Press Conference on July 22 of 2019 Given by The Church of Almighty God, a Religious Group Persecuted in China
1. Speeches at the press conference
2. Witnesses telling their story as victims: Xiao Rui and Zhao Lin
Speech on the Press Conference Held by The Church of Almighty God, a Religious Group Persecuted in China
“The Chinese government’s religious persecution is true. We are the witnesses of this fact: we were tortured and detained, and we fled here for freedom. The CCP government should immediately stop the persecution of Christians, and stop its despicable acts of using our family members to incite Korean media to make false propaganda. ”
In recent years, the CCP is persecuting all religious faiths, with its suppression of Christianity including Catholicism reaching a peak. Even the state-approved Three-Self churches are not spared: Church buildings were demolished, a large number of crosses were removed, and countless Christians were dispersed and left without a gathering place—many crying and making prayers on the ruins of their meeting venues. Due to their rapid growth, some house churches were condemned as “xie jiao” and subsequently suppressed and banned. CCP’s propaganda uses rumors and slanders to portray these churches as “anti-social religions.” Under the comprehensive and cruel suppression of the CCP, many Christians were sentenced to prison and some were even beaten to death. In addition, countless Christians were rendered homeless, fleeing here and there. Many foreign missionaries, including those from South Korea, were arrested and deported.
The Church of Almighty God (CAG) has been suffering from the CCP government’s manic suppression and persecution since its foundation 28 years ago. The CCP issued a large number of secret documents and launched many special campaigns against CAG. It has performed more than a million arrests of CAG Christians. Many of the Christians were tortured and subjected to forced indoctrination, with over a hundred death cases. Some 500,000 to 600,000 Christians have to flee from the CCP’s hunting year after year, unable to return home. Believers in God are subjected to criminal punishment for merely engaging in regular religious activities or possessing a religious book. Faced with the cruel persecution from the CCP, some CAG Christians resorted to fleeing abroad.
The Chinese government has been non-stop in its religious persecution, yet it denies such facts and carries out deceptive propaganda overseas. Through various approaches, the CCP obtained the personal information of us Christians fleeing abroad and did its utmost to find our relatives in China, who were subjected to forced indoctrination or threatened with their work, pension, and the education and employment of our children. Through coercion and temptation, our family members came to South Korea multiple times to stage false demonstrations under the banner of “searching for relatives.” They distorted facts and claimed that China had religious freedom, falsely accused us to be “fake refugees,” and tried to force us to return to China. We are standing here today to tell people the truth of our situation as Christians fleeing abroad. Despite the CCP’s attempts to deceive the government, media, and people of South Korea through lies and rumors, we choose to express what is in our hearts in the most peaceful and rational way.
There is absolutely no religious freedom in China. We were deprived of any freedom to worship God. All of us standing here are victims who personally experienced imprisonment, torture and all kinds of mistreatment in China. We are the witnesses of the CCP government’s persecution of religious faiths.
By no means is it true that China is free from religious persecution and that people who came here to escape persecution are “false refugees.” The well-founded facts of CCP’s violation of human rights are supported by the U.S. Department of State Report on International Religious Freedom, reports submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council by international NGOs with consultative status, and the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom hosted by the U.S. Department of State last week.
Having stated above, we would like to make the followings appeals:
The CCP government should guarantee religious freedom. All we hope for is to freely live a life of faith.
The CCP government should stop using pro-CCP South Korean activists and Christians to attack us Christians who fled here to escape religious persecution.
The CCP government should stop the despicable acts of coercing and tempting our family members into lying and becoming its propaganda tools.
We sincerely hope that the South Korea government and more people of righteousness can pay attention to the persecution suffered by CAG, and see through the CCP’s purposes of hiding its religious persecution and its tricks of repeatedly staging false demonstrations to have Christians deported back to China, so that our rights to religious freedom and survival can be guaranteed.
[At the same time, we sincerely hope that the South Korean media do not copy false information spread by the CCP, which were fabricated to persecute the religious. Please report on the real experiences of us victims. If you want to interview us, please contact AngeliaCAG@gmail.com. Thank you!]
Testimony – Ms. Li Chuansong (a pseudonym)
I’m a Christian from The Church of Almighty God in China. My faith in the Lord Jesus began in 1987, and she accepted the Kingdom Gospel of Almighty God in April 1999. On June 1, 2005, on the way home from preaching the gospel, she was intercepted by two police vehicles and escorted to Henan Police Station in Hunchun City, Jilin Province. Subsequently, she was transferred to the Hunchun City Public Security Bureau for interrogation on the next day.
