China: Tibet and religion

Audra Ang at the Associated Press reports;

Qin Gang, a China Foreign Ministry spokesman, insisted last week that Chinese citizens have complete religious freedom.

Hua Huilin said he and his brother, Hua Huiqi, a member of Beijing's underground Christian church, were stopped by security agents in two black cars on Sunday on their way to the Kuan Jie Protestant Church around dawn.

The pair was taken away in separate cars, and Hua Huilin said he was released a few hours later. He said his brother, however, remained missing.

China allows worship only in officially approved churches.

In a more recent story by Andrew Jacobs at the International Herald Tribune;

Hua Huiqi, a religious dissident who was detained by the authorities Sunday as he made his way to a church service where President George W. Bush was scheduled to pray, has escaped from the police, according to human rights advocates and family members.

Hua said the officers had confiscated his Bible and watched him as he prayed. But after four or five hours, the guards grew sleepy and nodded off. Hua simply stood up and quietly walked away. "But now," he wrote, "I'm afraid to go home."

But the Associated Press article has more to say;

On Sunday, five Tibet activists, including a Tibetan woman from Germany, were taken away by security agents after protesting near Tiananmen Square, the latest in a series of small, short-lived attempts by demonstrators to use the games to showcase their causes.

Padma-Dolma Fielitz, a 21-year-old Tibetan, and another activist held the Himalayan region's national flag aloft just outside the south entrance of the square, according to a statement by Students for a Free Tibet.



Shortly after, three other activists tried to unveil a banner that said "Tibetans are dying for freedom," but were stopped by authorities, the group said. All five protesters — including two Americans and two Canadians — belong to the New York-based group.

Later Sunday, John Hocevar, one of the protesters, told AP Television News that Chinese officials had escorted the group onto a plane bound for the United States.

Many Tibetans insist their region was an independent nation before Chinese Communist troops invaded in 1950, while Beijing says it has been part of its territory for centuries.

Pro-Tibet activists say China is using the Olympics to legitimize its rule in Tibet.