China is increasing its already extremely severe suppression of religious freedom. More than a year ago, at a November 2018 hearing of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, the President of the Religious Freedom Institute, Thomas F. Farr, described China's religious suppression as "the most systematic and brutal attempt to control Chinese religious communities since the Cultural Revolution."
On December 30, 2019, China's Communist Party (CCP) announced new "Administrative Measures for Religious Groups". The measures -- which came into force on February 1, 2020 -- stipulate that religious organizations exist to promote the CCP and its ideology, according to Bitter Winter, a magazine on religious liberty and human rights in China.
According to article 17 of the new measures:
"Religious organizations shall spread the principles and policies of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as national laws, regulations, and rules, to religious staff and religious citizens, and educate and guide religious staff and religious citizens to support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, support the socialist system, and adhere to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics..."
"In practice, your religion no longer matters, if you are Buddhist, or Taoist, or Muslim or Christian: the only religion allowed is faith in the Chinese Communist Party," a Catholic priest said.
The Communist ideology, it seems, does not tolerate competing narratives.
The new administrative measures have been accompanied by an intensification of educational indoctrination. In one city, Bitter Winter notes, schoolchildren were told to sign pledges to stay away from religion. Their parents received letters explaining that children cannot hold religious beliefs "because they are unable to think independently, as they are at a critical stage of development, both physically and mentally, which is crucial for establishing correct outlook on the world, life, and values".
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