Chinese religious leaders condemn US religious freedom report

Representing over 100 million religious followers nationwide, more than 50 Chinese religious leaders convened here Friday to slam the annual religious freedom report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom which names China as a country whose human rights has "deteriorated".

The report, claiming the commission "remains especially concerned about the human rights situation in China", said that a total of 11 countries, including China, have engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing and egregious abuses of freedom of religion.

Zhang Jiyu, vice president of the China Taoism Association, said that the United States, in the name of religion, has been wielding evil assaults at China's religious policies and freedom situation simply by paying attention to hearsay materials and evidences.

"The U.S., in the pretext of human rights, is grossly meddling in China's internal affairs on issues such as Hong Kong and Falun Gong cult issues," Zhang said

"The commission's annual report is full of lies and accusations that are made out of thin air. It is a textbook example of the cheating nature of the US's human rights," said Chen Guangyuan, president of China's Islamic Association.

"The American troops' abuse of Iraqi war prisoners violated not only international human rights conventions but Islamic religious tenets. A Muslim, especially a female one, should never expose their bodies before others, but US soldiers willfully abuse them by adopting practices that go against their religions," Said Chen.

"Does the U.S. have any qualification or power to speak of other countries' affairs? They should merely mind and improve their own human rights situation instead," he said.

Jia Muyang, vice president of the China Buddhist Association and head of the famous Labreng Lamasery, said things have been going well with his lamasery, which boasts approximately 1,000 lamas.

"Visitors to my lamasery, some from America, all expressed their satisfaction with what they had witnessed there. But the report just turns a blind eye to all the actual situation and fabricates things from nothing only to meet their own purposes," he said, warning the U.S. stop all its human rights attacks and return to the right track.

"We are fully enjoying religious freedom and had never suffered repression or crackdown as the report claimed," said Liu Deshen, a noted Catholic leader from Chongqing, southwest China.

In 2003, Chongqing metropolis witnessed more than 3,000 new Catholic church members and 28 new priests took posts. "It's too big a lie to say that China is exercising a religious crackdown," said Liu.

"Christian followers have risen by 20 to 30 fold in the past 25years since 1978. We have more 50,000 religious sites with 50-plusprovincial level training centers throughout the country, and more than 30 million Bibles have been printed," said Su Deci, vice president of the China Christian Association.

He acknowledged that "our registration of membership is for the purpose of being treated as legal persons and enjoying more legal protection,"

"My personal feeling is that we are living in China's best ever period of religious freedom." Su said.