In order to force me to divulge information about the church, three policemen viciously flogged me with a whip on the face, neck, and chest. They even said, “Killing people like you who believe in God is no big deal!” I was beaten beyond recognition and could not take care of myself. Even going to the toilet required other prisoners to transport me.
Ten days later, the landlord found a copy of the word of Almighty God, The Word Appears in the Flesh, in my rental house and handed it over to the police. I was interrogated again.
Walking into the interrogation room, I heard the criminal police captain say, “Give me six days, I assure you that the interrogation will bear fruit . . .” Afterward, the criminal police captain found numerous photos of brothers and sisters from the computer to let me identify. I refused. A young policeman grabbed my hair and swung me around against the floor. He followed by abruptly throwing me on the floor and kicking me fiercely on the waist. Then they restrained me with a pair of chain handcuffs and make me squat while holding both arms up horizontally. They burned my wrists with cigarette butts as they teased me, “So much fun! It sizzles like barbecue . . .” It was so painful that my heart was about to pop out. Seeing how they relished in torturing me, I was so angry. I thought, “Don’t you people have mothers? How could you be so cruel to a believer in God?” Seeing that I still wouldn’t speak, they stamped on my feet with the heels of their leather shoes. The second and third toes of my left foot were fractured. I broke into cold sweats and bit my lips until they bled. Then the policeman pulled me up and rammed his knee on the left side of my femoral head. He gnawed his teeth and said, “Tell you, this is the ultimate trick. It damages the bones without damaging the skin. No one can detect it after you are crippled!” It made my femoral head collapse. As a result, I could neither stand up nor walk. The next day, my entire left leg turned purple. It was so painful that I could not sleep all night long. Even now, I cannot exert my left leg.
The next day, seeing that I still would not tell them anything, the policeman said he would give me an injection to make me spill out the Church’s affairs in an unconscious state. Worried that I might implicate other brothers and sisters, I bit hard on my tongue until it bled. All at once, blood splashed into my mouth. My tongue started to swell and pressed up against my palate. The policeman did not give me an injection when he saw that I could not speak.
In the evening, when the two policemen guarding me fell asleep, I planned to open the window and jump off the building to end my life. I was crippled after two days of torture. If they proceeded with the torture for four more days, I would be the dead meat in their hands. I tried several times but failed to be on my feet. Now that I didn’t even have the strength to die, I was more reluctant to live. It made me feel even more melancholic and helpless. At this moment I thought of Almighty God’s word: “Thus, during these last days, you must bear testimony to God. No matter how great your suffering, you should go on to the very end, and even at your last breath, still you must be faithful to God, and at the mercy of God; only this is truly loving God, and only this is the strong and resounding testimony.” At the critical moment, it was God’s word that sustained me and gave me the confidence and courage to live on.
The third day, the criminal police captain tied a wooden pole behind the square stool I was sitting on. He grabbed my arms forcefully and twisted them backward, fastening my hands on the pole behind with my body hanging from it. My left arm snapped instantly. The pain made me break into sweats. He hooded me with a black plastic bag and struck my head repeatedly with a hard object. I felt something warm flow down from my head and soon passed out. When I came to, I saw myself lying on the floor, my hair soiled with blood. There were bloodstains all over my face, my body and the floor…
Later, I was sent back to the Hunchun Detention Center. At that time, I was completely unable to take care of myself. Since I believed in God and was a political prisoner, the police didn’t give me medication for treatment. My physical conditions were worsening. In September 2005, I was sentenced to one year of re-education through labor. Due to my serious conditions, it was amended to supervised release.
When my supervised release was over, the police ordered me not to believe in Almighty God and preach the gospel any more, saying, “If you are caught again, you will be sentenced severely.” In order to evade a second arrest by the CCP, I embarked on a life in exile again.
The brutal torture of the CCP has brought me serious injuries. My memory has obviously deteriorated. I was left with multiple disabilities. I am only capable of some simple labor and almost reduced to an invalid. In fear of the CCP’s arrest, I had not dared to contact my family. Assuming that I had died, my husband started a new family.
In 2013, I fled to South Korea to seek asylum. By the end of August, a friend from my hometown told me: On August 20, four policemen went to my house to arrest me. They said to my ex-husband, “If we seize her, she will be sentenced to life imprisonment!”
