[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 6069 Introduced in House (IH)]
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118th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 6069
To state the policy of the United States with respect to religious
freedom in the People's Republic of China, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 26, 2023
Mr. Alford introduced the following bill; which was referred to the
Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on the
Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker,
in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the
jurisdiction of the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To state the policy of the United States with respect to religious
freedom in the People's Republic of China, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Combatting the Persecution of
Religious Groups in China Act''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) According to estimates included in International
Religious Freedom reports issued by the Department of State,
Buddhists comprise 18.2 percent of the total population in the
People's Republic of China, Christians, 5.1 percent, Muslims,
1.8 percent, followers of folk religions, 21 percent, and
atheists or unaffiliated persons, 52.12 percent, with Hindus,
Jews, and Taoists comprising less than 1 percent.
(2) The Government of the People's Republic of China
recognizes 5 official religions, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam,
Protestantism, and Catholicism (according to an International
Religious Freedom report issued by the Department of State),
and only religious groups belonging to 1 of the 5 sanctioned
``patriotic religious associations'' representing those
religions are permitted to register with the Government and
hold worship service, excluding all other faiths and denying
the ability to worship without being registered with the
Government.
(3) The activities of state-sanctioned religious
organizations in the People's Republic of China are regulated
by the Chinese Communist Party, which manages all aspects of
religious life in the country.
(4) The Chinese Communist Party is actively seeking to
control, govern, and manipulate all aspects of faith through
the ``Sinicization of Religion'', a process intended to shape
religious traditions so they conform with the objectives of the
Chinese Communist Party.
(5) On February 1, 2018, the Government of the People's
Republic of China implemented new religious regulations that
imposed restrictions on Chinese contacts with overseas
religious organizations, required Government approval for
religious schools, websites, and any online religious service,
and effectively banned unauthorized religious gatherings and
teachings.
(6) There are numerous reports that authorities in the
People's Republic of China have forced closures of Buddhist,
Christian, Islamic, and Taoist houses of worship and destroyed
public displays of religious symbols throughout the country.
(7) Authorities of the People's Republic of China have
arrested and detained religious leaders trying to hold services
online.
(8) There are credible reports of Chinese authorities
raiding house churches and other places of religious worship,
removing and confiscating religious paraphernalia, installing
surveillance cameras on religious property, pressuring
congregations to sing songs of the Chinese Communist Party and
display the national flag during worship, forcing churches to
replace images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary with pictures
of General Secretary Xi Jinping, and banning children and
students from attending religious services.
(9) It has been reported that the Government of the
People's Republic of China is rewriting and will issue a
version of the Bible with the ``correct understanding'' of the
text according to the Chinese Communist Party. Authorities
continue to restrict the printing and distribution of the
Bible, Quran, and other religious literature and penalize
publishing and copying businesses that handle religious
materials.
(10) According to International Religious Freedom reports
issued by the Department of State, the Government of the
People's Republic of China has imprisoned thousands of
individuals of all faiths for practicing their religious
beliefs and often labels groups of those individuals as
``cults''.
(11) According to the Department of Labor, the Government
of the People's Republic of China has arbitrarily detained more
than 1,000,000 Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim minorities in
China's far western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
(12) It has been reported that the Government of the
People's Republic of China engages in transnational repression
activities such as relentlessly intimidating diaspora religious
communities and others with ties to China.
(13) As of October 11, 2019, the Political Prisoner
Database maintained by the Congressional-Executive Commission
on China counted 1,598 cases with information on political and
religious prisoners known or believed to be detained or
imprisoned in China.
(14) As of June 30, 2023, the Political Prisoner Database
maintained by the human rights nongovernmental organization Dui
Hua Foundation counted 2,897 individuals imprisoned in China
for ``organizing or using a `cult' to undermine implementation
of the law''.
(15) The United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF) maintains a list of religious
prisoners of conscience who were imprisoned in China for their
religious belief or non-belief, religious activity, religious
freedom advocacy, and other related issues. Those prisoners of
conscience include--
(A) the 11th Panchen Lama, Gedun Choekyi Nyima, who
has been held captive along with his parents since May
17, 1995;
(B) Pastor Zhang Shaojie, a Three-Self church
pastor from Nanle County in central Henan, who was
sentenced in July 2014 to 12 years in prison for
``gathering a crowd to disrupt the public order'';
(C) Pastor John Cao, a United States permanent
resident from Greensboro, North Carolina, who was
sentenced to 7 years in prison in March 2018 under
contrived charges of organizing illegal border
crossings; and
(D) Pastor Wang Yi of the Early Rain Covenant
Church, who was arrested and sentenced to 9 years in
prison for ``inciting to subvert state power'' and
``illegal business operations''.
