By Tenzin Dharpo
DHARAMSHALA, Feb. 26: A new Chinese regulation will require clergies including Buddhist leaders and Catholic leadership to espouse love for the communist party, support CCP leadership and the socialist system, in what is being seen as yet another tool to control and restrict religious freedom inside Tibet.
The Measures for the Administration of Religious Clergy or the ‘Order No. 15’ passed in January by the the State Administration of Religious Affairs—renamed the National Religious Affairs Administration in English in recent years— will go into effect May 1, 2021.
The new regulations will add teeth to the already overwhelming mechanism such as the database for living Buddhas’ or reincarnate religious figures, to supress religious freedom inside Tibet. “Adding to the government’s already vast powers to monitor, control and limit religious practice, the new measures help institutionalize the suppression of Tibetan Buddhism, the primary faith in Chinese-occupied Tibet,” Washington based advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet said Thursday.
In line with the government’s restrictive measures, the clergy must also “maintain national unity, ethnic unity, religious harmony and social stability” and not “endanger national security,” “undermine national unity” and “divide the country”.
The new dictum will see drastic measures such as assigning the clergy members with a personalised 12-digit numerical codes that is part of an evaluation system. The system requires clergy member to get permission for something as simple as engaging in a religious activity ahead of time, and failing to adhere could result in losing their credentials and facing punitive measures.
“With these new measures, the Chinese Communist Party is not only harming people of faith and endangering the survival of Tibet’s unique and beautiful Buddhist religion. It is also making a mockery of the very idea of faith by turning it into just another tool to prop up the totalitarian Communist regime,” International Campaign for Tibet Interim President Bhuchung K. Tsering said.
