Topic: China Continues to Tear Down Crosses From Zhejiang's Churches - page 7. (Read 11171 times)
support Chinese christians
Zhejiang’s Christians Are Resisting a Campaign Against Church Crosses
By Dan Southerland
2015-08-11
Hundreds of churchgoers wearing tee shirts vowing to "safeguard religious dignity" protest against the forced removal of crosses from churches in Wenzhou, Aug. 10, 2015.
Photo courtesy of an RFA listener.
For more than a year and a half, officials in one of China’s eastern provinces have been waging an aggressive campaign to remove crosses from Protestant churches.
This may appear unremarkable given the Communist Party leadership’s hostility to organized religious groups worshipping outside China’s official control.
But what’s notable is the parishioners’ unrelenting peaceful resistance to the authorities’ anti-cross campaign.
The churchgoers, many of them located in Zhejiang’s coastal city of Wenzhou, have been remarkably eloquent in writing open letters.
They also sing hymns in front of armed policemen, stage church rooftop protests, and cite China’s own constitution, which promises them freedom of religion.
Protestants in Wenzhou have also recently begun making small red-painted wooden crosses to display across Zhejiang as another form of civil disobedience.
In recent days, some local pastors have been told that the campaign against crosses is being halted, probably due to upcoming ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II, which would bring many high-profile foreign visitors to China.
But Bob Fu, who leads the U.S.-based Christian human rights organization ChinaAid, said that in at least some areas of Zhejiang the cross removal has definitely not stopped.
He referred to a photo of a long crane removing a cross from a church called Sanjie in the city of Shaoxing on August 10.
His estimate of the combined number of churches demolished and crosses removed in Zhejiang comes to more than 1,500 so far.
In some cases, pastors have been detained or arrested. In August, authorities in Zhejiang detained seven Christians on suspicion of crimes including “embezzlement” and public order offenses after they tried to prevent government-hired workers from demolishing a cross on their church.
Why Wenzhou?
The city of Wenzhou, dubbed “China’s Jerusalem” by some, has been a major target of the demolition and cross removal campaign.
Wenzhou may appear threatening to Party officials because many in its large and relatively well-to-do population of middle class entrepreneurs have adopted Christianity as their religion.
They thus combine financial clout with a strong devotion to Christian beliefs.
The majority embrace Protestantism, but some are Roman Catholics, and a few Catholic churches have also been recent targets of demolition teams.
About 15 years ago, the Communist Party reached out to co-opt China’s wealthiest capitalists and entrepreneurs by offering them Party membership.
This has favored some of the richest “red capitalists” in China. But many of the entrepreneurs in Wenzhou are small independent-minded businesspeople who have yet to fully bounce back from a local credit collapse a few years ago.
What may concern the Communist Party leadership more generally has been the Chinese people’s widespread loss of faith in communism over the years and the resulting “spiritual vacuum” in China.
Finally, it may also have shocked some Party stalwarts when even leading members of some of the government-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Churches in Zhejiang spoke out against the cross and church demolition movement.
“The pushback is surprising coming from legally registered churches, which in the past rarely strayed from the Party line,” said Yang Fenggang, director of the Center of Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University in Indiana, in a recent interview with World magazine.
What Next?
Some experts think that what is happening in Wenzhou may be a prelude to an intensified nationwide crackdown on Christian churches, since Communist Party leaders apparently fear any highly organized group operating outside of its control.
As New York-based Freedom House noted in a report last month, signs of a nationwide attack on so-called underground house churches were already evident in 2014.
While some Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations were able “to meet quietly with the tacit approval of local authorities,” Freedom House said, other house church gatherings were “raided or evicted from their meeting locations.”
In Wenzhou local Party leaders were surprisingly tolerant until last year.
A major turning point occurred in late April 2014 in Wenzhou when the huge state-sanctioned Sanjiang Church with an 180-foot spire in Wenzhou was torn down for allegedly violating zoning regulations.
Local officials had earlier praised the $5 million church as a “model construction project” and allowed it to be legally registered.
The destruction of this church, moved the city to “the center of a national battle with a Communist Party increasingly suspicious of the Western values it represents,” reported The New York Times.
