China may ban Catholics from 2008 Olympics

[sanctus]

China's Ministry of Public Security has issued a directive listing 43 categories of 'unwanteds' who are to be investigated and may be barred from the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Falun Dafa Information Centre reports.

The banned groups will include members of religious groups not sanctioned by the state, including the underground Catholic and other Christian churches; "key individuals in ideological fields," "counter-revolutionary" figures, the Dalai Lama and all affiliates, "individuals who instigate discontentment toward the Chinese Communist Party through the Internet," and certain types of "handicapped" persons.

Members of the indigenous religious group Falun Gong would be barred, as would "family members of deceased persons" killed in "riots" -- a euphemism for events such as the Tiananmen Massacre -- and Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province, which the regime brands "national separatists."

Foreign athletes, members of the media, Olympic staff members, referees, sponsors, dignitaries, and the International Olympic Committee itself, will all be investigated, to determine whether they fall into any of the 43 categories.

According to AsiaNews, up to 50 Roman Catholic bishops and priests are in prison or otherwise prevented from carrying out their ministry in China.

In theory Chinese law guarantees a degree of religious freedom, but the Communist government forbids all worship outside state-backed "patriotic" religious groups which it effectively controls.

China broke links with the Vatican soon after the Communists took sole control of the country. During the 1950's the government expelled foreign clergy and established its own state approved "Catholic church", the China Patriotic Catholic Association, which pledges loyalty to Beijing rather than the Pope.

Despite continual harassment and arrest of its priests and members, the Roman Catholic Church in China claims an estimated eight million worshippers, double the total for the government approved body.

Source: FDIC/CSW

© Independent Catholic News 2007

 

[FiveParadox]

Re: Banning from the Olympic Games

I would think it somewhat violates the tradition and principles of the Olympic games, to bar certain persons from participating due to their political, philosophical or religious affiliations. I would hope that the Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China would reconsider this inherently dangerous and controversial course of action. China has made some good progress in recent decades, and it would be a shame to see it reversed by such a rash decision.

 

[china]

Here is another point of view




Furey Goes to Church in China

Three days ago I sent out a 'True or False' email directing you to this blog, wherein I wrote about freedom (or lack thereof) in China. If you'll recall, my blog post was an answer to D.W.'s email - which addressed Tiananmen Square and freedom of travel, specifically (you can view it by scrolling this page).
The amount of correspondence this post generated was astounding. Many of you, including D.W. - who said he would delete any emails with the words "China" unanswered - wrote me with short as well as very long dispatches. I thank all of you for your messages, even though a good many were laced with barbs, attacks and 'commie' innuendo. One person went so far as to say I'm a shill for the Chinese government. HA!
For the record, I am no shill for anyone.
At the same time I will report the truth, as I have EXPERIENCED it. Not the truth I heard. Nor the truth that happened 20 or 30 years ago - or longer - during Maoist times or during the Cultural Revolution. In the event that I am reporting something I have not directly experienced - I will do my best to preface it with "I have heard" - or "Although I have no direct experience of such and such ..." This helps keeps everything in line with what I believe I truly know and can vouch for.
In many of the emails I received there was a common thread. This thread had to do with the so-called lack of religious freedom in China. In most cases it had to do with lack of freedom to profess Christian beliefs and/or being jailed, persecuted or beaten for said beliefs. A few dealt with the Falun Gong cult that was squashed and a few were about Tibetan Buddhism.

At St. Joseph's Church, Beijing, China.​

Today, I will address Christian freedom.
This morning I got up at 6 a.m., showered and dressed. I then went to St. Joseph's Church on Wang Fu Jing Da Jie. I entered the church and found a few hundred people present, all on their knees waiting for the service to begin. Along the walls of the church were paintings depicting the "Stations of the Cross."

Pictures depicting the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus​

Funny, I think, because I had heard, before attending this service, that people in China were not allowed to have Bibles, could not even utter the name "Jesus" and those who did so were jailed, beaten and tortured.
Why is it, then, that I was one of the few foreigners in this church? Why no police ready to arrest me and everyone else? Why was the name of Jesus spoken in this church, openly, by the priest and the parishioners? Why was the priest reading from the Christian Bible during the service?
The reason, via my direct experience, is simple. You ARE allowed to practice Christianity in China. You are also allowed to practice Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Islam, Taoism and so on. By the way, in many areas I have visited in China, you will find a good many Muslims, as well as mosques. You will also find some of the very best food served in China at Muslim restaurants, which I often go to as they appear to know, better than anyone else, how to cook lamb.

