RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN COMMUNIST CHINA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010019-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 28, 2012
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: September 26, 1966
• Content Type: REPORT

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010019-8
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN COMMUNIST CHINA
The publicity given the Chinese Communist cultura
by its own and foreign news media has been gaining momentum particularly
as the purge has widened to include all foreigners and foreign institu-
tions in Communist China. The publicity became a torrent when the Red
Guard began their vicious and seemingly undisciplined attacks on mosques,
temples, Christian churches and religious relics of all faiths (about
20 August).
China's months-old cultural purge was first directed against its
own intellectual and cultural elite, then spread out to include literally
thousands in other walks of life whose sins ranged from wearing Western-
style clothes and haircuts to carrying luxury items in their shops. The
group most recently employed to whip up revolutionary zeal among the
population and to damn and destroy everything foreign is the Red Guard,,*
high school and university students distinguished primarily by their red
arm bands which have become the license for destruction and terror in
China.
Until August when the Red Guard turned to the desecration of reli-
gious institutions, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) controls over the young
zealots seemed relaxed and the reactions of the world news media rela-
tively moderate. Now, however, even the CCP leadership seems to have
concluded that the excesses and abuses of "Mao's youngsters" are doing
the party and the cultural revolution irreparable damage. In a 28 August
People's Daily (major CCP organ) editorial, the party leaders belatedly
counseled moderation; possibly it is too late for them to preserve the
image.
The Red Guard attacks have spared no religious group in China. On
23August the mosque near the Indonesian Embassy in Peking was closed by
Red Guards and its front gates covered with Mao posters; three days later
the aged Imam of the mosque was beaten by the Red Guards and forced to
confess to numerous crimes against Islam; land, livestock and other
property belonging to other mosques have been expropriated; religious
*the name is resurrected from the Long March days of the 1930's when the
Red Guards were peasants who served MAO Tse-tung's fleeing army as porters
and scouts.
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010019-8
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010019-8
t
instruction in Arabic is now forbidden and Peking's propaganda media have
stepped up their attacks on the Peking Center for Islamic Studies (see
attached unclassified excerpts from "Peking and Religion").
The Buddhists have fared no better despite the fact that China has
systematically tried to convince Asian Buddhist countries that China is
a friendly country with a similar culture and that, should those countries
turn communist, Buddhism would still flourish. The Red Guards are now
dispelling any illusions along these lines which may have taken hold in
the Buddhist world by closing temples, removing Buddhist books and reli-
gious furnishings from the temples and burning:them in bonfires at the
temple doors, and by stealing and defacing statues of Buddha. The 1950's
and the tragedy of Tibet are being revived in new attacks on Tibet where
the main targets again are the monasteries and the monks (see unclassi-
fied attachment, "China Incorporates Tibet" and others for details).
The Christian world was horrified and aroused by the much-publicized
story of the Roman Catholic nuns of the Convent of the Sacred Heart who
had been humiliated and terrorized by the Red Guards for eight days, were
expelled from China and eventually arrived in Hong Kong where one nun
died the next day (l September) from heart failure and strain. This
tragic event was only the most dramatic in a mounting series of attacks
against Christianity in China -- Red Guards have closed and defaced
churches, cathedrals and missionary societies; altars and stained glass
windows have been smashed; MAO's picture has replaced that of Christ;
Red flags are flying over the churches and Christian cemeteries have been
closed (see attachments for details on the nuns' story and others).
SECRET
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010019-8
 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010019-8
50X1-HUM
Next 10 Page(s) In Document Denied
Iq
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/06/28: CIA-RDP78-03061A000400010019-8