Chinese Regime Cracks Down on Christians and Muslims During Christmas

People pray in a communist regime-run church on Christmas. House churches were cracked down on, according to reports. (Radio Free Asia)

The Communist Chinese Party didn’t let Christians and Muslims gather and celebrate during Christmastime, which enraged many Chinese and contradicted a glowing editorial put out by one of the regime’s mouthpieces.

“The Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, Global Times, published an editorial on Christmas Eve inviting international China observers to spend their holiday in China [zh] to witness how Chinese people celebrate Christmas all over the country,” reports Global Voices Online.

But Chinese got online on Christmas Day reporting blockades set up to ensnare Christians on their way to churches (house churches not part of the communist-branded Christianity, that is).

Photos uploaded by Weibo user Liagyage showing a Church being blocked in Xian on Christmas day.

“They are so stupid,” said one netizen. “Blocking the church under the sun is forcing people to believe in evil cults. When activities are happening in the dark, it will generate sin and crime. If China can allow open and public preaching, religious activities will not turn into cults.”

More than 600 protestors who gathered to mark the 119th anniversery of Mao’s death on the day after Christmas were thrown onto buses and taken away, reports Radio Free Asia.

RFA also comfirmed reports of regime officials disturbing Christians. 

“The [police] held an emergency meeting on Dec. 24 on how to tighten controls on  Protestant churches, Catholics, and house churches,” Protestant believer Li Jincheng said.

“The armed police and plainclothes police have been patrolling the southern railway station day and night,” he said. “I saw them with my own eyes.”

The Uyghur community also found the Global Times editorial, which extolled religious freedom in China, problematic.

“The Global Times’ editorial is full of fallacies,” said a commentary on Ulghurbiz.net. ”It turns young Chinese people’s consumption of a “western festival” into evidence of freedom of Christianity culture in China. Will the government loosen control if Christmas was not a consumption holiday? The increase in the number of Christians in China is mainly a reaction to the loss of core values in this country. People want to seek comfort from religion. Does it have anything to do with the government’s open policy? We need systematic debate on this. If western media criticizes the repression of Muslim religious activities in China on the eve of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, will Global Times dare to publish an editorial “Skeptics of Religious Freedom in China, please go to Xinjiang for the Festival”?

In China, Christmas is another holiday for consumption. Photo by Flickr user Marc van der Chijs CC: BY-SA.