The Chinese Confessional​

Does the above mean that no one has ever suffered for his or her religious beliefs in China? NO.
Does the above mean that you can use your religion in China for political gain without facing some consequences? NO.
You may describe this as "lack" of freedom - yet I have heard that an American, cannot say whatever he wants whenever he wants to without repercussions, either.
For example, can an American threaten the life of a U.S. President without being jailed?
Can an American go to an airport and say he has a bomb or a gun - then laugh and say, "I was joking," - without being arrested?
Did Americans, during the McCarthy era, for example, have total freedom to say or do anything, without consequences?
Not only that, but if you think there's lack of freedom in Tiananmen Square, then I only want to ask: Are Americans free to walk past the White House anymore?
In the future I will address more questions that have been brought to my attention, such as, the single-child per family policy, freedom of travel to foreign countries, and so on.
In the interim, make sure you exercise one of your most basic freedoms, the freedom to take care of your health. Yes, your body is the ultimate temple for your mind and your spirit.
Never forget this truth.
Also, right now, we currently have only 98 more Matt Furey Exercise Bibles to give to new members of the Matt Furey Inner Circle. This deck of poker cards containing the top four exercises in Combat Conditioning, are catching on like a fire gone wild. So sprint over to the offer I have for you on my site and become a member today.
Rise Up!

Matthew Furey
Zen Master of the Internet®

 

[Zzarchov]

Religious freedoms "to worship as we tell you to" is not religious freedoms.

You can dress it up all you want, it just isn't.

 

[Unforgiven]

It's their country. Though I am not Catholic, I still probably will not attend.

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

I would love to see a complete boycott of people outside of china attending this event.
Not the Olympians and not watching and supporting them from afar via telly.
Look china just poisined our pet food supply in order to make larger profit.
horrors of kids toys made out of lead paint are surfacing AGAIN.
Poisoned chinnese wheat gluten has entered the human food chain.
The absolute horror China did to Tibet is enough. where is the panchen Lama, the 12 year old boy kidnapped by the chinnese govt.15 years ago


How can we put out heads together and start a worldwide email campaign to thwart any decent human being from supporting this defacing of the olympian ideal


In no way should the atheletes be stopped or boycotted from competeing...thats not my idea here

 

[eh1eh]

Makes you wonder what the Chinese people would do without the communist bridle. It is enough to scare me a little. Look what they're doing now. They may be in competion for the moon and mars. Not to mention the monetary clout they would and will eventually have and they are still trying to control their peoples thoughts and beliefs. I don't think they will have the same problems the former USSR is having adjusting to the free market. I light of this kind of thing I'm sure it's only a matter of time before something breaks. Another Tiananmen Square? Only worse.

 

[snfu73]

Right from day one there has been tremendous controversy around the olympic games in China. This is just another in a long, long list of issues. I think it would be very unfortunate if China took this approach to the Olympics...and I think the backlash can have some interesting twists and turns...from affecting trade, to political retaliations of sorts to...who knows...who knows what. I don't know. I don't even know what I'm talking about. I just know that this is just another in a long list of complaints and issues surrounding these games.

 

[Zzarchov]

1.) Tibet is one of those few nations in this world that did better after being invaded by Mao Zedong.

Glamourous propaganda spread during the cold war to shame communists aside, Tibet was a theocratic hellhole.

The squalor and suffering in the system was inhuman. If you were born a peasant its because you did something wrong in a past life and DESERVED to be punished and abused your whole life, and if you did well, grinned and bore it, you might get born as a noble the next time around.


2.) I just think if it can't obey olympic principles (ie, 1/5th the world is catholic) it loses the right to host the olympics.

 

[Pangloss]

One: I doubt China would bar the Catholics

Two: Who gives a poop? It's a track meet.

