By Father Ambrose Ekeroku. The following is the third place winner of the Center for Human Rights’s 2024 annual essay contest.

Introduction

Technology censorship is the use of technology by a government to control or limit access to information, including filtering internet content and regulating access to electronic devices. While the internet offers a cheap and easy way for religious groups to communicate, government filtering can disrupt this. This form of censorship is effective because it’s cheap, hard to detect, and restricts information quickly. In China, numerous Christian websites, including the Bible, have been blocked. Virtual Private Network (VPN) usage surged in 2018 as internet restrictions tightened. The CCP views smartphones as a significant information threat, second only to foreign missionaries. (Melton2021) (Introvigne, 2020)

Religious freedom is a basic human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However, freedom of religion is threatened by technological censorship of religious groups in China. Using Confucianism to justify paternalistic governance, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) portrays religion as a means to disrupt social stability and, therefore, limits the religious freedom of the Chinese people. This power is exerted through policy implementation and infrastructure development. A crucial form of control is the legitimization of harassment or detention of religious practitioners as part of the wider context of intra-party efforts to maintain its power. (Heggie2022)

Current Initiatives to Address Technology Censorship in China

An alternate approach by the OpenNet Initiative, which researches methods of Internet censorship and the extent to which it is implemented, offers a censorship circumvention testing platform. The platform known as PlanetLab would allow developers to evaluate anti-censorship software by emulating target countries’ Internet censorship regimes. While the effectiveness of these initiatives is presently unclear, broad attempts at various levels of political and citizen influence are underway to affect the degree of protection of rights to information and expression in an increasingly technological and globalized world. (Niaki et al.2020)

In 2008, the U.S. Congress proposed the Global Online Freedom Act (GOFA), which condemns information technology companies cooperating with Internet-restricting countries in effecting censorship, surveillance, or privacy breaches for human rights violations. GOFA seeks to prevent such firms’ complicity through greater transparency and accountability of business actions in foreign nations via SEC-enforced reporting of said activities. It aims to ban the export of technologies used to carry out the said practices. It also requires firms to keep user data within politically restrictive nations to allow inspection and storage that should be susceptible to a subpoena. (Hannah, 2021)

In 2002, the U.S. government initiated the Global Internet Freedom Taskforce to provide Chinese citizens with technologies that would circumvent Internet firewalls and content restrictions. It sought the cooperation of American companies in the technology industry, including Microsoft, Cisco, and Sun Microsystems, which have been criticized for compliance with Chinese censorship policies. Green Dam’s recent notoriety has rallied efforts of political force to pressure the issue of relative freedom in informational flow and standards used to block content. (Fan et al.2022)

Implications for Freedom of Religion and Conscience

The main thrust of censorship is directly targeted against those who seek to practice or spread a religion. An obstructive stance has been taken by the Chinese on religion through censorship by ensuring that religious individuals, literature, or events do not concur with the beliefs of the Communist Party. In doing so, they do not provide a favorable environment for the practice of religion in the views of the religious people, which directly affects their freedom to practice religion. The lack of matching up to religious beliefs is clearly shown in the case of the Roman Catholic Church in China, which disbanded its connections with the Vatican (as the Chinese and Vatican’s beliefs did not concur) and is now under the control of the Communist Party to ensure that it does not distribute teachings that are not in line with their open church policy (teachings such as the exorcising of demons, faith healing and the banning of women priests). (Chu & Mariani, 2020) (Madsen, 2020) (Laliberté, 2020)

Ways for Americans to Support Affected Chinese People

The plight of religious practitioners amidst enormous global changes in the technology field is one of China’s most pressing human rights issues today. Religious believers and organizations in China are now partnering with Americans in their response to technological repression. Americans can utilize this relationship to offer new hope to Chinese religious believers. First, American government officials and technology industry leaders can raise the issue directly in their ongoing discussions with Chinese counterparts. In these contacts, they can demand that the Chinese government adhere to international human rights standards, ensuring that technology does not serve as a tool for religious persecution. Second, Americans can support projects that help religious practitioners maintain communication with their fellow believers in other parts of the world and the outside community. These projects include providing free or low-cost computer hardware, training in Internet or fax machine use, subsidies for creating religious webpages, or developing methods to circumvent local Internet controls. Third, Americans can directly support persecuted religious believers. The experience of Catholic and Protestant underground church communities demonstrates that access to the outside world and access to one another can be essentially cut off by denial of permission to use the technology in question. In extreme cases, religious practitioners are arrested, beaten, or fined for mere possession of a fax machine or computer. (Cheng et al., 2020) (Power, 2023) (Feldstein, 2021)

Conclusion

Religion offers philosophical insights, and moral support, and promotes ethical living, which can contribute to social harmony and community well-being. The Maitreya Buddha Project in China sees Buddhism as a part of the country’s history that can support moral progression, aligning with the government’s goal of a Harmonious Society. However, technology censorship in China has negatively impacted religious groups, particularly those not among the five officially recognized religions. Censorship and surveillance hinder religious freedom and the ability to practice beliefs freely. The strict control over religious information and fear of surveillance undermine efforts by religious groups to spread their teachings and educate followers.

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