Australian unions seek limits on religious groups’ hiring freedom

Beijing, China, Jul 24, 2019 / 12:15 pm (CNA).- An article published Wednesday in a state-run paper from mainland China repeated government talking points regarding the situations of the Uighurs, a Muslim ethnoreligious group in the country’s northwest.

Some 1 million Uighurs have been detained in re-education camps for Muslims in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. Inside the camps they are reportedly subjected to forced labor, torture, and political indoctrination. Outside the camps, Uyghurs are monitored by pervasive police forces and facial recognition technology.

Uighurs can be arrested and detained under vague anti-terrorism laws. Violence in the region escalated in the 1990s and again in 2008.

In August 2014 officials in Karamay, a city of Xinjiang, banned “youths with long beards” and anyone wearing headscarves, veils, burqas, or clothes with the crescent moon and star symbol from using public transit. That May, universities across the region banned fasting during Ramadan.

The Chinese government has said reports on the camps by Western governments and media are unfounded, claiming they are vocational training centers and that it is combatting extremism.

Li Yang, an author at China Daily, an English language daily owned by the Communist Party of China, wrote July 24 that “Western critics of China’s policies on human rights and religious freedom in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region seem to be divorced from the realities of the situation.”

Li’s piece focused on “Uygur separatists” who try “to brainwash the other Uygurs with extremism and terrorism.”

He said that “all the measures that Beijing has taken to fight separatism, extremism and terrorism in Xinjiang are part of the global anti-terrorism campaign, as well as an integral part of China’s efforts to boost local development.”

Li noted that the Chinese government has set up “vocational educational centers” in Xinjiang, as well as “installing surveillance systems and deploying security forces.”

He also pointed out that 150 million tourists visited Xinjiang last year, and that the autonomous region’s economy has risen 40 percent over the past five years.

According to Li, “the religious freedom of all ethnic groups … is strictly protected by law.”

Li focused on the diversity of Xinjiang, saying that separatists ignore the interest of the region’s other ethnic groups. Uighurs make up about 46% of the region’s population; Han Chinese 39%, Kazakhs 7%, and Huis 5%. A large number of minorities make up the remaining 3%.

Attention was drawn to the human and religious rights situation in Xinjiang at the recent Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom held by the US State Department last week.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said July 18 at the gathering that survivors of the detention camps have described “a deliberate attempt by Beijing to strangle Uighur culture and stamp out” Islam.

In response, Chinese officials have been outspoken in defense of policies in the region.

A letter signed by Chinese scholars and religious officials posted July 19 by the Xinjiang government said Pompeo should “stop fabricating lies and slander about Xinjiang.”

An editorial published in the People’s Daily July 20 claims that China actually respects religious rights, and said that the United States has an “ulterior motive” to criticize China’s treatment of religious minorities.

“They even use so-called freedom of religious belief as an excuse to undermine China’s national harmony and interfere in China’s internal affairs,” the editorial said.

And the Chinese State Council Information Office released a white paper July 21 that claimed, among other things, that Xinjiang is a region where religious freedom is respected, and that the Uighur population did not choose to become Muslim.

In June, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) told a congressional hearing that China’s campaign to “sinicize” religion is proceeding with brutal efficiency. “Under ‘sinicization,’ all religions and believers must comport with and aggressively promote communist ideology — or else,” Smith said.

“It’s never been worse than it is right now.”

“Religious believers of every persuasion are harassed, arrested, jailed, or tortured. Only the compliant are left relatively unscathed. Bibles are burned, churches are destroyed, crosses set ablaze atop church steeples,” Smith said.

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Beijing, China, Nov 1, 2019 / 09:07 am (CNA).- Priests and parishioners have barricaded themselves in a Catholic church in the Chinese province of Hebei. According to reports, the Catholics are attempting to prevent the Chinese government from tearing … […]

Melbourne, Australia, Jan 31, 2019 / 01:47 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Though Australia’s Victoria state requires doctors with conscientious objection to abortion to refer women to another provider, a study published Thursday found that some doctors are noncompliant, “with adverse effects on access to care for some women.”

“Conscientious objection to abortion, the law and its implementation in Victoria, Australia: perspectives of abortion service providers”, by Louise Keogh, was published Jan. 31 in BMC Medical Ethics.

Victoria’s Abortion Law Reform Act 2008 allowed conscientious objection to direct participation in abortion, but mandated that conscientious objectors refer their patient to a non-objecting practitioner for treatment and advice.

The referral requirement, Section 8, is opposed by some, who argue that “it compromises practitioners’ religious or moral stance on abortion by compelling those with a CO to be complicit in allowing access to abortion through the act of referral,” and there have been calls for its repeal.

Keogh wrote that despite the 2008 law abortion access “remains restricted in practice, particularly in rural areas.”

Her study aimed “to explore health professionals’ understandings of the inclusion of Section 8 in the Abortion Law Reform Act, as well as their perceptions of how Section 8 has been implemented in the Victorian health system and its impact on care.”

The study was conducted through 19 interviews with individuals who are either directly involved in abortion provision, or provide abortion access counselling, or are involved in policy or advocacy related to abortion access.

“All nineteen participants were able to relate specific stories about doctors subverting, misusing or directly contravening the law,” Keogh stated.

The Guardian reported that Keogh worked with Family Planning Victoria, the Royal Women’s Hospital, and Women’s Health Victoria in conducting the interviews.

In addition to doctors, participants reported that conscientious objection has been invoked by telephone staff in government services, pharmacists, and Catholic hospitals.

Keogh maintained that the referral requirement “is designed to allow for the moral integrity of the doctor, but only so far as this can be maintained while not causing harm to patients.”

In 2013, Dr. Mark Hobart, a Catholic, was disciplined for refusing to refer a couple who sought the sex-based abortion of their unborn daughter.

“I refused to refer the patient because there was no medical reason to do it and it offended my moral conscience,” Hobart told Nine News Australia.

“It’s very wrong, I don’t know any doctor in Victoria that would be willing to refer a woman that wanted to have an abortion just because of gender at 19 weeks.”

He said the investigation shows that the state’s abortion law “stops doctors from using their conscience whether it is appropriate or not.”

The Medical Board of Victoria began an investigation after board members complained that the incident called into question his professional conduct.

Neither the woman nor her husband filed a complaint against him, the Daily Mail reports.

Victorian law also bars any protest within 150 meters (nearly 500 feet) of a clinic or hospital where abortions are procured.

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