Around the World: United States

China raps religion report

Beijing yesterday criticized the State Department's new international religious freedom report, a study of 198 countries and regions from July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009. The report noted that China had taken some positive steps to protect religious freedom, and that China's Constitution protects ordinary religious activities. However, the State Department continued to include China on a list of "Countries of Particular Concern." The report criticizes China's actions to maintain social stability in Tibet and Xinjiang and safeguard territorial integrity as "repression of religious freedom."

Beijing has repeatedly declared that China is a multi-religious country and rejected the US accusations, calling religion issues a pretext for Western forces' attempts to interfere in other nations' internal affairs.