There are four key points to this:
-Religious books re-evaluated
-New editions of books cannot go against socialistic beliefs and values
-Any content judged to be wrong by censors will be rewritten or re-translated again
-Comes at time that China is subjected to pressure and criticism of its oppression against the Muslims
A source reported that China is rewriting the Bible and Quran to “reflect socialistic values” while pressuring and monitoring religious groups within the country. According to a top official, anything that goes against the Communist Party beliefs from any new editions of religious books will be rewritten and translated to fit the socialist ideology. In terms of this policy, the party stated, “comprehensive evaluation of the existing religious classics aiming at contents which do not conform to the progress of the times”. This rule was proclaimed and given in November by the Committee for Ethnic and Religious Affairs of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which is in charge of all ethnic and religious issues in China. Furthermore, a Chinese official emphasized that religious authorities should follow the orders of President Xi Jinping and interpret every religious ideology in alignment with “the core values of Socialism” and “the requirements of the era”.
A meeting was held in November and headed by Wang Yang, Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Along with him, there were 16 people, including experts, believers, and representatives of different religions from the Central Committee of the Communistic Party of China, according to Xinhua News Agency. Mr. Yang basically repeated the same messages as instructed by President Xi Jinping. He also urged the people attending the meeting to build “a religious system with Chinese characteristics”. They agreed and added another missive statement, “is the choice of history”. It was also determined that the purpose of these directives was to stop “extreme thoughts” and “heretical ideas” from ruining and damaging the country.
With heavy global pressure in its wake, China faces criticism over its religious policies. A China researcher, Patrick Poon, at Amnesty International told MailOnLine: “[The censorship plans] show how manipulative the Chinese government is, hypocritically allowing certain religions to operate in China but only strictly with what content the Chinese government allows. In many ways, the Chinese government’s control, including censorship of the Bible and Quran, has twisted the doctrines of these religious texts and thus the religions. There is simply no genuine religious freedom.”
There were leaked documents which have shown the Chinese government running re-education centres to control and brainwash Muslims in Xinjiang. The documents were sets of instructions and rules on how to run detention centers and using technology to target people and exposed the lies of Beijing’s claim that the camps were for job training. UN experts and activists have pointed out that there are at least a million Muslim Uighurs held captive in Xinjiang detention centers. Former inmates made claims that Muslims were forced to eat pork and speak Mandarin Chinese. Since denying the existence of that detention centers from the beginning, China has now admitted that it opened vocational education centres in Xinjiang meant to stop religious extremism through teaching Mandarin and other job skills.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated in November that the documents proved China’s government guilty in the involvement of massive and systematic oppression towards Muslims and other minorities. China’s foreign ministry dismissed the accusations and spokesman, Geng Shuang, said “some media” was guilty in “smearing China’s counter-terrorism and anti-extremism efforts in Xinjiang”. In London, the Chinese embassy denied them and claimed that the documents were, “pure fabrication and fake news”.
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