Commentary: China’s Reported Torture of Christians Is Exactly Why We Need a First Amendment

It’s no secret that Chinese citizens do not get to enjoy religious freedoms the same way Americans do. However, a new report suggests that Christians in China are even worse off than many realized.

“Authorities in China are detaining Christians in secretive, mobile ‘transformation’ facilities to make them renounce their faith,” Radio Free Asia reported on Thursday.

RFA reportedly spoke to a Christian from the Chinese province of Sichuan who said he was held in one of the alleged brainwashing camps, run by the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department. He asked to be identified by the pseudonym Li Yuese.

“It was a mobile facility, that could just set up in some basement somewhere,” Li said. “It was staffed by people from several different government departments.”

“It had its own (CCP) political and legal affairs committee working group, and they mainly target Christians who are members of house churches.”

The CCP is unabashedly against religion, and the party has long been attempting to shut down religious activity in the nation.

China does have a self-identified Protestant body called the Three-Self Patriotic Movement that is supposedly backed by the CCP. According to ChinaSource, however, the official churches within this body have become somewhat corrupted.

“By the mid-1950s … TSPM-affiliated churches (or official churches) became increasingly politicized as Maoist rhetoric replaced traditional sermons and multiple churches were forcibly merged into a handful of congregations and denominational identities erased,” the outlet reported.