China Christian worshipers. COURTESY PHOTO.
State officials in China have fined a Christian man after they found him guilty of hosting a Christmas celebration without their approval.
The event took place in Huang Zhang Liang village in Lushan county, with more than forty Christians, including twenty children.
According to Bitter Winter, a magazine that reports on the status of religious freedom and human rights in China, Niu Guobao was summoned by the Lushan County Religious Affairs Bureau last week, less than one month after the event, and fined 160,000 yuan (equal to about Ush 91,615,000)
Niu was in violation of at least three laws:
- Hosting an unauthorized religious gathering under Article 71 of the Regulation of Religious Affairs.
- Hosting minors at a religious gathering.
- Owning Christian calendars and unauthorized religious books.
On the fateful day, the Christian group sang hymns. Soon, though, police raided the gathering.
Bitter Winter called the stipulated penalty an “astronomical sum for a villager.”
“This money will remain with the local Religious Affairs Bureau, a kind of governmental agency that is often in need of cash. Heavy fines are not only imposed to terrorize religious dissidents, but are also a way to finance the bureaucrats,” Bitter Winter reported.
It should be remembered that in August 2020, Uganda Christian News reported about how the same country, fined a Christian preacher $2,870 (approximately Ush 10,550,000) for holding an online Bible study that the officials say violated the nation’s anti-religion law.
The same year, the nation fined a popular aparthotel called Xiamen Hotel nearly U.S. $3,000 (about Ush 11 million) for providing venue for house Church’s worship.
In 2019, the officials fined a church for owning a ‘wrong’ version of the Bible.
Since March 2018, the Chinese government banned online and retail sales of Bibles, and hymnals and other spiritual books in churches unless sanctioned and published by the Chinese Communist Party.
China’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, but since President Xi Jinping took office seven years ago, the government has tightened restrictions on religions seen as a challenge to the authority of the ruling Communist Party.