Analysts told Radio Free Asia that the huge church had become a too-visible reminder of the numbers of Chinese turning to Protestant Christianity—and of their financial muscle.
Protestant churches
China’s Communist Party members number nearly 88 million according to official sources. But some scholars believe that the country’s Christian population, including a conservative estimate of 60 million or more Protestants, is on its way to exceeding that number if it has not already done so.
And the Protestant faith seems to have attracted an increasing number of Chinese human rights lawyers, many of them a target of a sweeping crackdown this year.
Lawyer Teng Biao, now in the U.S. as a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, told The New York Review of Books that about a fourth of China’s human rights lawyers are Christians because “without God or a belief, a human rights lawyer would feel hopeless.”
A Council on Foreign Relations background report on Christianity in China published in May this year cited experts as saying that Chinese Christians are also attracted to the faith’s “sense of fellowship, comprehensive moral system, organized structure, and solidarity as part of an international movement.”
State policy toward Christian churches
In widely reported remarks on May 20 this year, President Xi Jinping warned against foreign influence on religion in China.
“Active efforts should be made to incorporate religions into socialist society,” Xi said at a high-level Party meeting.
Under Xi, the Chinese government has been promoting traditional Chinese culture and religion, including Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, apparently as a counter to Christianity.
But some experts see the attacks on churches in Zhejiang as part of a much broader assault on all dissent.
A Christian who took part in demonstrations in Wenzhou on Tuesday stressed that churchgoers are law abiding and focused on the cross issue.
“We are here to express our feelings to the cross. We are Christians, we are peace-loving people. We feel very sad that our crosses have been torn down, but we won’t go on the street or act against the government,” said the follower, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
By Dan Southerland
2015-08-11
Hundreds of churchgoers wearing tee shirts vowing to "safeguard religious dignity" protest against the forced removal of crosses from churches in Wenzhou, Aug. 10, 2015.
Photo courtesy of an RFA listener.
For more than a year and a half, officials in one of China’s eastern provinces have been waging an aggressive campaign to remove crosses from Protestant churches.
This may appear unremarkable given the Communist Party leadership’s hostility to organized religious groups worshipping outside China’s official control.
But what’s notable is the parishioners’ unrelenting peaceful resistance to the authorities’ anti-cross campaign.
The churchgoers, many of them located in Zhejiang’s coastal city of Wenzhou, have been remarkably eloquent in writing open letters.
They also sing hymns in front of armed policemen, stage church rooftop protests, and cite China’s own constitution, which promises them freedom of religion.
Protestants in Wenzhou have also recently begun making small red-painted wooden crosses to display across Zhejiang as another form of civil disobedience.
In recent days, some local pastors have been told that the campaign against crosses is being halted, probably due to upcoming ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II, which would bring many high-profile foreign visitors to China.
But Bob Fu, who leads the U.S.-based Christian human rights organization ChinaAid, said that in at least some areas of Zhejiang the cross removal has definitely not stopped.
He referred to a photo of a long crane removing a cross from a church called Sanjie in the city of Shaoxing on August 10.
His estimate of the combined number of churches demolished and crosses removed in Zhejiang comes to more than 1,500 so far.
In some cases, pastors have been detained or arrested. In August, authorities in Zhejiang detained seven Christians on suspicion of crimes including “embezzlement” and public order offenses after they tried to prevent government-hired workers from demolishing a cross on their church.
Why Wenzhou?
The city of Wenzhou, dubbed “China’s Jerusalem” by some, has been a major target of the demolition and cross removal campaign.
Wenzhou may appear threatening to Party officials because many in its large and relatively well-to-do population of middle class entrepreneurs have adopted Christianity as their religion.
They thus combine financial clout with a strong devotion to Christian beliefs.
The majority embrace Protestantism, but some are Roman Catholics, and a few Catholic churches have also been recent targets of demolition teams.
About 15 years ago, the Communist Party reached out to co-opt China’s wealthiest capitalists and entrepreneurs by offering them Party membership.
