Persecution of Christians in China is increasing and spreading to Hong Kong, Release International has warned on the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
The Tiananmen massacre in Beijing on June 4, 1989 brought a brutal end to pro-democracy protests and marked an increase in anti-Christian repression.
Thirty-five years later, Christians in China face the worst level of persecution since the Cultural Revolution, a trend that has spread to Hong Kong, where draconian national security laws further restrict free speech and religious freedom .
The organization, which supports persecuted Christians around the world, said the new law could force Roman Catholic priests in Hong Kong to reveal the secrets of confession. According to Art. 23, passed in March, priests can be jailed for up to fourteen months if they refuse to reveal so-called “crimes of treason” shared during confession.
Increasing anti-Christian repression forced many Christians to leave Hong Kong and emigrate to the United Kingdom. Christian rights activists say Britain has a moral obligation to uphold religious freedom in its former colony.
“The people of Hong Kong expect the UK to stand firm in defense of their religious freedom and stand up for them, and to take all necessary measures to protect those fleeing persecution,” they said.
A new report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) claims that China is increasingly repressing practicing Christians. The report says that religious freedom is the cornerstone of all freedoms and that the current crackdown on Christians in China is the most severe since Mao Zedong’s “Cultural Revolution.” These include harassment and deprivation of rights, disruption of services, baptisms and even online services to intimidate Christians. Heavy fines are imposed on people who rent out Christian places of worship to discourage Christians from gathering for prayer. In 2022, for example, Huang Yuanda, a Christian from Xiamen, was fined 100,000 yuan (about $14,500) by the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau for renting a house to the church school. Numerous anti-Christian regulations have been introduced to monitor Christian information in cyberspace.
Dr. Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid spoke about this issue recently on The Voice of the Martyrs Canada’s podcast, Closer to the Fire.
He says Chinese censorship efforts especially target Christian youth.
“For the first time, millions of Chinese children were forced to sign a form – these are Christian children – to renounce their faith in public.”
Communist leaders also continue to remove crosses from church buildings. “Even the government-sanctioned churches have been targeted for persecution,” says Fu. “Those pastors who refuse to voluntarily destroy, remove, and demolish their crosses have been facing huge risks of persecution.”
Furthermore, Chinese Christians know their every move is increasingly watched as China embraces digitalized social monitoring.
Fu says, “The government-sanctioned churches, every church pulpit and the four corners of the church have to install face recognition cameras so that they can monitor the congregation – whether there’s any children, there’s any youth under 18 years old, any Communist Party member, any Communist Youth League member, any civil servant, or any police or military service member. These are all forbidden to even enter into the church building.”