Pangloss

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

1.) Tibet is one of those few nations in this world that did better after being invaded by Mao Zedong.

Glamourous propaganda spread during the cold war to shame communists aside, Tibet was a theocratic hellhole.

The squalor and suffering in the system was inhuman. If you were born a peasant its because you did something wrong in a past life and DESERVED to be punished and abused your whole life, and if you did well, grinned and bore it, you might get born as a noble the next time around.


.

Yer kidding right...You realize they murdered 1 million people, forced nuns to be raped by monks in the street....the list goes on forever.

As for your take on life in pre occupied Tibet....where did you get your facts....China!

 

[MikeyDB]

I think the Chinese should take a page out of Canadian history...

Charge a head-tax ....

 

[smilingfish]

I think it's at least partly true, because my uncle IS in prison, and my dad knows a disabled person(yes, so-called "certain types of handicapped"), who was selected as an athlet and sent to the Special Olympic, but then was stopped and sent back home before the sports began.

But F alu n Da fa Info rmation Centr e? Isn't it the same organization that killed my dad's aunt? And I've received all kinds of weird stuff they send to me to talk me into joining them. If I could choose, I prefer neither of them.

I beilive Fal un members will be banned, but not Catholics. Fa lun are "too active", so Bei jing can't stand them. While Catholics can't do much "harm" to Bei jing, it's not necessary to do that. Besides, they're not stupid after all, why would they offend the 1/5 of the world before the games begin, which they've invested enormous expenses into.

When the current gov rules the country, I want to move to Canada. If Fal un ruled the country, I'd probably move to Mars.

And if you can't see me show up the following days, my account or even my computer may have been cracked by F a l un.

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

the only problem china has with falun is their numbers.
the actual practise is nothing more than a meld of yoga and tai chi with meditation as a base practice. The ones I met are not political in anything other than wanting their freedom to practise breathing meditations for crying out loud....But there are what nearly 50 million...100 million practitioners and the Chinnese govt. feels threatened by them cause they have a voice inside their religion the flippin commies can't control.

 

[Zzarchov]

Yer kidding right...You realize they murdered 1 million people, forced nuns to be raped by monks in the street....the list goes on forever.

As for your take on life in pre occupied Tibet....where did you get your facts....China!

1.) Murdered a million people? Millions of people have died for sure, but that depends on your definition of who's responsible for what.

Keep in mind Tibet didn't capitulate, it was a bloody battle that could have gone on for years. Tibet had an army, military theocracies who rule by fear tend to need them. The problem was it wasn't modernized for fear of outside influence.

As for the nuns raped by monks in the street, think you got your religions wrong for starters, tibet was a buddhist theocracy , not a catholic christian one (isn't it amazing how such peaceful religions becomes some horrid theocracies?)

And rape was a common punishment the nobility would inflict on the peasants to punish them for the sins of their past life (having been born).


As for where I get my facts? How about every piece of written work on Tibet prior to the Chinese takeover.

For instance did you know the Dalai Lama was a slave owner? He had hundreds to serve his every whim in his thousand room palace. They did not want to be there.


While it is well documented that China killed thousands in the invasion, and as in all wars many more thousands died later from resultant causes of warfare. It is also true that there is a higher life expentancy and lower infant mortality rate in Tibet. Slavery has been banned.

The Chinese government does send more money into Tibet than it takes out at this point (though with a new railway through the mountains that may change).

China did massive damage to Tibetan culture, but that really isn't any different to the massive damage China did to Chinese culture during the same period (see cultural revolution)

And in defense of Zedong's "faulty assumption" about Foreign Agents in China, they actually were right. US CIA agents (newly formed) were in Lhasa, and there had been some form of incident there. Laird claims in a book that there is solid evidence it was an arms deal to keep communism from spreading (similar antics would happen in Indo-China later) that is unconfirmed as far as im concerned. But when a strongly anti-communist superpower goes to the capital of a religious feudal theocracy on your border, it is fair for a communist nation to see danger. And for all its evils (and there are many many evils) the PRC was better than the Fascist KMT or the Feudal Theocracy slave state of Tibet. They would be the serial killer than kills you before raping you, rather than the other way around.

