China’s new religion laws a ‘pretext’ for arrests, clerics say

Clerics in China say new restrictions on religious practice are about cutting Chinese Catholics off from the outside world

The Chinese Communist Party announced this week new restrictions on religious practice by foreigners in mainland China, which are set to come into force May 1.

A Catholic church in Jingzhou, China. Credit: Zhangzhugang/CC BY-SA 3.0

The rules, issued by the party’s National Religious Affairs Administration, ban foreign nationals from common worship with Ch…