(16) Authorities of the People's Republic of China continue
to detain Falun Gong practitioners and subject them to harsh
and inhumane treatment.
(17) Since 1999, the Department of State has designated the
People's Republic of China as a country of particular concern
for religious freedom under the International Religious Freedom
Act of 1998 (22 U.S.C. 6401 et seq.).
(18) On June 17, 2020, the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act
of 2020 (Public Law 116-145) came into force, requiring
reporting on human rights violations and abuses committed by
the Government of the People's Republic of China against
Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region and calling for the use of targeted sanctions
against officials of the People's Republic of China found to
have engaged in such violations.
(19) On June 21, 2022, section 3 of Public Law 117-78 (22
U.S.C. 6901 note) (commonly referred to as the ``Uyghur Forced
Labor Prevention Act'') came into force, blocking products,
goods, and material originating from the Xinjiang Uyghur
Autonomous Region from entering the United States due to the
risk that such items were produced using forced labor.
(20) The National Security Strategy of the United States,
issued in 2017, 2015, 2006, 2002, 1999, 1998, and 1997,
committed the United States to promoting international
religious freedom to advance the security, economic, and other
national interests of the United States.
SEC. 3. STATEMENT OF POLICY.
(a) Holding Senior Officials of the People's Republic of China
Responsible for Religious Freedom Atrocities.--It is the policy of the
United States to consider any senior official of the Government of the
People's Republic of China who is responsible for or has directly
carried out, at any time, atrocities including arbitrary imprisonment,
forced sterilization, torture, forced labor, and draconian restrictions
on freedom of religion, expression, and movement against religious
minorities, including Christians, Uyghurs, and Falun Gong, in the
People's Republic of China to have committed--
(1) a gross violation of internationally recognized human
rights for purposes of imposing sanctions with respect to such
official under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability
Act (22 U.S.C. 10101 et seq.); and
(2) a particularly severe violation of religious freedom
for purposes of applying section 212(a)(2)(G) of the
Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(a)(2)(G)) with
respect to such official.
(b) Department of State Programming To Promote Religious Freedom in
the People's Republic of China.--It is the policy of the United
States--
(1) that the Ambassador at Large for International
Religious Freedom should support efforts to protect and promote
international religious freedom in the People's Republic of
China; and
(2) for programs of the Department of State to protect
religious minorities in the People's Republic of China and
combat transnational repression engaged in by the People's
Republic of China.
(c) Designation of the People's Republic of China as a Country of
Particular Concern for Religious Freedom.--It is the policy of the
United States to continue to designate the People's Republic of China
as a country of particular concern for religious freedom under section
402(b)(1)(A)(ii) of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (22
U.S.C. 6442(b)(1)(A)(ii)) as long as the Government of the People's
Republic of China continues to engage in particularly severe violations
of religious freedom (as defined in section 3 of such Act (22 U.S.C.
6402)).
SEC. 4. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING PROMOTION OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN
THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA.
It is the sense of Congress that the United States should promote
religious freedom in the People's Republic of China by--
(1) strengthening diplomacy relating to religious freedom
on behalf of Christians and other religious minorities facing
restrictions in the People's Republic of China, including
through the widespread engagement of international partners to
combat the violations against religious freedom committed by
the Government of the People's Republic of China;
(2) raising the cases of religious and political prisoners
at the highest levels with officials of the People's Republic
of China because experience demonstrates that consistently
raising prisoner cases can result in reduced sentences, or in
some cases, release from custody, detention, or imprisonment;
(3) encouraging Members of Congress to become advocates for
prisoners of conscience in the People's Republic of China
through the Defending Freedoms Project of the Tom Lantos Human
Rights Commission, raise the cases of those prisoners with
officials of the People's Republic of China, and work publicly
for their release;
(4) calling on the Government of the People's Republic of
China to unconditionally release religious and political
prisoners and ensure that detainees who have not yet been
released are treated humanely with--
(A) access to family, the lawyer of their choice,
independent medical care, and international monitoring
mechanisms; and
(B) the ability to practice their faith while in
detention;
(5) encouraging the global faith community to speak in
solidarity with the persecuted religious groups in the People's
Republic of China; and
(6) hosting, once every 2 years, the Ministerial to Advance
Religious Freedom organized by the Department of State in order
to bring together leaders from around the world to discuss the
challenges facing religious freedom, identify means to address
religious persecution and discrimination worldwide, and promote
great respect for and preservation of religious liberty.
SEC. 5. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING ACTION BY THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN
RIGHTS COUNCIL.
It is the sense of Congress that the United Nations Human Rights
Council should issue a formal condemnation of the People's Republic of
China for the ongoing genocide against Uyghurs and other religious and
ethnic minority groups and the persecution of Christians, Falun Gong,
and other religious groups.
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