A group of Chinese religious leaders has criticized a recent report by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

The annual report, released on May 3, accused China of limiting religious freedom and claimed China's crackdown on Falun Gong as "religious persecution".

But Chen Guangyuan, President of the China Islamic Association, believes the report contradicts comments made by the U.S. committee during a visit to China last August.

"On that visit, they said repeatedly that China has made a lot of progress in its religious work and that their initial misunderstanding of religion in China had been cleared up," said Chen.

"But what they now say in their annual report is quite different," he said. "We feel cheated.

"We made a lot of effort to ensure the commission saw the true situation and we hoped they would tell the truth in their report."

Source: Xinhua