China introduces app forcing citizens to obtain approval to attend religious services

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – China’s ruling authoritarian Communist Party (CCP) has begun rolling out a new app that will require citizens to pre-register for approval to attend a religious service.

The CCP considers faith groups, and Christians especially, to be a threat to its authority and power: China ranks 16th on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2023 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.

Developed by the CCP’s Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission, the new worship service pre-registering app has been rolled out in Henan Province and is expected to be required across China eventually. The app will apply to those attending services in Christian churches, Mosques, Buddhist temples among others. However, only churches that are registered with the state, which have agreed to preach government-approved messages that center the CCP, can have attendees register on the app: unregistered house churches are banned altogether.

“This spring, in Henan province, they rolled out an app to get approval to go to any kind of religious service,” Todd Nettleton, chief of media relations for persecution watchdog The Voice of the Martyrs, told CBN’s Faithwire. “What that means is, you need to have the app on your phone.

You need to pre-register in order to go to a religious gathering, give the Chinese government all of your information, tell them who you are, where you live, your ID information, and so forth.”
“If the authorities come into a church service … they simply ask everyone, ‘Hey, pull out your phone. open up the app. We want to see, did you sign up beforehand? Did you get approval beforehand?’” Nettleton said.

“It’s very easy to see it spreading throughout China,” Nettleton added. “We saw a very similar app-based control during COVID. The Chinese people had to register; they had to have a green checkmark to go on public transit, to go into certain buildings.”

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