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Jun Mai

All foreigners will be banned from using the internet to promote and preach religions in China under new draft rules aimed at providing “lawful regulation” and raising standards.
The release of the draft came a day after authorities in Beijing banned the Zion Church, one of the biggest unofficial Protestant churches in the capital, and confiscated “illegal promotional materials”.
One critic warned that the proposed regulation – the latest in a series of new restrictions on religious activities – would “sow seeds of political instability” among believers.
Speaking out: Uygurs in US break silence on China’s crackdown
Under the draft regulation released on Monday by the National Religious Affairs Administration, the country’s peak regulatory body in the area, all groups distributing religious information online would have to have a licence from provincial religious affairs departments.
Licensed groups would be able “preach and offer religious training” but not live-stream or broadcast religious activities.

In addition, all foreign groups and individuals would be banned from disseminating religious content online.
Public consultations on the rules end on October 9.
[This move] will sow the seeds of instability
Shixue, a monk in Taizhou
The proposal drew immediate criticism within China, including from a Zhejiang-based monk who warned that excessive control of legal religious activities would only encourage people with unmet spiritual needs to seek out illegal sources.
In an opinion piece on news site Ifeng.com, Shixue, a monk from Cuiping monastery in Tiantai county, Taizhou, said the licences would only “restrain religious promotion in legitimate venues by legitimate personnel, undermining channels through which believers could obtain legitimate religious content”.
“People would gradually lose the ability to tell unorthodox beliefs from orthodox ones, and illegal religious extremist groups would grow more rampant and convincing,” he said.
“If the government restricts the people’s access to religious content via legitimate channels, it can hardly stay tuned to the hearts and minds of believers, and will sow the seeds of instability.”
‘Foreign forces’ can’t control religion, Chinese official says amid Vatican talks
But Xiong Kunxin, an ethnic studies professor at Minzu University of China, said the licence system would finally subject online religious content to legal scrutiny. 
“All sorts of religious groups have used the internet to preach. I think the new rules would finally regulate them,” Xiong said.

A day before the rules were released, authorities in Beijing banned the Zion Church after the church rejected requests from authorities to install closed-circuit television cameras in its main building.
The church had hundreds of worshippers and had previously operated with relative freedom, despite being unregistered.
The release of the rules also comes eight months after administration director Wang Zuoan called for higher legal standards for religious work and further “sinicisation” of all religions in the country.
In addition, there is renewed international concern about the Communist Party’s crackdown on religions in China.
China’s online retailers pull Bible from shelves as Beijing gets strict on sale of holy text
The authorities have tightened up on “underground” churches, adopting new rules in February to govern religious affairs and increase penalties for unofficial congregations.
The rules raise penalties for unregistered religious activities among practitioners of Islam, Catholicism and Buddhism.
Wang said in January that more regulations on temporary venues for religious events, approvals of religious academies and the hiring of foreign personnel for religious teaching were in the pipeline to help Beijing “complete” the regulatory system for religion.


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Religion in China

China to ban foreigners from preaching religion online

China has released draft rules to tighten up on online religious activities in China. Photo: AFP

This picture taken on March 1, 2018 shows Tibetan Buddhist monks praying during a ceremony for Monlam, otherwise known as the Great Prayer Festival of Losar, the Tibetan New Year, at the Rongwo Monastery, in Tongren County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. Scores of monks and men heaved the enormous thangka -- an image of Buddha painted on silk, rolled up in a tight cylinder while in transit -- through the packed streets around Rongwo Monastery in China's northwestern province of Qinghai for a religious ritual wrapping up Losar, the Tibetan new year. / AFP PHOTO / Johannes EISELE

This picture taken on March 2, 2018 shows ethnic Hui Muslim men arriving at Laohuasi Mosque for Friday prayers in Linxia, China's Gansu province. Green-domed mosques still dominate the skyline of China's "Little Mecca", but they have undergone a profound change -- no longer do boys flit through their stone courtyards en route to classes and prayers. / AFP PHOTO / Johannes EISELE / To go with AFP story China-Religion-Islam, Feature by Becky Davis

Speaking out: Uygurs in the United States break silence on China’s crackdown

Uygurs marching to the Permanent Mission of China to the United Nations in New York on March 15, part of demonstrations around the world to protest China’s surveillance and security campaign that has sent thousands into detention and political indoctrination centres in Xinjiang. Photo: AP

Juret Nizameddin at home in Virginia, August 2018. Photo: Handout

Juret Nizameddin with family in Washington, August 2017. Photo: Handout

Hamut with wife in Changji, Xinjiang, January 2016. Photo: Handout

Shohret Hoshur (left) and Omer Kanat (centre) in the same photo at a rally.

