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Across the board, human rights defenders, lawyers, citizen journalists, bloggers, civil society activists and dissidents of all kinds are arrested, jailed or disappeared. Internationally, the mass atrocities against the Uyghurs are being recognised as religious and ethnic genocide. Decades-long repression against the large Buddhist population in Tibet is intensifying. Credible reports continue to reach the outside world of forced organ harvesting, particularly affecting Falun Gong prisoners of conscience.

The Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic minority in China’s Xinjiang region, have faced persecution for decades, but in recent years this has intensified significantly. At least one million, perhaps as many as three million, Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minority groups have been incarcerated in concentration camps, subjected to dire conditions of torture, sexual violence, slave labor and mistreatment.

Many mosques and Muslim cemeteries have been closed or destroyed; Uyghurs showing any religious piety — prayer, fasting, wearing a beard or hijab — can be arrested and imprisoned and, in violation of their religious traditions; Uyghurs have been forced to consume alcohol and pork and forbidden from fasting during Ramadan.

To suppress the minority’s demographics, the Chinese Communist Party regime has unleashed a campaign of forced sterilisation and forced abortion targeting Uyghur women. It carries out a policy of dispatching government officials to live in Uyghur homes alongside Uyghur families, in order to monitor their every move, 24 hours a day.

An Orwellian surveillance state — using modern technology such as artificial intelligence, facial recognition systems, cameras on every street corner, drones and other equipment — has been established in Xinjiang. Both the previous and current US administrations have recognised the atrocities committed against the Uyghurs as genocide, as have the British, Canadian and Dutch Parliaments and an increasing number of international lawyers, academics and other experts.

In Tibet, according to the Tibet Post International,

“every aspect of Tibetan life is under siege and Tibetans have even fewer civil and political rights than Chinese people also ruled by the Communist Party.”

Tibet ranks 176 out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, and among the worst in Freedom House’s “Freedom in the World” survey.

An extensive surveillance state is in place, restrictions on Tibetan language and culture are severe and torture is widespread and systematic. Grave violations of religious freedom continue. According to CSW, there are

“ongoing reports of religious services being disrupted, religious institutions intrusively monitored, religious sites closed, property confiscated, as well as cases of arbitrary detention and restrictions on religious teaching and training.”

In 2016 a “renovation” campaign by the regime resulted in the demolition of hundreds of homes at the Larung Gar Buddhist Institute in Sichuan province, one of the largest Buddhist teaching centers in the world, with a population of over 10,000. Many Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns have been arrested, and some have been beaten and tortured to death in police custody.

Falun Gong, an ancient Chinese spiritual discipline in the Buddhist tradition, was banned in 1999 and has faced severe persecution ever since. It is believed that tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in China have disappeared, and it is feared that many may have suffered horrific deaths as victims of the state-run organ harvesting program. In 2019 the China Tribunal, chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC who had led the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic, concluded “beyond reasonable doubt” that forced organ harvesting has been perpetrated “on a significant scale” and amounts to “a crime against humanity.”

Other religious groups in China, including those classified by the Chinese Communist Party as “evil cults” or “heterodox teaching” (‘xie jiao’ in Chinese), face severe persecution. Taoists are also facing increasing repression.

In fact, virtually all religions are persecuted in China.

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We encourage you to participate in the week of Global Prayer for the people of China from 23-30 May.

This is an international initiative by a group of Parliamentarians and others, including Kevin Andrews, in response to a call by Cardinal Charles Bo, the president of the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences.

As you are aware, people of religious faith, including Christians, Buddhists and Muslims, face a dire life of discrimination, persecution, imprisonment and torture in China.

Further details about this initiative, including Cardinal Bo’s statement, and various parish resources, can be found at globalprayerforchina.org

Please watch and share this powerful three-minute trailer that explains the urgency of this call to global prayer and the need to spread the word.

We urge you to join us in this movement by praying for the people of China, and to spread this message to your families, parishes, and wider networks.

~ Margaret & Kevin Andrews