This has favored some of the richest “red capitalists” in China. But many of the entrepreneurs in Wenzhou are small independent-minded businesspeople who have yet to fully bounce back from a local credit collapse a few years ago.
What may concern the Communist Party leadership more generally has been the Chinese people’s widespread loss of faith in communism over the years and the resulting “spiritual vacuum” in China.
Finally, it may also have shocked some Party stalwarts when even leading members of some of the government-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Churches in Zhejiang spoke out against the cross and church demolition movement.
“The pushback is surprising coming from legally registered churches, which in the past rarely strayed from the Party line,” said Yang Fenggang, director of the Center of Religion and Chinese Society at Purdue University in Indiana, in a recent interview with World magazine.
What Next?
Some experts think that what is happening in Wenzhou may be a prelude to an intensified nationwide crackdown on Christian churches, since Communist Party leaders apparently fear any highly organized group operating outside of its control.
As New York-based Freedom House noted in a report last month, signs of a nationwide attack on so-called underground house churches were already evident in 2014.
While some Protestant and Roman Catholic congregations were able “to meet quietly with the tacit approval of local authorities,” Freedom House said, other house church gatherings were “raided or evicted from their meeting locations.”
In Wenzhou local Party leaders were surprisingly tolerant until last year.
A major turning point occurred in late April 2014 in Wenzhou when the huge state-sanctioned Sanjiang Church with an 180-foot spire in Wenzhou was torn down for allegedly violating zoning regulations.
Local officials had earlier praised the $5 million church as a “model construction project” and allowed it to be legally registered.
The destruction of this church, moved the city to “the center of a national battle with a Communist Party increasingly suspicious of the Western values it represents,” reported The New York Times.
Analysts told Radio Free Asia that the huge church had become a too-visible reminder of the numbers of Chinese turning to Protestant Christianity—and of their financial muscle.
Protestant churches
China’s Communist Party members number nearly 88 million according to official sources. But some scholars believe that the country’s Christian population, including a conservative estimate of 60 million or more Protestants, is on its way to exceeding that number if it has not already done so.
And the Protestant faith seems to have attracted an increasing number of Chinese human rights lawyers, many of them a target of a sweeping crackdown this year.
Lawyer Teng Biao, now in the U.S. as a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, told The New York Review of Books that about a fourth of China’s human rights lawyers are Christians because “without God or a belief, a human rights lawyer would feel hopeless.”
A Council on Foreign Relations background report on Christianity in China published in May this year cited experts as saying that Chinese Christians are also attracted to the faith’s “sense of fellowship, comprehensive moral system, organized structure, and solidarity as part of an international movement.”
State policy toward Christian churches
In widely reported remarks on May 20 this year, President Xi Jinping warned against foreign influence on religion in China.
“Active efforts should be made to incorporate religions into socialist society,” Xi said at a high-level Party meeting.
Under Xi, the Chinese government has been promoting traditional Chinese culture and religion, including Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, apparently as a counter to Christianity.
But some experts see the attacks on churches in Zhejiang as part of a much broader assault on all dissent.
A Christian who took part in demonstrations in Wenzhou on Tuesday stressed that churchgoers are law abiding and focused on the cross issue.
“We are here to express our feelings to the cross. We are Christians, we are peace-loving people. We feel very sad that our crosses have been torn down, but we won’t go on the street or act against the government,” said the follower, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
RT @milpitas95035 : 意大利的华人教会，估计是温州人教会，第一次站出来抗议，走在美国华人教会的前头了。
well done !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
chinese christians in Italy protest
well done !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
chinese christians in Italy protest
up 
You mean DOWN.
Do you really think that this story will go to end any sooner?
Is better if you just post new pictures: the "up" posts doesn't give any news. This story will end only when every last Christian church in your territory will be tear down.
Just post when you have new pictures for it and save some keyboard pushing.
Thanks.
new picture, no problem
up
You mean DOWN.
Do you really think that this story will go to end any sooner?
Is better if you just post new pictures: the "up" posts doesn't give any news. This story will end only when every last Christian church in your territory will be tear down.
Just post when you have new pictures for it and save some keyboard pushing.
Thanks.
what you wrote made the thread up, many thanks
up
You mean DOWN.