China bans one of Beijing’s biggest underground Protestant churches

Many Chinese Christians worship in underground churches rather than state-sanctioned ones. Photo: Simon Song

A Bible is seen after an underground church Christmas Eve service at an apartment in Beijing on December 24, 2014. Members of underground Chinese Christian churches celebrated Christmas Eve in private ceremonies, while those in churches officially sanctioned by the communist government attended more open ceremonies. AFP PHOTO / Greg BAKER / AFP PHOTO / GREG BAKER

Christian heartland on front lines of China’s campaign of religious suppression

Local governments have shut down hundreds of ‘house churches’ in past few months, with gatherings raided and congregants interrogated about their faith

In this photo taken Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2018. pastor Jin Minri speaks during an interview at the Zion Church in Beijing, China. After Jin refused local authorities' request to install surveillance cameras inside his house church, police individually questioned hundreds of members of the 1,500-person congregation, he said. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

In this photo taken Saturday, June 2, 2018, a worker jumps from a truck parked in front of a church and the Chinese national flag near the city of Pingdingshan in central China's Henan province. Under President Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, believers are seeing their freedoms shrink dramatically even as the country undergoes a religious revival. Experts and activists say that as he consolidates his power, Xi is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

In this photo taken Sunday, June 3, 2018, the demolished house church is seen in the city of Zhengzhou in central China's Henan province. Under President Xi Jinping, China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, believers are seeing their freedoms shrink dramatically even as the country undergoes a religious revival. Experts and activists say that as he consolidates his power, Xi is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

Calligraphy reading “All nations belong to the Lord arising to shine” (left) and “Jesus’ salvation spreads to the whole world” are seen under a crucifix in a “house church” shut down near Nanyang, Henan. Photo: AP

Germany stops deporting Uygurs after asylum seeker is mistakenly sent to China, then vanishes

Germany says it made a mistake in April when Bavaria sent back a Uygur man who has not been heard from since

FILE - In this Nov. 4, 2017 file photo, Uighur security personnel patrol near the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in western China's Xinjiang region. Since 2016, Chinese authorities in the heavily Muslim region of Xinjiang have carried out a campaign of mass detentions and indoctrination in internment camps with the stated aim of bolstering national security and eliminating Islamic extremism. The program appears to be an attempt to rewire its detainees' political thinking, erase their Islamic beliefs and reshape their very identities. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

Muslim men arriving at the Id Kah Mosque for the morning prayer on Eid al-Fitr in the old town of Kashgar in China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, in this 2017 file picture. Photo: AFP

UN says it has reports that China is holding 1 million Uygurs in ‘secret internment camps’

Uygurs and their supporters march near the United Nations in New York on March 15. Members of the Uygur Muslim ethnic group held demonstrations in cities around the world on that day to protest a sweeping Chinese surveillance and security campaign that has sent thousands of their people into detention and political indoctrination centers. Photo: AP

(180117) -- ALTAY, Jan. 17, 2018 (Xinhua) -- Local people perform folk music in Altay, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Jan. 16, 2018. The winter tourism of the Altay region is promoted because of the improvement of transportation and accommodation in the area. (Xinhua/Li Jing) (wf)

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Proposed regulation released a day after one of the capital’s biggest unofficial Protestant churches is banned


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China to ban foreigners from preaching religion online

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Proposed regulation released a day after one of the capital’s biggest unofficial Protestant churches is banned

Proposed regulation released a day after one of the capital’s biggest unofficial Protestant churches is banned