Seriously, Tibet was not shangri-la unless you were one of the privelaged nobility.

 

[Unforgiven]

Right from day one there has been tremendous controversy around the olympic games in China. This is just another in a long, long list of issues. I think it would be very unfortunate if China took this approach to the Olympics...and I think the backlash can have some interesting twists and turns...from affecting trade, to political retaliations of sorts to...who knows...who knows what. I don't know. I don't even know what I'm talking about. I just know that this is just another in a long list of complaints and issues surrounding these games.

People might talk about that, but there is no way anyone, especially America is going to let all those consumers slip by on some principle of morality.

 

[china]

Zzacharov:
Religious freedoms "to worship as we tell you to" is not religious freedoms.

Even though at first it sounds very profound , there are things wrong with your statement .the understanding of the meanings of three simple words .... religion , freedom , to worship .

PS China is my home for over 5 years.My work takes me all over this beautiful country ,when was the last time you visited this country Zzacharov.

 

[china]

china

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

1.) Murdered a million people? Millions of people have died for sure, but that depends on your definition of who's responsible for what.

Keep in mind Tibet didn't capitulate, it was a bloody battle that could have gone on for years. Tibet had an army, military theocracies who rule by fear tend to need them. The problem was it wasn't modernized for fear of outside influence.

As for the nuns raped by monks in the street, think you got your religions wrong for starters, tibet was a buddhist theocracy , not a catholic christian one (isn't it amazing how such peaceful religions becomes some horrid theocracies?)

And rape was a common punishment the nobility would inflict on the peasants to punish them for the sins of their past life (having been born).


As for where I get my facts? How about every piece of written work on Tibet prior to the Chinese takeover.

For instance did you know the Dalai Lama was a slave owner? He had hundreds to serve his every whim in his thousand room palace. They did not want to be there.


While it is well documented that China killed thousands in the invasion, and as in all wars many more thousands died later from resultant causes of warfare. It is also true that there is a higher life expentancy and lower infant mortality rate in Tibet. Slavery has been banned.

The Chinese government does send more money into Tibet than it takes out at this point (though with a new railway through the mountains that may change).

China did massive damage to Tibetan culture, but that really isn't any different to the massive damage China did to Chinese culture during the same period (see cultural revolution)

And in defense of Zedong's "faulty assumption" about Foreign Agents in China, they actually were right. US CIA agents (newly formed) were in Lhasa, and there had been some form of incident there. Laird claims in a book that there is solid evidence it was an arms deal to keep communism from spreading (similar antics would happen in Indo-China later) that is unconfirmed as far as im concerned. But when a strongly anti-communist superpower goes to the capital of a religious feudal theocracy on your border, it is fair for a communist nation to see danger. And for all its evils (and there are many many evils) the PRC was better than the Fascist KMT or the Feudal Theocracy slave state of Tibet. They would be the serial killer than kills you before raping you, rather than the other way around.

Seriously, Tibet was not shangri-la unless you were one of the privelaged nobility.

Well out right i'm saying this is Horse Hockey!!!!You have some twisted agenda or you are so brainwashed misinformed it's made you ill.


the red army forced young monks to shoot their teachers in public. well documented.
The red army took Buddhist monks and forced them to rape Buddhist nuns in public, well documented.
10,000 Buddhist monastaries destroyed, well documented..

Pause..ask amnisty international if I'm correct so far.

Have met many Tibetan survivors of chinnese prisons, who were put there for over 20 years and the only crime, being a Buddhist monk.
All told, through mass murder and butchery and imprisonment an estimated OVER 1 million Tibets died.

Again go to amnisty international and verify this....if you wish.

Who are you and whats your agenda?

 

[donsutherland1]

The Falun Dafa opposes the Chinese Government. It is seeking to exploit the upcoming 2008 Olympic games for pursuit of its own objectives. The Chinese Government won't embark on a reckless courses that would lead the IOC to relocate the Olympic games. The IOC would have little choice but to do so if athletes were barred from competing based on their religious affiliation. Given the symbolic importance China attaches to the upcoming Olympic games in Beijing, there is no chance whatsoever that it will take the course that the Falun Dafa alleges.