BEIJING – Officially atheist China, criticised overseas for its intolerance of religion, has announced new rules enshrining religious belief as a basic human right as it confronts social and economic change.
“As China has more than 100 million people believing religion, so the protection of religious freedom is important in safeguarding people’s interests and respecting and protecting human rights,” the People’s Daily said on Sunday.
The Communist Party says it made a mistake by persecuting monks and nuns in the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, and that officials no longer interfere in religious life.
The Religious Affairs Provisions would formally take effect on March 1, Xinhua news agency said.
“The set of comprehensive administrative rules … specify that the legitimate rights of religious groups, religious sites and the religious people are protected,” it said.
“The new provisions are designed to deal with new situations and issues that have emerged in recent years with China’s rapid socio-economic development,” it added without elaborating.
“The rules are regarded as a significant step forward in the protection of Chinese citizens’ religious freedom.”
In September the Vatican accused China of a fresh crackdown on Roman Catholics by detaining eight priests and two seminary students, the latest in a long line of Catholics seized by Chinese police in recent years.
The U.S. State Department’s Annual Report on Religious Freedom, issued last December, rebuked China, saying that believers who did not belong to state-sanctioned groups suffered varying degrees of “interference and harassment”.
China rejected the criticism as unfair.
Beijing broke links with the Vatican in the 1950s and forbids Catholics to recognise the Pope’s authority. It forces Christians to belong to state-backed patriotic associations if they wish to worship openly.
China’s destruction of religion during the Cultural Revolution, when most Tibetan monasteries were blown up, has been replaced by a tentative relaxation in the restive Himalayan region that tightens swiftly at the first sign of anti-Chinese sentiment.
