Another scandal broke in the religious sector under the Chinese Communist Party. Recently, 35 monks from Douti Temple, represented by Shi Zhengnian, reported that Ji Qin, deputy director of the Nanjing Religious Bureau, and others colluded with, harbored, and condoned Du Jun, a fake monk who used drugs and prostitutes to occupy the temple for a long time, and that Chinese Communist Party officials, led by Ji Qin, threatened and intimidated the whistleblower.
In an interview on April 23, whistleblower Shi Zhengnian said, “The fake monk Du Jun, who became a monk in 1998, had visited prostitutes in 2007 and was involved in drugs in 2013. At the time, the public security authorities informed the Nanjing Religious Bureau, and the deputy director of the Religious Bureau, Ji Qin, and others confirmed it several times during meetings on his investigation. But in 2017 the Religious Bureau appointed Du Jun as the ‘legal representative’ of Douli Temple, equivalent to the head of religious activities, amidst a chorus of opposition and reports, and everything in the temple is under the control of the government-appointed ‘legal representative,’ including people, money and materials .”
Shi Zhengnian said, “During his tenure as head of Dourate Temple, Du Jun was not bound by the financial supervision system and squandered money for the support of the ten parties. He lived a corrupt life, often in civilian clothes, with socially uninvolved people, in and out of entertainment venues, and led an extremely rotten secular life. Du Jun used to have the qualification of monk, but he seriously violated the Buddhist rituals and lost the qualification of monk. The government did not respect the teachings of Buddhism and allowed him to use a ‘legal’ identity to replace his false monk status and to woo and cheat in society.”
Shi Zhengnian said, “The government’s management needs to respect the Buddhist precepts, not that it is bad to do whatever you want with the power in your hands and destroy the religion. This ‘management’ tends to mess up the precepts of Buddhism.”
Shi Zhengnian also revealed that “the monks who reported the names are currently scattered throughout the country, Du Jun does not allow them to live in Douri Temple, and does not allow the monks to form a monastic community, five people can form a monastic community, but come one monk, he drove away one.”
The reporting monks suspected that the officials and the fake monk Du Jun colluded and embezzled the temple’s belongings. The Nanjing government’s inaction is also due to the collusion of corrupt officials’ interests with the fake monks.
Shi Zhengnian said, “(CCP) officials would rather have the monks report them jointly and publicly than have Du Jun report them. Du Jun must have evidence of corrupt officials taking bribes and breaking the law. Investigating Du Jun would lead to evidence of their (CCP officials’) violations, and could send them (corrupt officials) to jail.”
“The government arranged for Du Jun to go to another temple to hide from the wind, and (the government) wanted to perfect the legal procedures for him and then arrange for him to come back in name only. But now Du Jun still returns to Dourate Temple every one or two weeks, taking merit money to squander.”
Shi Zhengnian revealed that in order to facilitate the local government’s investigation, the reporting monks left their contact information in the letter. But “they do not go to investigate the problem of Du Jun, but instead, non-stop harassment, crackdown, intimidation of these whistleblowers, pressure on the relevant monasteries, if you do not cooperate to crack down on you, take public power to do something arbitrary.”
The report said that a staff member of the Nanjing Religious Bureau’s organ party branch department responded on the phone that he was unaware of the situation. The Nanjing Religious Bureau office staff then claimed, “The report is not true.” He then hung up the phone.
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