By Stoyan Zaimov
Christian Post
Christian Post
China is pushing back against the U.S. State Department's annual religious freedom report that highlights the Communist government's persecution of Christians and religious minorities, stating that the U.S. needs to solve its own problems with white supremacist violence.
Bob Fu, president of persecution watchdog group China Aid, told The Christian Post, however, that China is "incorrect" in drawing a comparison between the two issues.
"The Chinese government is directly responsible for their abuses, while the U.S. government is not necessarily responsible for racism," Fu said in an email on Thursday.
"In Charlottesville, racism occurred because a group of white nationalist individuals who are not affiliated with the government acted on their prejudices, and many U.S. officials went on to condemn their actions, demonstrating that this is not a human rights abuse that can be tied to the government," he continued.
Bob Fu, president of persecution watchdog group China Aid, told The Christian Post, however, that China is "incorrect" in drawing a comparison between the two issues.
"The Chinese government is directly responsible for their abuses, while the U.S. government is not necessarily responsible for racism," Fu said in an email on Thursday.
"In Charlottesville, racism occurred because a group of white nationalist individuals who are not affiliated with the government acted on their prejudices, and many U.S. officials went on to condemn their actions, demonstrating that this is not a human rights abuse that can be tied to the government," he continued.
"China, on the other hand, implements local and national policies that specifically target specific groups of people and even goes so far as to hold official conferences about how to properly execute these policies. This denotes a direct government responsibility for the abuses."The 2016 International Religious Freedom Report, released earlier this week, provided an update on the religious freedom situation in 199 countries around the world.
It criticized China for a number of reported human rights abuses, such as one incident in April 2016 in Zhumadian, Henan province, where the pastor of an unregistered church and his wife were buried alive while trying to save their church from government-ordered demolition. While the pastor survived, his wife, Ding Cuimei, died.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying argued in her response on Wednesday that China protects religious freedom.
"The so-called U.S. report ignores the facts, confuses right and wrong and makes wanton criticism of China's religious freedom situation," she said, according to Reuters, adding that America is not "perfect" either.State news agency Xinhua further commented on the violence at last weekend's rally between white nationalist socialists and Antifa counter-protesters in Charlottesville — in which one protester was killed by a man who plowed his car into a crowd and two police officers were killed when their helicopter crashed — by suggesting that the U.S. is better off dealing with its own problems first.
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