“The court sentenced Shigen to 7.5 years imprisonment, using a picture of his baptism as evidence of his supposed guilt”
The United States Commission for International Religious Freedom has called upon China’s communist party to release Mr. Hu Shigen a religious freedom activist who has been in prison since 2014.
The 66-year-old who led an underground church was convicted in 2016 for ideologies and behaviour that were said to be seriously harming the country and social stability.
According to the USCIRF, “the court sentenced Shigen to 7.5 years imprisonment, using a picture of his baptism as evidence of his supposed guilt” the statement said today 15th November 2021.
The report added that Mr Shigen was “suffering from deteriorating health in prison for his human rights and religious freedom advocacy”.
When Shigen was sentenced, Al Jazeera’s Adrian Brown, reported that he had been working with a law firm that dealt with human rights cases that are sensitive in Communist Party’s country especially since Jinping came to power.
“He was part of a law firm that used to deal with pretty sensitive human rights cases, helping people who faced demolitions or land seizures, or even religious issues.” He said in his report to Aljazeera in August 2016.
This was the second time Mr Shigen was convicted after he was arrested in 1992, and sentenced in 1994 to 20 years in prison for organizing and leading a counterrevolutionary group, propaganda and incitement and got released in 2008.
In November 2019, USCIRF Commissioner Gary Bauer commented on Shigen’s case as evidence of the declaration of war by the Chinese regime on all religious faiths and threatening the nationals not to believe anything else apart from the ruling party.
“China is sending a message to its people that it will not tolerate Chinese citizens having loyalty to anything above the Chinese communist party” he commented
He added that “Any other faith or philosophical movement immediately comes under surveillance and also ultimately taken to the Chinese so-called justice system”
About 400 lawyers and activists have been arrested since 2015 and interrogated, according to a 2020 report by Lawyer for Lawyers an international organisation that defends lawyers' rights.
Since May 2021, China put in place measures of surveillance on believers and making sure they are loyal to the Communist party which USCIRF described as another threat to religious freedom.
“Article 3 of the Measures requires clergy—among other demands—to support the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rule, the Chinese socialist political system, and the CCP’s “sinicization of religion” policy, effectively imposing a political test to ensure clergies’ loyalty to the CCP” the report commented.
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