In January 2016, my daughter in South Korea received a telephone call from her father saying that several policemen had once again approached him and said, “Your ex-wife is good for a sentence to life in prison. If she returns, she will be arrested as soon as she gets off the plane.” I was shocked when I heard the news. The persecution of the CCP government has reduced me to the state of homelessness and vagabondage. Now that I have fled overseas, the CCP government still has not ceased persecuting and hunting me down.
In China, there are tens of thousands of Christians like me who are being persecuted by the CCP. They are homeless and confronted with the threats of arrest, imprisonment and even death at any time. I hope more human rights organizations and righteous people will pay attention to the fact of The Church of Almighty God being persecuted and denounce the CCP for its persecution of religious beliefs! Thank you!
Testimony – Ms. Xiao Rui (a pseudonym)
My name is Xiao Rui (pseudonym), and I’ve believed in Almighty God for 20 years. I was arrested by the CCP in April 2009 because of my faith. I was brutally tortured and given a 3.5-year sentence. I’m very fortunate that I’m able to stand here today because some of the brothers and sisters arrested for believing in Almighty God just like me were persecuted to death, some are missing, and some are still in prison being subjected to inhuman torture and intense indoctrination. Up to this point, the CCP has performed as many as a million arrests of Christians who believe in Almighty God; 105 have been persecuted to death, at least half a million have gone on the run and cannot return home. Yet, the CCP declares to the world that there is freedom of belief in China and that Christians are not persecuted. I must speak up in the face of such a shameless lie to represent millions of other persecuted Christians, and tell the truth about the CCP’s brutality toward us.
On April 4, 2009, I was arrested by police in Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province along with two other sisters. They didn’t show us any documentation. I asked an officer, “Having faith isn’t illegal and I haven’t committed any crimes, so why are you arresting me?” The officer responded, “Your belief in Almighty God is against the law. Your crime is a national priority.” I didn’t understand—I wanted to call out to the world: What’s illegal about believing in Almighty God? Why would I be arrested as an important national criminal? Why is the CCP so evil, shameless, and inhumane toward Christians?
While interrogating me, in an effort to force me to tell them about whereabouts of other brothers and sisters and the church money, two male officers viciously boxed my ears, hit my head with rolled-up books, and used a kind of swinging torture on me. They used two pairs of handcuffs to cuff my hands to an iron window frame and then used a kind of military-grade wrap to bundle my legs together and tie them to an iron chair. They then pushed the chair forward and stretched out my body so that it formed a diagonal line, dangling in the air. They then stomped on my lower legs and rocked me from side to side. The handcuffs dug deeply into my wrists and soon my hands had turned purple. There’s really no way to describe that kind of piercing pain. I struggled and cried out, but the officers just laughed loudly. They then beat me in the ribs with a water bottle and forcefully pressed the mouth of the bottle into my ribs. It hurt so much I struggled to breathe.
One officer savagely slapped my face so hard that my teeth loosened, and he said, “As to believers in Almighty God, there are national orders that it is nothing to beat them to death.” Then they tightened the handcuffs as much as they possibly could and hung me up in a straight line. They continued suspending me and then taking me down like this for 12 hours. The handcuffs’ teeth dug into the back of my hands and drew blood. I kept breathing faster and faster and my head felt like it was about to burst; my mouth was so dry that I couldn’t swallow. My vision went black and I felt like my awareness became fuzzy. I thought I was about to die—I felt very afraid and weak. All I could do was keep praying to God in my heart. The CCP says, “It is nothing to beat them to death”—this has become a slogan for persecuting Christians. It is indeed nothing to beat us to death. How could such senseless, immoral satanic logic come from the great, glorious, correct CCP? Could something that is so clearly Satan’s logic be a revelation of the CCP’s evil nature?
The next day after 9:00 a.m. they finally let me down. I wanted to use the bathroom, but I couldn’t control my legs and I had lost feeling in my hands, too. Two male officers carried me into the bathroom and pulled down my pants right in front of a group of other male officers. They humiliated me with the evilest, foul language. I felt so indignant and wronged that I, a young woman in my 20s, was publicly humiliated that way, that I cried and couldn’t get a word out. I really would have wanted to jump out of that building to my death. But I didn’t think I could do it, and I didn’t want to fail God and His will. I knew I had to stand witness for Him; I had to survive so I could denounce the CCP’s crimes, to tell the whole world.
