Authorities bereave hundreds of churches of their crosses and intimidate believers

According to the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), the suppressive measures against Christian churches in China has reached a new peak: Following official orders, crosses were removed from church buildings, houses of worship were torn down and Christian people are being intimidated to prevent public protests against the restrictions of religious freedom.

"The wave of attacks affects officially registered churches, but not small house churches that could only exist secretly during the last years," said the STP's Asia-consultant, Ulrich Delius, in Göttingen on Tuesday. In the province of Zhejiang, more than 360 crosses were removed from churches or church ruins since January 2014. The measures are justified by a nationwide action program to combat illegal buildings. This mainly affects church buildings that belong to the officially recognized Three-Self Patriotic Movement, a Chinese Protestant church with about 15 million believers.

But church buildings cannot even be extended legally, because no building permits are issued. "The Chinese leadership is arbitrarily restricts the right to freedom of religion, thus violating the constitutionally guaranteed human rights," criticized Delius. Because of the societal changes, the Christian churches in China are experiencing an unprecedented boom and need to expand their premises urgently due to the growing number of members.

Currently, dozens of church communities in the province of Zhejiang with hundreds of thousands of believers are threatened by destruction or desecration of their houses of worship. The new action plan has caused deep insecurity and anger. In an official letter, the church leaders accuse the authorities of spreading "panic" among the believers. Despite the intimidations, most believers stick to peaceful resistance against the wave of torn down church buildings. In recent weeks, some communities organized 24-hour watch duties for their houses of worship and succeeded in protecting their crosses and in preventing their churches from being desecrated. In some cases, the authorities were only able to carry out their actions by sending demolition units between three and six o'clock in the morning.

In Pingyang district, 135 municipal churches of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement and the Chinese Christian Council have called for peaceful resistance against the coercive measures. However, a silent march of the Christian believers to the district authorities in Wenzhou that was scheduled for last Monday had to be canceled because the police had intimidated the pastors in advance and threatened them with arrests. Nevertheless, the communities have repeatedly stated that they will continue to demonstrate against the violation of their religious freedom.

Ulrich Delius, head of STP's Asia department, is available for further questions: Tel. 0551 49906 27 or asien@gfbv.de.