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The government deported four back to Vietnam in June. Rights activists expressed concern that Montagnards deported to Vietnam would face harsh treatment upon their return. Again in June, the government said it would allow the remaining 27 to move to a third country if the UNHCR would obtain approval from the Vietnamese government. The government continued to promote Buddhist holidays by grants of official status and declarations of government holidays.
The government also provided Buddhist training and education to monks and laypersons in pagodas, and it gave financial support to an institute that performed research and published materials on Khmer culture and Buddhist traditions. The government did not grant similar treatment to other religious groups, including by declaring religious holidays. This marked the sixth straight year the prime minister hosted the event and he pledged to continue doing so.
He encouraged those in attendance to maintain peace, security, and public order in the country. On May 8, Health Minister Mam Bunheng issued a statement ordering all directors of public hospitals to prepare prayer rooms nationwide to facilitate the worship of Muslim staff and patients. On May 15, the MOEYS followed suit and requested state and private institutes and universities across the country to add prayer rooms to their campuses.
On March 26, the government announced a decision to remove hectares 1, acres of land from an economic concession to Vietnamese company Hoang Anh Gia Lai and return it to indigenous communities in Rattanakiri Province, which predominantly practice animist beliefs. The report stated that Den accused Sorl of using magic to make him and his family sick. The police arrested Den the day following the attack and charged him with premeditated murder.
Mao accused Phos of using magic to cause him and his family to be sick. The police arrested Mao on the same day, charging him with premediated murder. From to , the OHCHR recorded 49 witchcraft-related crimes, among which 35 involved killings and 14 attempted killings and harassment. There were reports from members of the Cham Muslim community of barriers to social integration, including barriers to job prospects and socio-economic advancement.
Local media reported that some members of the majority Buddhist community continued to view the Cham and other minority ethnic groups with suspicion as purported practitioners of sorcery. Embassy officials regularly raised with MCR representatives and other government officials the importance of fully integrating religious minorities into Cambodian society and the benefits of supporting religious pluralism. The embassy underscored the importance of acceptance of religious diversity with leaders of Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim groups, emphasizing the importance of interfaith tolerance in a democratic society.
Embassy officers met periodically with ethnic Cham and other Muslim community members to support religious tolerance, respect for minority culture, and equal economic opportunity and integration of ethnic minorities into the wider culture.
During several visits to the region, senior Washington officials also met with local authorities and civil society members to promote religious freedom. Some embassy programs specifically focused on supporting the preservation of religious cultural sites.
The government recognizes five official religions — Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. There continued to be reports of deaths in custody and that the government tortured, physically abused, arrested, detained, sentenced to prison, subjected to forced indoctrination in CCP ideology, or harassed adherents of both registered and unregistered religious groups for activities related to their religious beliefs and practices.
There were several reports of individuals committing suicide in detention, or, according to sources, as a result of being threatened and surveilled. In December Pastor Wang Yi was tried in secret and sentenced to nine years in prison by a court in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, in connection to his peaceful advocacy for religious freedom. There was one self-immolation by a former Tibetan Buddhist monk reported during the year. The government continued a campaign begun in to evict thousands of monks and nuns from Larung Gar and Yachen Gar Tibetan Buddhist Institutes.
Authorities in many provinces targeted religious groups with overseas ties, particularly Christian groups. Officials across the country shut down religious venues, including some that were affiliated with the authorized patriotic religious associations, and placed surveillance cameras in houses of worship as a condition of allowing these venues to continue operating. There were numerous reports that authorities closed or destroyed Islamic, Christian, Buddhist, Taoist, Jewish, and other houses of worship and destroyed public displays of religious symbols throughout the country, including the last remaining crosses in Xiayi County, Henan Province, and all Jewish symbols identifying the site of the former Kaifeng Synagogue, also in Henan Province.
Nationwide, the government prohibited individuals under aged 18 from participating in most religious activities. The Holy See maintained its provisional agreement with the government that reportedly addressed a decades-long dispute concerning the authority to appoint bishops. Officials routinely made public statements denigrating the Dalai Lama. There were reports of individuals dying as a result of injuries sustained during interrogations. Authorities in Xinjiang restricted access to mosques and barred youths from participating in religious activities, including fasting during Ramadan.
This surveillance included forcing Uighurs and other ethnic and religious minorities to install spyware on their mobile phones and accept government officials and CCP members living in their homes. Satellite imagery and other sources indicated the government destroyed mosques, cemeteries, and other religious sites.
Nearly 40 percent of all elementary and middle school students — approximately half a million children — lived in boarding schools where they studied Han culture, Mandarin, and CCP ideology. The government sought the forcible repatriation of Uighur and other Muslims from foreign countries and detained some of those who returned.
Christians, Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners reported severe societal discrimination in employment, housing, and business opportunities.
Anti-Muslim speech in social media remained widespread. At the second Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in July, the United States and other nations issued a statement calling on the government to cease its crackdown on religious groups. The Ambassador and other embassy and consulate general officials met with members of registered and unregistered religious groups, family members of religious prisoners, NGOs, and others to reinforce U.
The embassy continued to amplify Department of State religious freedom initiatives directly to Chinese citizens through outreach programs and social media. In October the U. On December 18, the Secretary of State redesignated China as a CPC and identified the following sanction that accompanied the designation: the existing ongoing restriction on exports to China of crime control and detection instruments and equipment, under the Foreign Relations Authorization Act of and Public Law , pursuant to section c 5 of the Act.