After that, they dragged me back into the interrogation room. With zero strength left in my body, I collapsed to the ground. The police said that I was faking illness and a few of them started kicking me viciously until my left side started curling up, bringing my leg and chest together. Even two male officers couldn’t pull my body straight and only then did they stop beating me. They handcuffed me onto an iron chair. From the next room I heard the sound of my sister’s cries of pain from time to time—my heart just broke to pieces. I wondered if this was the hell of demons….
Two days later I had been tortured to the point that my whole body was swollen, I was at my last gasp and I kept having convulsions. Only then did the police send me to the hospital for emergency treatment. My arms were terribly swollen, and my hands were swollen as round as donuts. They were filled with yellow pus, and when a needle was put into a vein it would bubble up and then ooze blood. The doctor told the police that my situation was perilous, but the police said, “Just make sure she doesn’t die.” They then took me back to the interrogation room and continued their questioning. The police tortured me for six days and six nights, during which time they gave me nothing to eat. They ended up fabricating a record of the interrogation and physically forced me to leave my thumbprint on it. This was the “masterpiece” of the “civilized law enforcement” by the Chinese public security authorities.
The police sent me to a detention center on the afternoon of April 10. All I was able to do at the time was to lay on a bed plank; I couldn’t take care of my own basic necessities, and even needed someone else in my ward to feed me. A few days later the police once again started their continuous interrogations of me, about 18 hours every day. Every time they wouldn’t stop until they had no choice, because I was going into full-body convulsions.
A month later two public prosecutors came to ask me if the police had been trying to extort a confession with torture, and I said “Yes.” At the time my external wounds were really obvious, but when the prosecutors filled out the Notice Form, they checked the “No” box for torture. Over the 15 months that I was held in the detention center, I was not allowed to get a lawyer.
One day in February 2010 I was taken to court for a secret trial. The only people in the courtroom were a judge, two jurors, and a clerk. The judge asked me if I would confess, and I said, “The constitution stipulates that citizens enjoy the right to freedom of belief. I believe in God, and all I’ve done is to attend gatherings and read God’s words. I haven’t broken any national laws.” The judge responded, “Your belief in Almighty God is against the law, plus you came all the way to southern China from northern China to proselytize. That is committing crimes from one place to another!” Four months later, without any evidence of a crime committed, the court sentenced me to 3.5 years in prison on the charge of “using a xie jiao organization to undermine the enforcement of the law,” leaving a lifelong mark on me.
On July 9, I was taken to the Hunan Province Women’s Prison to serve my time. In prison, Christians from The Church of Almighty God and Falun Gong practitioners were put in the “high-security ward” for torture and intense indoctrination. Two other prisoners were assigned to watch over me night and day and I couldn’t take half a step out of my cell unless I was going to the bathroom. They wouldn’t let me pray and forced me to study Marxism–Leninism and atheist ideology every single day. I had to watch educational videos indoctrinating people to love the country and the Party and they made me write out what I had learned on a daily basis. When they didn’t like what I had written they’d yell at me and physically punish me, and they made me sign “three statements” to renounce my faith. I was put in solitary confinement when I wouldn’t comply. I spent almost three months in the midst of this unimaginable psychological torture. I was later assigned to Block 2 nicknamed Devil’s Block where I had to complete more than ten hours of hard labor every day. If I couldn’t finish my tasks I was given corporal punishment. Every day felt like a year. If it hadn’t been for God protecting me, giving me faith and strength, I would have been tortured to death. I absolutely wouldn’t have lived to see the day of my release.
In October 2012 I had served my full sentence and was released. Only then did I learn that after my arrest the police had gone to my house twice in mad searches, which forced my elderly parents to flee home. The police were still in my hometown starting rumors, slandering me as a fraudster and political prisoner, and they had someone keeping constant watch over my home. I also learned that in the 2009 mass arrests, major leaders and coworkers in churches all over the country had been arrested; Sister Ma Suoping, the senior leader in charge of our work, had been persecuted to death less than two weeks after her arrest; Brother He Zhexun was sentenced to 15 years; Sister Xiaoding was sentenced to 11.5 years. To this day they’re still in prison.
In January 2013 the CCP started re-arresting and re-sentencing believers who had been arrested and released but had continued believing in God. A village cadre came to my home and demanded that I sign a statement of guarantee to deny God. I had no choice but to flee home again and go on the run so I could continue to practice my faith. That evening as I was about to leave my parents embraced me in tears, and my father said, “My child, once you’re gone, don’t come back. Please just stay alive and well.” I haven’t seen my mom and dad since then.
