Protests were violentlysuppressed after the government of Wenzhou city’s Longgang town illegally soldvillagers’ farmland to a natural gas company. During the resulting protests, oneperson was beaten to death, more than 20 people were seriously injured, andnine were arrested and detained.
This year alone, multiple Protestant Three-Self churches in Henan havebeen closed down or demolished entirely. Many of those that have managed tosurvive, have been turned into places for things other than worship.
Diplomats, media, NGOs, Religions gathered in Geneva to celebrate the Universal Declaration. Bitter Winter was there, to bear witness about the struggle for human rights in China.
All religious decorations and furnishings have been removed from an underground Catholic church in Henan’s Baizhuang village as a punishment for refusing to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
Bitter Winter reported earlier about the harassment from authorities that the House of Eternal Blessing in Fujian and the House of David Church in Guangdong have been suffering in the past few months. Since then, new information has emerged about the predicament of these two house churches.
Hailed by the authorities for years as the “good Muslims” or “model minority,” China’s Hui citizens are experiencing the crackdown on their culture and traditions as part of the anti-Islam campaign in northwestern provinces and regions.
After the central government ordered to demolish all religious statues in Wu’an city, local people decided to conceal 500 Buddhist statues in an attempt to save them. An almost 30-meter-tall statue of Buddha did not survive.
Two Protestant Three-Self churches in Henan Province were recently demolished after a round of harassment and without providing to the congregations any credible explanation for their actions.
A memorial archway at one of the four sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism has been forcibly demolished, and the president of the Mount Jiuhua Buddhist Association has been placed under house arrest.
It’s a common practice for Chinese law enforcement authorities to use hotels and hospitals or entire buildings as secret interrogation and indoctrination bases for religious believers and political dissidents. Bitter Winter has uncovered some such centers in the provinces of Gansu and Shaanxi.