In the U.S. China rivalry that involves a complex mix of diplomacy, trade wars and sanctions, religion has come under increased pressure after the communist regime banned online propagation of religion by foreign nationals, purportedly to make religion more Chinese-oriented.
On Dec. 22, the Chinese government issued a new norm that proscribes all foreign institutions and individuals from spreading religious content online. China cited national security interests for enacting the new law, the first of their kind to monitor online religious affairs, reported ucanews.com.
The new rules, titled Measures for the Administration of Internet Religious Information Services, were made two weeks after Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a national religious work conference. In his address to that conference Dec. 4, Xi stressed making religions Chinese in orientation and developing them in the Chinese context.
The United States, the United Nations and others have criticized China’s repression of 1 million Uyghur Muslims, in Xinjiang province, where China allegedly is holding Uyghurs in detention camps.
Michelle Bachelet, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, has sought to visit Xinjiang for years to verify the prosecution of Uyghur Muslims on religious grounds, but a U.N. spokesman said so far, no such visit had been made possible by the Chinese government.
China denies abuses in Xinjiang and says its policies and detention camps are meant for vocational training and to curb Islamic extremism. The United States cited China’s arbitrary detention and forced sterilizations of Uyghurs — part of treatment the U.S. has called genocide — when it announced a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics that being in February. The United Kingdom, Australia and Canada joined the diplomatic boycott, which still allows athletes to participate.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan’s decision to grant bail to a Christian accused of blasphemy should give hope to others facing the charge, according to a prominent lawyer.
Saif ul Malook welcomed the court’s ruling on Jan. 6 that Nadeem Samson should be released on bail.
“It is a very important ruling, the first in the judicial history of Pakistan,” the lawyer said in a video call reported by the Jubilee Campaign, a non-profit promoting human rights.
Samson, identified as a Catholic by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), was arrested in 2017 and imprisoned in Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city, after a property dispute.
He was charged with insulting the Muslim Prophet Muhammad under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code.
The 42-year-old’s supporters believe that he was falsely accused of the crime, which is punishable by death in Pakistan, an Islamic republic in South Asia with a population of almost 227 million people.
Malook, who represented Asia Bibi, a Catholic mother acquitted of blasphemy in 2018, petitioned the Supreme Court at a hearing on Jan. 5 to break with the practice of denying bail to people accused of blasphemy.

Indigenous Christians are living in fear after violence by land grabbers from the Muslim-majority community in Bangladesh’s Rajshahi district.
At least 10 Christians were beaten while two of them landed in hospital in critical condition in Badhair village in the Tanore area of the northern district in the past week.
The village is home to more than 200 indigenous people, mostly Christians. They are now scared to step out of their homes. The men fear going to the market while children are not being sent to school, say locals.
The cause for the attacks is 12,500 square meters of khas land (government-owned fallow land) on which 23 indigenous families have been settled for years. Some influential people want to remove them and occupy the land themselves.
Biplob Tudu, 40, an indigenous Santal who was taken to Tanor subdistrict hospital in critical condition, said he was attacked while returning home from the market in a three-wheeled vehicle on Jan. 3.
“I was accosted by a mob of around 10 Muslims who pulled me out of the three-wheeler and beat me with rods. They broke my bones,” Tudu, a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, told.

Cardinal Charles Maung Bo’s meeting with Myanmar coup leader Min Aung Hlaing has sparked outrage among the Catholic community in the predominantly Buddhist nation.
Senior General Min Aung Hlaing visited the archbishop’s house in Yangon on Dec. 23 for a Christmas event hosted by Cardinal Bo and two auxiliary bishops.
The archbishop of Yangon and the general cut a Christmas cake together and the military chief also donated US$11,000 to the cardinal for church funds.
Cardinal Bo said in his short message that peace and peacemaking represent the core message of Christmas.
“I encourage and request all people from all walks of life to make extraordinary efforts to bring peace, unity and development to the country through forgiveness, mutual respect, creating opportunities for the younger generation, sincere dialogue and reconciliation with all our people,” he said.
The cardinal also conveyed the message of Pope Francis, who visited Myanmar in 2017, that he is deeply saddened by the current situation in the country and repeated his appeal to work hard for peace, development and joy.
The meeting between the Catholic leader, who advocates for peace and human rights, and Min Aung Hlaing came amid the military’s relentless assault on civilians including air strikes and shelling in Karen, Chin, Kayah and Kachin states where Christians form the majority.
The Independent Catholics for Justice in Myanmar condemned the meeting, saying it ignored the suffering of the people who have been oppressed and killed and the bombing of churches.
“The meeting is not representing the whole Catholic community in the country as it is against the will of all Catholics,” the group said in a statement.
Catholics including clergy have taken to social media to express their anger, shock and dismay at the meeting.

South Korea’s ex-president Park Geun-hye received a pardon today, cutting short a jail term of more than 20 years for corruption with her successor saying he granted it in the interest of national unity.
Park became South Korea’s first female president in 2013, but less than four years later she was impeached and ousted after a graft scandal sparked huge street protests.
The 69-year-old was serving a 20-year prison sentence for bribery and abuse of power, with another two years after that for election law violations.
“Considering the many challenges we face, national unity and humble inclusiveness are more urgent than anything else.”
Moon said Park’s deteriora-ting health after serving almost five years in jail was also a factor in the decision to pardon her. Park has been hospitalized several times this year. She is currently receiving treatment at a facility in the capital Seoul.
The amnesty will take effect on Dec. 31, the Justice Ministry said.

The international community fed by biased news tends to presume that all Muslim-majority nations ban any kind of celebrations, which is false.
Only a few among the 50 or so Muslim majority countries in the world, among them the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Tajikistan, Brunei, Morocco and Afghanistan, disallow celebrations like Christmas.
Speaking for and from Pakistan, non-Muslim citizens are permitted to take a couple of days off for their festivals.
There are over 5 million Christians in Pakistan, though they make up a small proportion of its 162 million people.
We are lucky because Dec. 25 is a public holiday as it is the birthday of the nation’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, also referred to as Quaid-e-Azam or the Great Leader.
The student community gets a longer winter break with schools and colleges closing on Dec. 23-24 until Jan. 2-3.