Do you really think that this story will go to end any sooner?
Is better if you just post new pictures: the "up" posts doesn't give any news. This story will end only when every last Christian church in your territory will be tear down.
Just post when you have new pictures for it and save some keyboard pushing.
Thanks.
up
China Detains Christian Pastors For Resistance to Cross Demolitions
2015-07-29
A Christian church in Oubei, outside the city of Wenzhou that was demolished by Chinese authorities, April 30, 2014.
AFP
Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang are pressing ahead with a demolition campaign targeting “illegal” Christian crosses amid growing resistance from local believers.
Government-backed demolition gangs have taken down crosses from the tops of churches in provincial capital Wenzhou, Taizhou, Huzhou and Jinhua cities in recent days, in a slew of demolitions billed in state media as a building safety campaign.
A total of 16 believers and pastors were taken away by police following scuffles with a cross demolition gang last week, and eight have yet to be released, a lawyer for the church members told RFA on Wednesday.
“They were detained because they refused to allow the cross to be taken down, and so they arrested them,” lawyer Pang Kun said, adding that only seven of the detainees were known to be under criminal detention, while the status of the eighth had yet to be confirmed.
“They are all being held on suspicion of ‘running an illegal business,’ ‘obstructing official duty,’ and ‘running secret accounting procedures,’ random stuff like that,” Pang said.
“This is about the fact that they were opposed to the removal of the cross from their church, and this is a form of revenge against them,” he said. “They want to send any church that doesn’t comply into disarray.”
“This is an unreasonable act of revenge, which seriously violates the rights of these believers to freedom of religious belief,” Pang added. “It is also against the law.”
Pastors hauled away
Meanwhile, Christians in Wenzhou said that the authorities had detained eight local Protestant pastors and preachers, none of whom had been released by Wednesday evening local time.
“They were called in for a chat and I don’t think they’ve come out since, because I have asked about them,” a pastor who declined to be named said. “It is probably something to do with the crosses.”
According to a church member in Wenzhou’s Pingyang county, where a large cross was removed from a local church last week, pastor Zhang Chongyang was also taken away by police on Tuesday evening.
“He was called in for questioning by police, and he … is now under formal summons,” the church member said.
Church members in Zhejiang’s Cannon county said their pastor Liang Pu was among those hauled in for questioning.
And a pastor in Yuyaocheng village said local Protestant church members have tried to adopt civil disobedience principles in the face of the cross demolition campaign.
“As a pastor, I believe that we should stand firm but ensure no blood is shed,” the pastor said. “We need more people power, to run a non-violent resistance campaign to the bitter end.”
In Pingyang county’s Qihu church, some congregants were sent to hospital after a government-backed gang smashed down the church doors, sending them flying to the floor, before dragging them out of the church and beating them unconscious.
“He is still undergoing medical tests,” the wife of injured Qihu church member Lan Tiansi told RFA from the hospital. “The doctor wants to talk to me; I’ll speak to you later.”
'Safety and beauty'
According to the Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, Zhejiang authorities said they are merely “relocating” the crosses from the roofs of churches to the interior, “for the sake of safety and beauty,” it quoted local religious affairs officials as saying.
The removal is part of a three-year urbanisation and beautification campaign, which orders local governments to "revise" old neighborhoods, old industrial sites and urban villages and demolish illegal structures by 2015, it said.
A Pingyang county resident who declined to be named said the government’s cross demolition program is seen as a direct attack on the region’s Christians, however.
“It’s not as simple as pulling down a cross; it’s an attack on our beliefs, and we must rise up to resist it,” the man said. “Our resistance will be non-violent, however, because we are opposed to any form of violence.”
“The government does use violence, frequently. We believers are very angry, but we have to forgive them, right?”
Meanwhile, photos of Christians in Wenzhou, known as “China’s Jerusalem” because of the high proportion of believers, were widely retweeted on social media sites this week as they got together to make wooden crosses as part of the civil disobedience campaign.
Hong Kong media reported that the Christians plan to display the roughly-made and red-painted crosses all across the province as a form of protest against the authorities’ demolition program.
