{"id":14443,"date":"2019-07-16T13:59:58","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T04:59:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/?p=14443"},"modified":"2020-02-18T16:06:57","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T07:06:57","slug":"vomk-report-65","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/2019\/07\/16\/vomk-report-65\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese authorities offer $1,000 cash prize for reports on ‘illegal’ religious activities"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”(Guiyang, Guizhou\u2014July 1, 2019) Authorities in Guiyang, the capital of China\u2019s Guizhou province, are incentivizing local residents to report religious activities by offering them up to around $1,000.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:1.2em|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Noto%20Sans%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal” el_class=”headline”][vc_column_text]According to Voice of the Martyrs Korea representative Hyun Sook Foley, people will receive the cash reward if they report on \u201csuspicious illegal religious sites and activities\u201d including churches that meet without registering with the government. Representative Foley explains that such churches are considered illegal inside of China, but many choose not to register in order to avoid the censorship imposed by the Chinese Communist Party on registered churches.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”4\/6″][vc_single_image image=”14453″ img_size=”full”][vc_custom_heading text=”Plainclothes authorities film Christians during a raid on one of Guiyang’s house churches in this undated photo.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:11px|text_align:justify|color:%23000000|line_height:1.6em” google_fonts=”font_family:Noto%20Sans%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]According to Voice of the Martyrs Korea representative Hyun Sook Foley, people will receive the cash reward if they report on \u201csuspicious illegal religious sites and activities\u201d including churches that meet without registering with the government. Representative Foley explains that such churches are considered illegal inside of China, but many choose not to register in order to avoid the censorship imposed by the Chinese Communist Party on registered churches.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”14447″ img_size=”full”][vc_custom_heading text=”The announcemen posted by the Wenfeng Street Community Office in Tanghe County” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:11px|text_align:center|color:%23000000|line_height:1.6em” google_fonts=”font_family:Noto%20Sans%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]Representative Foley says the announcement is only the latest in a series of efforts across China where authorities incentivize neighbors to report unregistered Christian activity. Foley says that Voice of the Martyrs Korea and its China partner China Aid have been able to confirm that similar rewards are being given out in other areas of China for reports on illegal religious activities. Foley notes that a government office in China\u2019s southwestern Henan province released an announcement on January 28 of this year asking residents to report \u201cillegal religious activities\u201d via a hotline. The announcement guaranteed confidentiality for residents who called the number and also offered cash rewards for factual tips.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]The announcement, shown here, was posted by the Wenfeng Street Community Office in Tanghe County. It details that people who display tiles or post Lunar New Year couplets with religious messages \u201cwill be stopped immediately and seriously educated.\u201d Likewise, people who provide sites for \u201cillegal religious gathering activities without approval will be fined 20,000-200,000 yuan.\u201d The notice claims that such actions are illegal under Articles 69 and 71 of China\u2019s Regulations on Religious Affairs and says that those found in drastic violation of the regulations will receive a \u201csevere penalty.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Foley says one way Korean Christians can stand with Chinese house churches is to add their names to a declaration of religious freedom originally published in September 2018 with signatures from 439 Chinese pastors. The full declaration is available at www.chinadeclaration.org<\/a>. \u201cUnless Christians in Korea and around the world let Chinese authorities know that we are standing with the churches in Guizhou province and Henan province, we can expect the crackdown on Chinese house churches to widen and worsen.\u201d Foley urges Korean Christians to sign the online petition, which Voice of the Martyrs Korea will be presenting to the Chinese Embassy once all signatures have been collected.[\/vc_column_text][vc_btn title=”Add Your Signature” style=”flat” shape=”square” color=”black” align=”center” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fchinadeclaration.com%2Fen%2F||target:%20_blank|”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text][\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”(Guiyang, Guizhou\u2014July 1, 2019) Authorities in Guiyang, the capital of China\u2019s Guizhou province, are incentivizing local residents to report religious activities by offering them up to around $1,000.” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:1.2em|text_align:left” …","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":14451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vomk-report"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["ko","en","zh","ru"],"languages":{"ko":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"zh":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"ru":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}