Thanks to God’s miraculous arrangements I was able to flee to South Korea in 2016. However, the CCP reaches its evil hands even across oceans, attempting to extradite Christians who fled overseas back to China for further persecution. From 2015 on the CCP has been harassing those Christians’ family members who are still in China, compelling them to go to South Korea and stage demonstrations under the pretense of seeking lost relatives, shamelessly saying that there is freedom of belief in China and Christians are not persecuted. They say that the CCP only suppresses unlawful religious groups that are xie jiao, and they openly slander us as false refugees who should be extradited.
Seeing the CCP’s lies incenses me. It has openly torn down and burned so many churches’ crosses for all to see—is that freedom of belief? In 2018 and 2019, just two years, it openly razed so many beautiful, magnificent churches to the ground—is that freedom of belief? In just a few short years it has arrested hundreds of thousands of Christians, many imprisoned and tortured—is that freedom of belief? Why are nearly three million Xinjiang Muslims being interned? Why are large numbers of Buddhist and Taoist temples across the nation being demolished, and Buddhist monks and Taoist priests being driven out with no place to live? Is this the freedom of belief that the CCP speaks of? It’s clear to anyone with a modicum of intelligence that the freedom of belief the CCP advertises is nothing but a lie. It’s just to fool foreigners. But are they lacking intelligence or an ability to think for themselves? Do they just believe whatever the CCP says? I do not believe that there’s no justice in this world!
I was born in China and grew up there, never knowing what human rights are, what freedom of belief is. I’ve seen Christians all living under the fear and the stress of potential arrest. They’re all calling out from their hearts—when the CCP collapses, we’ll finally have freedom of belief! Now in South Korea I’ve finally experienced true freedom of belief. I can openly believe in God with no one condemning my faith as wrong, and no one dares condemn the truths uttered by God. In addition, the government has not troubled those of us who have fled to South Korea as refugees. Here we’d like to express our gratitude to the South Korean government and people for allowing us, refugees from CCP persecution, to live here for the time being. We also give our thanks for God’s guidance, care, and protection. The Church of Almighty God is currently established in at least 20 countries across the globe, and not a single country has condemned it; Christians of our Church all gather and read God’s words as normal, and have not been condemned. So why is it that in China having faith in God—something so upright, of universal value—is condemned by the CCP? Why are Christians arrested and imprisoned? Where is the CCP’s so-called freedom of belief? I’ve never seen it.
I’ve now been in South Korea for three years. I’ve missed my family the entire time and I yearn for the day I can be with them again. My parents are old and are not in good health. I want to do my filial duty as their daughter, but I don’t dare go home because some brothers and sisters were arrested and imprisoned when they returned to look after their parents and their whereabouts are still unknown. The CCP is currently using all sorts of despicable tactics to cause problems here in Korea, slandering us as false refugees, trying to get us extradited back to China. This is so evil, so despicable! This is clearly an attempt to exterminate Christians, to pull out the weeds from the roots, to prevent further trouble to avoid tarnishing the CCP’s image abroad as “great, glorious, and correct.” Its intentions are so vile!
I truly hope that the South Korean government and more people of righteousness can take note of the facts of The Church of Almighty God’s persecution and provide help and protection for those Christians who have fled oppression, so that our right to freedom of belief, and our right to survival are ensured. Thank you!
Testimony – Ms. Zhao Lin (a pseudonym)
My name is Zhao Lin (pseudonym) and I’ve believed in Almighty God for 24 years. I was arrested by police in the city of Chongqing on March 1, 2013, because of my faith. In an effort to force me to disclose information on the whereabouts of brothers and sisters and the church money, the CCP police handcuffed my hands behind my back, viciously beat me in the head with a thick book and brutally kicked my legs. I was so angry. All I had done was believe in God and share the gospel—I hadn’t done anything illegal, so why would the CCP treat me like a criminal, wantonly torturing and harming me?
I was later put into the Fuling District Detention Center. The police questioned me multiple times while I was kept there. On March 31, they took me to the detention center’s secret interrogation base located in an extremely remote vacation spot where they violently interrogated me in a basement. They handcuffed my left hand so I was dangling from a window; I could just barely touch the ground with my toes. Then they handcuffed my hands behind my back and interrogated me continuously for 12 hours. My physical strength was completely depleted—I was shaking all over and sat on the ground, unable to move and panting, and only then did the police halt their questioning. The CCP sets up unofficial prisons and extrajudicial interrogation facilities as they please, wantonly imprisoning and torturing Christians. Is this what they call “judicial justice”?