China is home to an estimated 23 million members of the government-backed Three-Self Patriotic Movement, as well as an unknown number of worshipers in unofficial “house churches.”
Reported by Hai Nan for RFA’s Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
2015-07-29
A Christian church in Oubei, outside the city of Wenzhou that was demolished by Chinese authorities, April 30, 2014.
AFP
Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang are pressing ahead with a demolition campaign targeting “illegal” Christian crosses amid growing resistance from local believers.
Government-backed demolition gangs have taken down crosses from the tops of churches in provincial capital Wenzhou, Taizhou, Huzhou and Jinhua cities in recent days, in a slew of demolitions billed in state media as a building safety campaign.
A total of 16 believers and pastors were taken away by police following scuffles with a cross demolition gang last week, and eight have yet to be released, a lawyer for the church members told RFA on Wednesday.
“They were detained because they refused to allow the cross to be taken down, and so they arrested them,” lawyer Pang Kun said, adding that only seven of the detainees were known to be under criminal detention, while the status of the eighth had yet to be confirmed.
“They are all being held on suspicion of ‘running an illegal business,’ ‘obstructing official duty,’ and ‘running secret accounting procedures,’ random stuff like that,” Pang said.
“This is about the fact that they were opposed to the removal of the cross from their church, and this is a form of revenge against them,” he said. “They want to send any church that doesn’t comply into disarray.”
“This is an unreasonable act of revenge, which seriously violates the rights of these believers to freedom of religious belief,” Pang added. “It is also against the law.”
Pastors hauled away
Meanwhile, Christians in Wenzhou said that the authorities had detained eight local Protestant pastors and preachers, none of whom had been released by Wednesday evening local time.
“They were called in for a chat and I don’t think they’ve come out since, because I have asked about them,” a pastor who declined to be named said. “It is probably something to do with the crosses.”
According to a church member in Wenzhou’s Pingyang county, where a large cross was removed from a local church last week, pastor Zhang Chongyang was also taken away by police on Tuesday evening.
“He was called in for questioning by police, and he … is now under formal summons,” the church member said.
Church members in Zhejiang’s Cannon county said their pastor Liang Pu was among those hauled in for questioning.
And a pastor in Yuyaocheng village said local Protestant church members have tried to adopt civil disobedience principles in the face of the cross demolition campaign.
“As a pastor, I believe that we should stand firm but ensure no blood is shed,” the pastor said. “We need more people power, to run a non-violent resistance campaign to the bitter end.”
In Pingyang county’s Qihu church, some congregants were sent to hospital after a government-backed gang smashed down the church doors, sending them flying to the floor, before dragging them out of the church and beating them unconscious.
“He is still undergoing medical tests,” the wife of injured Qihu church member Lan Tiansi told RFA from the hospital. “The doctor wants to talk to me; I’ll speak to you later.”
'Safety and beauty'
According to the Global Times newspaper, which has close ties to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, Zhejiang authorities said they are merely “relocating” the crosses from the roofs of churches to the interior, “for the sake of safety and beauty,” it quoted local religious affairs officials as saying.
The removal is part of a three-year urbanisation and beautification campaign, which orders local governments to "revise" old neighborhoods, old industrial sites and urban villages and demolish illegal structures by 2015, it said.
A Pingyang county resident who declined to be named said the government’s cross demolition program is seen as a direct attack on the region’s Christians, however.
“It’s not as simple as pulling down a cross; it’s an attack on our beliefs, and we must rise up to resist it,” the man said. “Our resistance will be non-violent, however, because we are opposed to any form of violence.”
“The government does use violence, frequently. We believers are very angry, but we have to forgive them, right?”
Meanwhile, photos of Christians in Wenzhou, known as “China’s Jerusalem” because of the high proportion of believers, were widely retweeted on social media sites this week as they got together to make wooden crosses as part of the civil disobedience campaign.
Hong Kong media reported that the Christians plan to display the roughly-made and red-painted crosses all across the province as a form of protest against the authorities’ demolition program.
China is home to an estimated 23 million members of the government-backed Three-Self Patriotic Movement, as well as an unknown number of worshipers in unofficial “house churches.”
