Forced censorship on Apple: China bans Quran and Bible apps from App Store

A clear attack on religious freedom in China!

The Beijing government forced Apple to toss two Bible and Quran reading apps from its App Store. Neither the Quran Majeed app nor the Olive Tree Bible app is currently available for download in China. The regime accused the operators of illegally distributing religious texts, such as “BBC“informed of.

About one million Chinese users who have already downloaded “Quran Majeed” can continue to use the app.

Audible and LinkedIn also gone

The US operator of the Bible app, “Olive Tree Bible Software”, has been informed by the Chinese Internet Authority that it requires a special permit to “distribute applications with book or magazine content”.

For that reason, Amazon had to withdraw its audio book service “Audible” from the App Store months ago, as the company announced Friday. However, it is not clear what permits the companies need.

One thing is for sure: China has been increasingly restricting freedom on the Internet since the beginning of the year. Microsoft on Friday surrendered to censor pressure and announced that it would shut down its social media platform LinkedIn in China. Profiles and contributions of human rights activists and writers critical of the regime were regularly blocked there.

In late August, the government ordered that children and youth are only allowed to play online video games for three hours a week (8 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday through Sunday). Many video game apps have also disappeared from the store.

Mosque converted into pub and toilet

China has been discriminating against Muslims and Christians for decades. The communist regime has housed nearly one million Uighurs, a Muslim Turkmen minority, in labor camps in the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang. There they are tortured and indoctrinated with communist propaganda.

In Uighur hometowns and towns, the communist regime is doing everything possible to suppress Islam. Mosques are being demolished or converted into pubs for ethnic Chinese tourists, as in Kashgar, one of the most important Islamic cities in the province.

Xinjiang is one of the most monitored provinces in China. The government installed face recognition cameras everywhere. In restaurant kitchens, knives are tied to steel chains and barcodes engraved so they can’t be stolen and used in a potential riot.

Halal signs disappeared from restaurants in the capital Beijing in 2019. An official told a restaurant owner that the labels used to mark pure food under Islamic law are too foreign.

Confirmation Classes Banned and Bibles Burnt

Christians are also persecuted in China. The regime has banned not only Islamic Quran schools, but also confirmation classes. Especially in the Christian province of Zhejiang, authorities have removed many crosses from churches. Christians attending services outside one of the two state-controlled churches have been imprisoned repeatedly.

In 2018, the regime is said to have burned several Bibles in Henan province and forced Christians to abandon their faith, according to the US human rights organization ChinaAid.