2015-07-27
Cross still in place on the Jinjia’er church in Huzhou, Zhejiang Province, July 27, 2015.
Photo courtesy of a church member.
Officials in China’s eastern province of Zhejiang sent in monks to burn incense and chant Buddhist scriptures as a “provocation” as Christian believers faced off with a government-backed demolition gang intent on removing a large cross from the roof of their church, church members told RFA on Monday.
The monks came in and chanted prayers, burning incense at the door of the Jinjia’er church in Zhejiang’s Huzhou city, where believers had been staging a sit-in in the hope of blocking access by the demolition gang for several days, a church follower who asked not to be named told RFA.
“We are Protestant Christians, so by sending monks to chant sutras they were trying to get us riled up,” the Jinjia’er congregant said. “They blocked the main door, and they were detaining anyone who got physical with them on public order charges.”
“They were trying to make us angry so that we would retaliate against them. They think that anyone who opposes the government is a traitor, or someone trying to overturn the Communist Party,” he said.
“Anyone who opposes them risks being stuck with this label.”
The authorities had also moved quickly to delete any social media posts about the standoff on China’s Twitter-like platforms, and from social messaging app WeChat, he said, adding that the cross was eventually demolished by the government on Sunday.
The demolition came as the authorities target churches in Zhejiang, and Wenzhou city, which has been dubbed “China’s Jerusalem” owing to its large proportion of Protestant believers.
Tearful congregation sings
The provincial government has kept up the “Three Rectifications and One Demolition” campaign, which claims to target all illegal structures, for several months now, rights groups say.
Local officials are required to take action to “demolish illegal structures that violate laws and regulations, occupy farmland, affect public safety and major construction, seriously affect urban and rural planning, and those that are located on both sides of main lines of transportation,” according to guidelines published last year on the provincial government’s website.
In Wenzhou, a member of the Yuyangtaitou church in Wenzhou’s Pingyang county said their church’s cross had also been demolished by the authorities on Monday.
Video footage shot by congregants and seen by RFA showed government officials lowering the cross gradually to the ground using ropes, watched by a tearful congregation singing hymns.
“The cross is gone; they took it down this morning,” the Yuyangtaitou church member said on Monday. “Why did they demolish the cross for no reason? This was pointless. It’s not like it was getting in the way of anything.”
“This church has been in our village for several decades; I knew it while I was growing up.”
Local media reports said the Pingyang county government had announced that all visible crosses in the county would be removed by Aug. 5.