Reported by Hai Nan for RFA’s Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
no, it is another topic, this thread is about religious freedom in China!
This thread is not about Freedom, is about the fight that is happening in China between atheism and Religion.
You posted everything as if China was removing rights to Christians. This is not about Freedom this is about your Freedom to say whatever it takes to speak against your Government.
You are not hungry about your Government you are hungry about the fight that you are not part of and you want to be part of that fight.
The fight between atheism and Religion.
This is fun, but don't say the same thing with the intent of saying something different.
Thanks.
the problem between atheism and Religion normally among individuals, that is philosophical problem.
religious freedom problem such as this thread talking about especially involving autocratic government is about human right, that is political problem.
so simple, no more explanation.
other nonsense i have no time to feed back, sorry
no, it is another topic, this thread is about religious freedom in China!
This thread is not about Freedom, is about the fight that is happening in China between atheism and Religion.
You posted everything as if China was removing rights to Christians. This is not about Freedom this is about your Freedom to say whatever it takes to speak against your Government.
You are not hungry about your Government you are hungry about the fight that you are not part of and you want to be part of that fight.
The fight between atheism and Religion.
This is fun, but don't say the same thing with the intent of saying something different.
Thanks.
in China only Communist government is the rule, it is obviously not the size of cross, it is only an excuse. the government is afraid of the growing influence from chinese Christian
That's a statement and, with that, you are making me understand the fight that is happening in China between atheism and Religion.
"Atheism is a cancer and need to be exterminated".
- Deut 5:4 21
no, it is another topic, this thread is about religious freedom in China!
in China only Communist government is the rule, it is obviously not the size of cross, it is only an excuse. the government is afraid of the growing influence from chinese Christian
That's a statement and, with that, you are making me understand the fight that is happening in China between atheism and Religion.
"Atheism is a cancer and need to be exterminated".
- Deut 5:4 21
update
Christians from Wenzhou Zhejiang province made many small crosses in protest at cross-teardown
Christians from Wenzhou Zhejiang province made many small crosses in protest at cross-teardown
Good for them.
Hope the protests stay safe.
according to the information from twitter, police found out the Christian who uploaded this photo and forced him to figure out where these small red crosses were produced.
And yet, the law as I saw it earlier, stated that the crosses couldn't be very large, these don't look like they should be breaking any rules.
in China only Communist government is the rule, it is obviously not the size of cross, it is only an excuse. so many churches exist many years...the government is afraid of the growing influence from chinese Christian
update
Christians from Wenzhou Zhejiang province made many small crosses in protest at cross-teardown
Christians from Wenzhou Zhejiang province made many small crosses in protest at cross-teardown
Good for them.
Hope the protests stay safe.
according to the information from twitter, police found out the Christian who uploaded this photo and forced him to figure out where these small red crosses were produced.
And yet, the law as I saw it earlier, stated that the crosses couldn't be very large, these don't look like they should be breaking any rules.
update
Christians from Wenzhou Zhejiang province made many small crosses in protest at cross-teardown
Christians from Wenzhou Zhejiang province made many small crosses in protest at cross-teardown
Good for them.
Hope the protests stay safe.
according to the information from twitter, police found out the Christian who uploaded this photo and forced him to figure out where these small red crosses were produced.
RT @wenyunchao 温州市平阳水头青街教会的信众兰天恩保护十字架遭当地政府人员疯狂殴打重伤病危，目前人在温州医学院附属第一医院。
VIDEO:
https://mobile.twitter.com/wenyunchao/status/626092034357657600
chinese Christians were assaulted by local government staff of Wenzhou, among them LAN Tianci was injured seriously, now in hospital
VIDEO:
https://mobile.twitter.com/wenyunchao/status/626092034357657600
chinese Christians were assaulted by local government staff of Wenzhou, among them LAN Tianci was injured seriously, now in hospital
'Chanting Monks' Deployed in Standoff Over Cross Demolition in China’s Zhejiang
2015-07-27
Cross still in place on the Jinjia'er church in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, July 27, 2015.
Photo courtesy of a church member.
