Ministry Spokesman Disagrees That Religious Liberty Is Improving in China
by Chad Groening
November 14, 2005
(AgapePress) - - An organization dedicated to the persecuted Church around the world says it does not agree with the assessment of a U.S. Department of State official that things have improved for believers during the past ten years in Communist China. John Hanford is Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom at the U.S. State Department. He believes conditions in China are improving, even though it remains on the department's annual list of "Countries of Particular Concern," which was released this past week.
However, Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), an organization that serves and advocates for persecuted Christians worldwide, says these touted improvements in China's religious freedom situation are only the case in certain areas. "If you go to the right places, you can find some areas where the church is operating really with very little interference," he contends, "but you can find other areas where the local officials crack down on every kind of religious expression."
Overall, Nettleton thinks the Chinese government authorities are working to tighten restrictions on the Church. "Things are definitely not getting better for the unregistered Christian groups," he says, "and as we see with [numerous Chinese house church members] who are serving prison sentences, I think there's very definitely a continued effort to crack down on the church in China."
Also, the VOM representative points out, a number of Chinese pastors have been imprisoned by the communist regime simply for distributing Christian literature. He says he thinks it would be interesting, in light of Ambassador Hanford's assertions about religious freedom in China, to go and talk to some of these unregistered church members, such as one pastor who "was just sentenced to three years in a labor camp for illegally printing and distributing the Bible and other Christian literature."
That pastor, Nettleton suspects, would have a different perspective on how the cause of religious freedom is advancing in his country. "I wonder if he would say that things are better or worse in the nation of China for those that choose to follow Jesus Christ," the ministry spokesman says.
The U.S. State Department first named the People's Republic of China to its list of Countries of Particular Concern back in 1999 under the International Religious Freedom Act, and the communist nation has remained on that list for several years. In 2004, Ambassador Hanford described China as "one of the most repressive governments in the world on religious freedom as well as other basic human rights."
Chad Groening, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
