China bans Christians from holding religious funerals despite rising death toll due to Coronavirus, report shows. Photo © Reuters
By Male Marvin & News Agencies
The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China ascended this week as more cases were confirmed across the world, raising global concern over the spread of the Sars-like disease.
Now, Uganda Christian News has learnt that rules and regulations prohibiting religious funerary rituals are being adopted across China whose government is officially atheist, and as such, promotes “secular” traditions.
Bitter Winter, a magazine documenting human rights and religious freedom abuses in China, reported that authorities throughout the country are enforcing policies that prohibit Christian funeral services, only “civilized” funerals are allowed.
Bitter Winter noted that the new rules aim to “get rid of bad funeral customs and establish a scientific, civilized, and economical way of funerals.”
One of the regulations states that “clerical personnel are not allowed to participate in funerals,” and only “no more than ten family members of the deceased are allowed to read scriptures or sing hymns in a low voice.”
“The government prohibits religious funerals, and doesn’t allow church choirs or orchestras to perform during them,” one member of the Three-self church told Bitter Winter. “Pastors can only sneak into believers’ homes for a hurried prayer. The situation is quite adverse, and some believers don’t even dare to accompany the deceased to the graveyard.”
Christian Headlines reported that in one village in the province of Henan, officials passed regulations that say ministers and other religious personnel should be “stopped from using religion to intervene in citizens’ weddings and funerals or other activities in their lives.”
In the same province, the funeral of a preacher was stopped when policemen stormed the event and accused family members and friends of spreading “religious propaganda,” the news source reported.
The Christian Post believes the crackdown on religious funerals are part of the government’s campaign to “sinicize” religion, or bring it into unity with Communist Chinese culture.
In recent years, China has destroyed churches, burned down crosses, restricted religious expression online, and have attempted to rewrite the Bible and hymns so that the message reflects the Communist Party’s ideology.
Beginning in February, the government plans to implement harsh new measures requiring all religious personnel to support and implement total submission to the Communist Party of China.
The “Administrative Measures for Religious Groups,” which consists of six sections and 41 articles, will control every aspect of religious activity within China and will complete the “Regulations on religious affairs” revised two years ago and implemented on Feb. 1, 2018.
“Religious organizations must adhere to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, observe the constitution, laws, regulations, ordinances and policies, adhere to the principle of independence and self-government, adhere to the directives on religions in China, implementing the values of socialism,” says Article 5 of the new policies.
Persecution watchdog group International Christian Concern warns that the latest measures will be used by the Communist regime as a ”legal tool to further tighten space for religious groups.”
At a press conference earlier this month, David Curry, CEO of persecution watchdog group Open Doors USA, warned that the “greatest threat,” in his opinion, to human rights worldwide is China, which rose in the rankings from No. 27 to No. 23 in the 2020 report.
Curry stressed that the implications lie in China’s development of surveillance to control its people.
“Its implications are not just for Christians within China but for every country and for religious freedom generally,” Curry said. “Let me put it together. It is like a puzzle. The pieces are there but it is not until you put it together that you see it clearly. When you see it clearly, it is frightening.”
“I saw with my own eyes the surveillance on the street but also in the churches, watching their congregation,” he added. “Facial scans when you come in and then tracking you and generating reports [with] assumptions built into their artificial intelligence system that is tracking Christian behavior.”
Curry said that the more often a person is seen going to church, the more often they are to be labeled a “radical.”
“They are shutting down house churches at a massive rate — 5,596 churches shut down, many because they refuse to put surveillance cameras up to watch their congregation.”
