The church denied the government’s request to install CCTVs.
The Chinese government’s religious crackdown now includes a ban on a large Protestant church in Beijing.
The Zion Church hosted hundreds of worshippers for years, and until April it enjoyed « relative freedoms, » according to Reuters. But after the church rejected the authorities’ request to install closed-circuit television cameras in its building, the government announced that it was « legally banned, » officially for operating without officially registering its events. Since then, its « illegal promotional material » has been confiscated.
It isn’t alone. In a joint statement released in July, more than 30 churches complained of « unceasing interference » from Chinese regulators. Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports that officials in the country are « destroying crosses, burning bibles, shutting churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith. » There are also reports of official discrimination against Muslims: Human Rights Watch recently accused the Chinese government of carrying out arbitrary detention, torture, surveillance, and indoctrination of the Turkic Muslim population in the northwestern part of the country.
