of nearly 200,000 RMB (about $ 30,000). Attempting to get justice, he found a lawyer who told him that even though the case had sufficient grounds for a lawsuit, his suggestion was to drop it because this could “offend the Communist Party.” The local government would make the owner’s life extremely difficult, the lawyer said, and the owner was forced to give up his appeal.

Local Taoists were devastated, having lost their place of worship. “As long as the Communist Party says that a venue was illegally built, then it will be demolished, regardless of sufferings by common people,” a believer said. “It’s harsher than during the Cultural Revolution.”

“People don’t dare reason with the Communist Party. They always proclaim to be right, no matter what they say or do,” another believer added. “You have nowhere to seek redress. All you can do is suffer in silence.”

Tagged With: Buddhism, Taoism

bw-profile
Zhou Hua

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • Pakistan: Ancient Buddhist Temple Discovered  - and Vandalized

    Pakistan: Ancient Buddhist Temple Discovered - and Vandalized

  • Supreme Lama of Kalmyk Buddhists Condemns Putin’s Aggression Against Ukraine 

    Supreme Lama of Kalmyk Buddhists Condemns Putin’s Aggression Against Ukraine 

  • Buddhist, Taoist Temples and Statues Destroyed Nationwide

    Buddhist, Taoist Temples and Statues Destroyed Nationwide

  • Buddhist Temples Vandalized in California

    Buddhist Temples Vandalized in California

Keep Reading

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

    A woman left in the Nanjing shrine memorial tablets of Japanese war criminals. The CCP seized the opportunity to promote a nationwide crackdown on temples.

  • Elderly Man Dies Protesting Temple Demolition in Anhui Province
    Elderly Man Dies Protesting Temple Demolition in Anhui Province

    Buddhist and folk religion temples continue to be destroyed across the eastern province of Anhui, as their guardians face government threats and police violence.

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

    Bigu, ancient Chinese techniques of avoiding grains and fasting for several days, became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic. The CCP suspects they are “religious.”

  • Religious Books Burned or Trashed, Printers Jailed
    Religious Books Burned or Trashed, Printers Jailed

    Not content with persecuting believers, the CCP confiscates and destroys Christian texts, Qurans, and Buddhist scriptures.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • Blaming the Victims: The Hamburg Shooting and the Jehovah’s Witnesses by Massimo Introvigne
  • More Uyghur Criticism of Donnie Yen: Wasn’t He More Guilty than Will Smith? by Kok Bayraq
  • The Donnie Yen Fiasco: A Uyghur View by Rebiya Kadeer
  • The “Buddhist and Taoist Clergy Database,” Another CCP Imposture by He Yuyan
  • The Suicide of the Pink-Haired Girl: How the CCP Exploited a Tragedy by Zhou Kexin
  • Second-Generation Unification Church Believers Discriminated in Japan. 3. Media Slander Leads to Discrimination by Masumi Fukuda
  • Russia: Pastor Moskvitin Sentenced to 1.5 Years in Penal Colony for “Brainwashing” by Massimo Introvigne

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