The announcement came after torch ceremonies in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics were already interrupted in Greece by demonstrators angry over a reported Chinese crackdown in Tibet on activists protesting Chinese rule.
Exiled Tibetan say up to 140 Tibetans were killed and another 1,000 injured and many detained since activists including Buddhist monks, began rallying in Tibet on March 10 to mark a failed 1959 uprising against Chinese rule.
The Olympics flame arrived from Greece in Beijing without incident, but festivities at Tiananmen Square, the site of a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in June 1989, were carefully scripted and held amid tight security.
Besides concerns over Tibet, the Religious Liberty Partnership (RLP) group said its members have urged Christians around the world to also pray for changes in China in areas such as religious freedom.
SEVERAL ORGANIZATIONS
RLP members include Open Doors International, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, the Voice of the Martyrs ( Canada ), and the Religious Liberty Commission of the World Evangelical Alliance, which represents millions of evangelical Christians.
In a statement they said that although China made "important progress" over the past few decades, it will still have to “translate into the removal of remaining obstacles to the full expression of faith and an end to serious violations of religious freedom."
Yet, “In spite of many obstacles, the Church in China has multiplied,” in the last decades, said Johan Compajen of Open Doors International in the Netherlands, which investigates reports of Christian persecution.
“What seemed impossible in the past has happened because around the world we joined the Chinese Christians in prayer and our Chinese brothers and sisters have been willing to pay the price for following Jesus,” he explained. “If we continue to pray, we may be surprised by what God will do in the coming 30 years,” said Compajen, adding that he made his first trip to China three decades ago.
LONG WAY
Mervyn Thomas, an official of the Britain-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide Organization, seemed slightly more cautious. “There is still a very long way to go and religious freedom is something very alien to many Christians in China,” he told BosNewsLife. “However, Christians all over the world have been praying for their Chinese family for many years and I believe we are beginning to see the impact of those prayers today."
He said, "The call for prayer is rooted in the fact that we wanted to acknowledge some progress in China’s attitude toward religious liberty and also the part Christians play at all levels of Chinese society."
Yet the secular religious rights group Amnesty International suggested in a report that it was not optimistic that China will dramatically improve its human rights record this year.
In a report, the group detailed nearly 24 cases of human rights’ defenders who it said have been imprisoned or abused in the run-up to the Olympics. "The crackdown on activists has deepened, not lessened, because of the Olympics," warned Irene Khan, Amnesty’s Secretary General in published remarks. "Unless urgent steps are taken to redress the situation, a positive human rights’ legacy for the Beijing Olympics looks increasingly beyond reach." (With BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos).
