Photo:VCG

An Australian non-governmental organization (NGO) has been shut down by the police in Southwest China's Sichuan Province for carrying out activities illegally without registering in China.

Nying-Jey Projects for Tibetan Communities (NJP), an international NGO established in Australia in 2002, claims to be an organization to help students, nuns, and monks in the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, according to their website.

Local police in Garze denounced the illegal sponsorship program and punished the person in charge with an administrative warning in April, according to a report published by the overseas NGO management office of China's Ministry of Public Security on Thursday.

According to the report, NJP carried out activities without registration in Garze, violating the Law on the Administration of Activities of Overseas Nongovernmental Organizations in the Chinese Mainland, which became effective in 2017.

According to the law, foreign NGOs are required to register in the country before any activities are conducted. Violators will be banned from any activities and the representative from the organization will be given a warning or could be detained for up to 10 days.

The development of foreign NGOs in China became more active since the implementation of the law, according to reports published by people.cn in 2020.

According to the China Charity Development Report for 2020, a total of 524 NGOs had registered for activities in China by the end of 2019, especially in Beijing, Shanghai and South China's Guangdong.