Freedom of Religion or Belief in full – A blog by CSW
六月是个悲伤的季节，对无数的中国人来说，1989年春夏之交发生在北京天安门广场的一切，是一条从未愈合仍在流血的伤口。在中国，“六四”是禁忌的敏感词，任何回忆和纪念都被中共当局视为公然反抗。但每年此时在世界各地都会有很多追思纪念活动。在中国，无数人的生命轨迹因为八九六四发生了巨大的改变。他们至今仍以各自无声的方式坚守着对历史的记忆。
当年天安门广场上的绝食学生中，有一位名叫许那（又名许娜），是北京广播学院（现中国传媒大学）的学生。32年前，她曾和同学高举“新闻自由，言论自由”的横幅，满怀希望地走在北京街头游行的人群中。32年后，许那仍在北京，却已在东城区看守所被刑事拘留近一年了。
Under China’s current religious regulations, only government-approved faith leaders can carry out government-approved religious activities in government-approved sites. As a result, there are many situations in which a religious leader can find themselves on the wrong side of the law in China, even facing charges that have no apparent connection to religion but can carry lengthy sentences.
The widely-reported cases of Pastor Wang Yi and Pastor Yang Hua highlight how the Chinese authorities prosecute leaders of unregistered Protestant churches with flagrantly baseless criminal charges: ‘inciting to subvert state power’ and ‘illegal business operations’ for Wang and ‘divulging state secrets’ for Yang. Alarmingly, fraud charges seem to have become one of the most damaging tools that the authorities use against pastors, for persecution as well as defamation.
On 1 May 2021, the day the new administrative measures on religious clergy came into effect, Love Reformed Church received a notice saying their leader Zhang Chunlei had been officially arrested ‘on suspicion of fraud’. To this, the unregistered church in Guiyang in Guizhou province expressed incredulity in a prayer update issued on the same day.
Continue reading “Pastors or fraudsters? Neither registered nor unregistered religious leaders are safe from the Chinese Communist Party’s false allegations”
In China, June is a sombre month for those who remember the mass pro-democracy protests across the country and the military’s bloody crackdown in 1989. Remembrance itself is an act of defiance against the suppression and manipulation of history by the Chinese authorities. Each year, events are held worldwide to pay tributes to the victims and their families.
What is less widely reported however, is how survivors’ lives have been changed by the tragic events of ‘June 4th’, as the events are known in China.
One of the protesters on Tiananmen Square was Xu Na, then a student at Beijing Broadcasting Institute (BBI). She was holding a banner with her fellow friends that read “Freedom of the Press; Freedom of Speech” while marching through the Beijing streets. Thirty-two years later, Xu Na is in another place in Beijing: Dongcheng District Detention Centre, where she has been criminally detained for the past 11 months.
Continue reading “From one crackdown to another: The life of Xu Na”
“He never refused anyone who needed his assistance… He was doing his work with much humility… I believe that he belongs to a human category that could not ignore any injustices that happened around him.”
Vu Quoc Dung, human rights defender with Veto!
“He is a man of honour, admired and respected by many”
A supporter[1]of Nguyen Bac Truyen
Continue reading “Recognising the remarkable: A call for the release of Nguyen Bac Truyen”“Standing up for one’s own community is admirable; but standing up on behalf of others, when you yourself are being oppressed – that is truly courageous.”
Ed Brown, Secretary-General at Stefanus Alliance International
Ningún derecho humano fundamental existe aisladamente. Hay superposiciones y enlaces significativos entre todos los derechos humanos, por ejemplo, los relacionados con la libertad de religión o creencia (LdRC), la libertad de expresión, y la libertad de asamblea. Estos tres derechos se ubican juntos en los Artículos 18, 19 y 20 de la Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas.
Durante el año pasado, y sobre todo en meses recientes, estos derechos relacionados entre sí han sido crecientemente atacados en Cuba, durante manifestaciones pacíficas de miembros de la sociedad civil independiente, como artistas y periodistas que además se identifican con una religión o creencia en particular. Estos grupos se mantiene protestando de diferentes maneras hasta el día de hoy, solicitando reformas legales y políticas, sobre todo en contra del Decreto Legal 370 y el Decreto Legal 349.
El Decreto Legal 349 entró en vigor en el 2018 y otorgó al gobierno control extensivo sobre toda forma de expresión artística en la isla, especificando incluso que cualquier actividad artística tendrá que ser aprobado por adelantado por el Ministerio de Cultura. Inmediatamente, muchos ciudadanos cubanos expresaron preocupaciones por que la ley esencialmente apagaría la libertad de expresión en Cuba, si solamente se permitiera la existencia del arte que haya sido aprobado por el gobierno. En el mismo año un grupo de artistas, periodistas y académicos se unieron para formar el Movimiento San Isidro para protestar de manera pacífica y creativa ante la censura oficial de la expresión artística en la isla.
Continue reading “Derribando el “muro del miedo” de Cuba”