Officials in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang sent in monks to burn incense and chant Buddhist scriptures as a “provocation” as Christian believers faced off with a government-backed demolition gang intent on removing a large cross from the roof of their church, church members told RFA on Monday.
The monks came in and chanted prayers, burning incense at the door of the Jinjia’er church in Zhejiang’s Huzhou city, where believers had been staging a sit-in in the hope of blocking access by the demolition gang for several days, a church follower who asked not to be named told RFA.
“We are Protestant Christians, so by sending monks to chant sutras they were trying to get us riled up,” the Jinjia’er congregant said. “They blocked the main door, and they were detaining anyone who got physical with them on public order charges.”
“They were trying to make us angry so that we would retaliate against them. They think that anyone who opposes the government is a traitor, or someone trying to overturn the Communist Party,” he said.
“Anyone who opposes them risks being stuck with this label.”
The authorities had also moved quickly to delete any social media posts about the standoff on China’s Twitter-like platforms, and from social messaging app WeChat, he said, adding that the cross was eventually demolished by the government on Sunday.
The demolition came as the authorities target churches in Zhejiang, and Wenzhou city, which has been dubbed “China’s Jerusalem” owing to its large proportion of Protestant believers.
Tearful congregation sings
The provincial government has kept up the "Three Rectifications and One Demolition" campaign, which claims to target all illegal structures, for several months now, rights groups say.
Local officials are required to take action to "demolish illegal structures that violate laws and regulations, occupy farmland, affect public safety and major construction, seriously affect urban and rural planning, and those that are located on both sides of main lines of transportation," according to guidelines published last year on the provincial government’s website.
In Wenzhou, a member of the Yuyangtaitou church in Wenzhou’s Pingyang county said their church’s cross had also been demolished by the authorities on Monday.
Video footage shot by congregants and seen by RFA showed government officials lowering the cross gradually to the ground using ropes, watched by a tearful congregation singing hymns.
“The cross is gone; they took it down this morning,” the Yuyangtaitou church member said on Monday. “Why did they demolish the cross for no reason? This was pointless. It’s not like it was getting in the way of anything.”
“This church has been in our village for several decades; I knew it while I was growing up.”
Local media reports said the Pingyang county government had announced that all visible crosses in the county would be removed by Aug. 5.
Zhejiang authorities are also taking draconian steps to manage online references to the cross demolition campaign.
Protestant believer Zheng Xianghuang said he had received a visit from Zhejiang state security police at his home the southwestern province of Sichuan after he posted a photo of a cross demolition on a social media site.
“A few hours after I posted it to my microblog account it had been retweeted more than 1,000 times, and had been viewed tens of thousands of times,” Zheng told RFA on Monday. “Maybe it touched on somebody’s vested interests … or perhaps it prompted some kind of campaign, because they came here … all the way from Pingyang county.”
Police plant malware
He said that, before they left, police admitted having placed surveillance malware on his computer.
“My QQ [chatroom account], my WeChat and my microblog accounts are all being monitored,” Zheng said. “When the police were here, they clearly indicated that the [malware] had been installed by them.”
Meanwhile, Zhejiang-based Protestant pastor Zhang Chongzhu said the demolition program shows no sign of abating.
“As well as the cross demolitions, the government is carrying out ideological work with all parties,” Zhang said. “It’s not just the crosses that they’re targeting.”
“The government wants to turn the Protestant church into a truly Chinese institution, which is to say that it wants it to become a tool of the party.”
“They have already begun this work of reclamation in the bigger churches; those that have more than 100 or 200 members,” he said.
President Xi Jinping warned Communist Party ideologues earlier this year that the development of religion in China, which is already closely controlled by an army of religious affairs officials, should be "independent of foreign influence."
Citing the rapid expansion in Christian believers after churches began to re-open in the wake of the political turmoil of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Xi has described religion is a tool that can easily be used "by hostile foreign forces."
Reported by Yang Fan for RFA’s Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
update
Christians from Wenzhou Zhejiang province made many small crosses in protest at cross-teardown
Christians from Wenzhou Zhejiang province made many small crosses in protest at cross-teardown
Good for them.
Hope the protests stay safe.
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