Local and regional figures for the number of religious followers, including those belonging to the four officially recognized religions, are unclear. Local governments do not release these statistics, and even official religious organizations do not have accurate numbers. The Pew Research Center and other observers say the numbers of adherents of many religious groups often are underreported. According to a February estimate by the U. The SCIO report states there are six million Catholics, although media and international NGO estimates suggest there are million Catholics, approximately half of whom practice in churches not affiliated with the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association CCPA , the state-sanctioned organization for all officially recognized Catholic churches.
Accurate estimates on the numbers of Catholics and Protestants as well as other faiths are difficult to calculate because many adherents practice exclusively at home or in churches that are not state sanctioned. According to the SCIO report, there are 10 ethnic minority groups totaling more than 20 million persons in which Islam is the majority religion. Other sources indicate almost all Muslims are Sunni. While there is no reliable government breakdown of the Buddhist population by branch, the vast majority of Buddhists are adherents of Mahayana Buddhism, according to the Pew Research Center.
Falun Gong sources estimate tens of millions continue to practice privately, and Freedom House estimates seven to 20 million practitioners. Media sources report Buddhism, particularly Tibetan Buddhism, is growing in popularity among the Han Chinese population. The constitution provides for the right to hold or not to hold a religious belief. The law does not allow legal action to be taken against the government based on the religious freedom protections afforded by the constitution.
The CCP is responsible for creating religious regulations. SARA administers the provincial and local bureaus of religious affairs. CCP members and members of the armed forces are required to be atheists and are forbidden from engaging in religious practices. Members found to belong to religious organizations are subject to expulsion, although these rules are not universally enforced.
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The vast majority of public office holders are CCP members, and membership is widely considered a prerequisite for success in a government career. These restrictions on religious belief and practice also apply to retired CCP party members. The law bans certain religious or spiritual groups. There are no published criteria for determining, or procedures for challenging, such a designation.
The CCP maintains an extralegal, party-run security apparatus to eliminate the Falun Gong movement and other such organizations. Regulations require religious organizations to register with the government.
Only religious groups belonging to one of the five state-sanctioned religious associations are permitted to do so and only these organizations may legally hold worship services. Other religious groups such as Protestant groups unaffiliated with the official TSPM or Catholics professing loyalty to the Holy See are not permitted to register as legal entities.
The Regulations on Religious Affairs state that registered religious organizations may possess property, publish approved materials, train staff, and collect donations. Religious and other regulations permit official patriotic religious associations to engage in activities such as building places of worship, training religious leaders, publishing literature, and providing social services to local communities.

The SCIO April white paper states there are approximately , places of worship registered for religious activities in the country, among which 33, are Buddhist temples including 28, Han Buddhist temples, 3, Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and 1, Theravada Buddhist temples , 9, Taoist temples, 35, Islamic mosques, 6, Catholic churches and places of assembly spread across 98 dioceses, and 60, Protestant churches and places of assembly.
Government policy allows religious groups to engage in charitable work, but regulations specifically prohibit faith-based organizations from proselytizing while conducting charitable activities. Authorities require faith-based charities, like all other charitable groups, to register with the government. Once registered as an official charity, authorities allow them to raise funds publicly and to receive tax benefits.
The government does not permit unregistered charitable groups to raise funds openly, hire employees, open bank accounts, or own property. According to several unregistered religious groups, the government requires faith-based charities to obtain official cosponsorship of the registration application by the local official religious affairs bureau. Authorities often require these groups to affiliate with one of the five state-sanctioned religious associations. The regulations specify all religious structures, including clergy housing, may not be transferred, mortgaged, or utilized as investments.
In December SARA issued regulations that place restrictions on religious groups conducting business or making investments by stipulating the property and income of religious groups, schools, and venues must not be distributed and should be used for activities and charity befitting their purposes; any individual or organization that donates funds to build religious venues is prohibited from owning the venues. The regulations impose a limit on foreign donations to religious groups, stating any such donations must be used for activities that authorities deem appropriate for the group and the site.
National laws allow each provincial administration to issue its own regulations concerning religious affairs, including penalties for violations; many provinces updated their regulations after the national regulations came into effect. In addition to the five officially recognized religions, local governments, at their discretion, permit followers of certain unregistered religions to carry out religious practices.
In Heilongjiang, Zhejiang, and Guangdong Provinces, for example, local governments allow members of Orthodox Christian communities to participate in unregistered religious activities.
Position: Versatile. Government-provided statistics indicated sharia courts convicted individuals between January and October. Individual houses of worship are not required to register with the government. A pastor who attended the mandatory training said the course focused on the Sinicization of Christianity. Embassy officials attended several religious festivals celebrated by the Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim communities and emphasized in these events the importance of tolerance and respect for religious minorities.
SARA states, through a policy posted on its website, that family and friends have the right to meet at home for worship, including prayer and Bible study, without registering with the government. A provision states, however, that religious organizations should report the establishment of a religious site to the government for approval.
According to the law, inmates have the right to believe in a religion and maintain their religious beliefs while in custody. The law does not define what constitutes proselytizing.