Officers under the authority of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tortured an elderly Christian man for 24 hours in an effort to make him “fabricate charges” against the pastors of his church, ChinaAid reported this week.
The human rights website Bitter Winter highlighted on Thursday the growing trend of Chinese Communist persecution against members of the Three-Self Patriotic Church, the legal Protestant church in China. Officials reportedly demolished one of these churches on Easter.
Communist party officials have notified a diocese in China’s southeastern Jiangxi province that they will soon demolish the underground church of the Annunciation because of the failure of its pastor to join the state-controlled Catholic Patriotic Association.
The Chinese government’s campaign to “Sinicize” organized religion – in other words, make religion completely subordinate to the Communist Party – grew more aggressive this year and featured the destruction of Bibles, crosses, and entire churches. Religious freedom activists call it the worst crackdown on Christianity since religious freedom was nominally granted by the 1982 Chinese constitution.
Chinese President Xi Jinping harbors a “particular animosity” toward Christians and sees underground churches as a “severe national security threat,” according to the founder of China Aid, a U.S.-based watchdog group.
Chinese security officers assaulted a number of priests and laypersons last week in China’s northern Shanxi province as the Christians tried to defend church property from demolition.
As part of its ongoing crusade to eradicate symbols of Christianity throughout China, communist authorities in the coastal Zhejiang province have demolished yet another Christian church building after reportedly claiming that the church’s cross was too high and thus in violation of building codes.
The Communist Party’s campaign to eradicate the iconic Christian symbol from China’s landscape continued in full force this past week, with authorities demolishing a dozen church crosses and beating protesters bloody. The religious freedom group China Aid reported that government
China has the fastest growing economy in the world, standing second only to the US as a financial powerhouse. Its wealth is building exponentially and the Asian giant is sufficiently advanced to have a space exploration program of its own. Still,
The quintessential symbol of Christianity—the cross—has been outlawed on the rooftops of buildings in the Chinese province of Zhejiang, pending final approval.
