As part of the nationwide campaign, the Wuhan city authorities in Hubei Province demolished a 36-meter-tall Guanyin statue in October. The demolition of Buddhist sites is not only an assault on religious liberties but also on the lives of locals who work there.
Bitter Winter continues exposing the lies by Chinese authorities about the “transformation through education” camps. In an interview, an employee in one such internment facilities in Xinjiang spoke about quotas for detainees, the categories into which they are divided, and miserable living conditions.
A new exclusive Bitter Winter video documents the grim reality of the Yingye’er transformation through education camp for Muslim Uyghurs: not a “vocational training center” but a jail by any other name.
As a result of discriminatory policies, Uyghur and Hui citizens are finding it extremely difficult to sell, buy or rent real estate property in Xinjiang, while neighboring provinces are instituting control over hotels accepting Uyghurs.
Refusing to join the government-controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, some priests in Hebei have been forced to leave their churches and now organize secret “guerrilla-like” congregation gatherings.
Authorities ordered the demolition of the Yaochi Palace Temple because it supposedly “violated building laws,” the pretext often used by officials to crack down on religious meeting venues in China.
Since September, the United Front Work Department (UFWD) has launched its first-ever nationwide supervision program initiated by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee to check on the implementation of religious policies in provinces and municipalities across the country.
An internal document from one of the municipalities in this northern province reveals a score-based motivational system for government and Communist Party personnel involved in the crackdown on churches. Top scores are given for the extinction of underground Catholics.
According to an internal document, the CCP is tightening the noose around the flow of information regarding its persecution of religion.
Bao Shuguang, a senior leader of The Church of Almighty God from Shandong, was picked up by authorities in June last year. She and four other church leaders were handed lengthy prison sentences this October.