Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – China's new Regulations on Religious Affairs, which entered into force a year ago, have proved to be useless as the government continues to practice widespread religious repression, said Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The international agency which monitors human rights  issued a document analyzing and commenting the first year of the new laws, which had been described by the government, at the time of their enactment, as a "a significant step forward in the protection of Chinese citizens' religious freedoms".

"One year after China's Regulations on Religious Affairs came into force, Chinese citizens' ability to exercise their right to freedom of religion remains as subject to arbitrary restrictions as ever," says the statement. HRW said Christian, Muslim and Buddhist believers "continue to be subject to severe restrictions on the ways in which they practice their faith".

"The regulations have not created the space for the free exercise of religion that was promised," said Brad Adams, director of the HRW Asia section. "Instead, Chinese citizens who engage in the most basic religious activities can still find themselves arrested, in jail, or under threat."  HRW denounced the "widespread" repression against the unofficial Catholic or Protestant Churches, and the violence perpetrated by the government against followers of "quasi-religious" groups like the Falun Gong, who are "openly arrested and imprisoned".

The group criticized especially the control of religion in the provinces of Xinjiang and of Tibet, where in the last year, repression ""seems to have intensified". In Xinjiang, mostly populated by the Uighur [ethnic group of northern China] Muslims, Islamic texts and religious education are controlled and severely restricted.

In Tibet, the government has launched an "education campaign" seeking to convince the Buddhist religious to recognize the fifteenth Panchen Lama chosen by the Communist regime as the highest religious authority, in the place of the Dalai Lama. The "campaign" includes history lessons based on government texts, which describe Tibet as "always" having been part of China. HRW said: "Those who refuse to accept this version face expulsion from their monasteries."