Differing readings of the Bible in China
By Dinah Gardner
BEIJING - A Chinese Christian businessman has been released from detention
after police grabbed him from his home in the early morning hours over a month
ago, says his wife. Zhang Jing said her husband, 37-year-old Shi Weihan, was
set free on January 4 after being held in a cell for 37 days, the legal limit
in China before formal charges have to be filed. He was arrested on November
28, while his two young daughters cowered in their bedroom, for "illegally"
publishing Bibles and Christian literature for distribution in home churches.
His family had been worried he would be sentenced to at least five years.
Under his Holy Spirit Trading Company, Shi ran a Christian
bookstore, a printing press and a condom distribution business. While all the
books in his store were legally published and sold in China, Shi printed bibles
and religious literature without authorization for distribution around local
homes churches including one he ran with his wife and family, said Zhang, also
37. "He was worried about publishing these unauthorized books," she added. But
the church needed these books and so he felt it was a risk worth taking.
According to China Aid Organization (CAA), a US-based pressure group that
catalogues religious persecution in the mainland, police released Shi because
of "insufficient evidence". What saved Shi, though, said the CAA, was
international scrutiny. "It is evident that international attention and
pressure on the case were instrumental in influencing the court's decision," it
said.
"The Chinese government has made a positive step in the right direction
regarding this case," CAA's president Bob Fu said. "This is a clear victory of
rule of law and international intervention." While Shi was a Chinese citizen,
his seven-year-old daughter Grace is American - she was born in the country –
and that may have gone some way to helping secure his release.
Shi's case illustrates the delicate situation the government finds itself in,
just seven months before the Beijing Summer Olympics. On the one hand it is
paranoid about protests during the Games - human rights groups have accused it
of stepping up crackdowns on non-state sanctioned religions groups in the runup
to the sports event. The US State Department's 2007 report on religious
freedoms in China said the government appears to be particularly worried about
religious groups plotting to disrupt the Games. Zhou Heng, a church leader from
the western region of Xinjiang, whose case is similar to Shi's, is still behind
bars after he was detained last August for possessing "illegally-printed"
bibles, said the CAA.
But, ironically, with the event throwing the country under unprecedented
scrutiny, it is also at great pains to present itself to the international
community as a country of religious tolerance.
This month it announced local Christian groups will be encouraged to hand out
Bibles to athletes and spectators during the event. Shi's bookstore, in an
upmarket office tower, is just three kilometers or so from the main Olympics
venue.
A few weeks after police snatched him from his home, China boasted it would
soon be one of the world's single-biggest Bible publishers. The country's top
religious affairs officer Ye Xiaowen presided over a ceremony to mark the
publication of Amity Printing Co's 50 millionth Bible - 41 million have been
distributed inside the People's Republic.
"The country respects and protects religious freedom," local media cited Ye,
head of the State Administration for Religious Affairs, as saying. Amity, a
joint venture between The Amity Foundation - a Chinese Christian organization -
and United Bible Societies Publishing Co, is the only authorized publisher of
Bibles in China. And when it opens its new factory in Nanjing province this
year, Amity will be able to churn out 12 million books a year – making China
the world's single biggest publisher of Bibles; a fact that sits uneasily with
the country's poor record on religious freedom.
Despite official assurances of freedom of religion, China permits only five
official beliefs - Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism.
Practitioners may only formally worship in state-sanctioned churches, temples
or mosques. The legality of house churches varies from place to place.
Officially small prayer meetings among family and friends are legal, but many
people allege that police regularly harass home churches, either closing them
down or forcing them to register with local Religious Affairs Bureaus.
Zhang denies her husband had any plans to protest during the Olympics; nor has
he ever been in trouble before either with his bookshop, which she insists has
all the proper paperwork, or the home church. They have been free to worship
and have been under no pressure to stop the church or register it, she said. US
businessman Ray Sharpe, a long-term family friend of Shi's, said he took his
faith very seriously. "Yes I would say he is an outspoken Christian. I would
describe him as an evangelical. He never hesitates to talk about his faith."
Shi is now resting, "exhausted" from his spell in jail, said Zhang. He was kept
in an unheated cell and was not allowed visits from his family during the 37
days. While the family are relieved that Shi was released without charge, "we
are unsure of what the future holds for us now," said Zhang, visibly worried.
Dinah Gardner is a freelance journalist based in Beijing.
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