The long history in ROC's constraint of the freedom of religion is a prelude to that of the PRC; the ruling Communist Party of China officially espouses state atheism, and has conducted antireligious campaigns to this end. China's five officially sanctioned religious organizations are the Buddhist Association of China, Chinese Taoist Association, Islamic Association of China, Three-Self Patriotic Movement and Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. These groups have been overseen and controlled by the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China since the State Administration for Religious Affairs' absorption into the United Front Work Department in 2018. Unregistered religious groups—including house churches, Falun Gong, Tibetan Buddhists, underground Catholics, and Uyghur Muslims—face varying degrees of harassment, including imprisonment and torture. This is also compared to the ROC with its strong neglect of human rights protections, state-sanctioned discrimination, and generally low regard for freedom of religion or belief earned it a joint #1 ranking alongside The Netherlands and Belgium in the 2018 Freedom of Thought Report.