They locked me for about 46 days without any evidence; I was released on April 15, 2013. My brother came to pick me up that day. A Chongqing City government official told him, “If your sister continues to believe in God, she’ll be arrested and definitely given a heavy sentence, plus your two children won’t get into university or be able to take the civil service exam.” Our local chief of police warned me, “If you keep believing in God your entire family will suffer along with you!” He also told my father and brother to watch over me and keep me in check, to make sure I didn’t continue practicing my faith. Afraid of the CCP, my family started to strongly oppose my faith and wouldn’t allow me to attend gatherings. Police and village committee members also kept constant watch over me and my family, often coming to my home to threaten me, telling me to give up my faith. Although I had been released, it was just like being locked up in a huge prison. I was really depressed and suffering. Having no other choice, I left and since then have lived without being able to return home. I’m just a regular Christian—I just believe in God and share the gospel, but the CCP not only arrested me but even used their children’s future to menace my family, creating a rift and shattering our family. The CCP openly violates the constitution, condemning and arresting people of faith as it wishes. It’s completely lawless. Why would it persecute my family? Why would it strip away their right to survival? Isn’t the CCP forcing believers onto a dead-end road?
I fled to South Korea in 2015, and here I finally came to enjoy life with freedom of belief. I can practice my faith and attend gatherings without fear of arrest—I’m really grateful to the South Korean government for accepting us Christians who have suffered persecution. I thought that the CCP wouldn’t be able to persecute me any longer, but to my surprise, its evil hand, injurious to Christians, extends even to this country. This hard-won life of freedom was shattered.
In late August 2018, the CCP got more than ten family members of Christians to come to South Korea through deception and coercion; a pro-Communist named O Myung-ok organized a press conference under the guise of “helping victims’ families find their relatives” and blatantly lied, saying that the CCP does not persecute religious beliefs. She slandered us as false refugees and strongly urged the South Korean government to send Christians with The Church of Almighty God seeking asylum back to China. My brother was one of the people who came. I was shocked—he well knew that I had been arrested because of my faith, but he still went along with the CCP saying that belief in God is not persecuted in China, and asked me to go back home. I requested to meet with my brother through the foreign affairs police, but this was refused by O Myung-ok. It wasn’t until their demonstrations in front of The Church of Almighty God and the Blue House were over that I was able to see him. I asked him, “All of you have come from different cities and provinces and you don’t know each other. Who brought you all together? Who arranged for all of you to come to South Korea at the same time?” He kept skirting the subject, always hemming and hawing, until he finally said one thing: “I’m not asking you to come back to China. I just want you to have a good life here.” Hearing him say this, I understood that he was coerced into coming. The CCP was getting our relatives to come to make a scene and cause trouble in an effort to get us extradited so it could continue to persecute us.
There were several other brothers and sisters who met with their family members who had come looking for relatives. I learned more details of this farce from them. Brother Chen, a member of our church, called his mother in China and found out that the CCP government had told his family members to cooperate with the government by joining this “family-finding group” and take him back to China. He was told that it would bring trouble to his family if he didn’t go. The CCP said that the government would pay for all expenses and all activities in South Korea had already been arranged. One relative of Brother Jia, another church member, told him that police with the National Security Bureau had gone to his work unit multiple times to pester and trouble him. There was nothing he could do, so he agreed to come. The CCP also created videos slandering Brother Jia, saying that after gaining his faith he had become indifferent to his family, and that he refused to go back to China to take care of his wife’s sick mother because he had gone abroad to proselytize, and that he wouldn’t allow his son to go to school. But in fact, before he, his wife and son came to Korea, Brother Jia’s mother-in-law had already passed away, and their son has been attending school in Korea. Another sister from our church, Sister Jin is ethnically Korean and has lived in South Korea for many years. She is in constant contact with her mother in China over the phone. In a call with her mother on August 30 last year, she learned that her mother was going to come to South Korea, and to her surprise, she appeared on a Jeju Island press conference the following day. Ms. O Myung-ok twisted the facts saying that since believing in Almighty God Sister Jin had not been in contact with her family and that her father had died in a car accident caused by the psychological stress of missing her so much. However, the truth is that her father had died of a brain hemorrhage that was unrelated to a traffic accident, and while he was ill, Sister Jin had remained in consistent contact with her family.
The CCP has fabricated so many absurd lies to get Christians sent back to China, flipping the truth on its head, throwing dust in people’s eyes! One Christian’s relative who is in China said that the CCP police told her that since it was inconvenient for the government to have direct talks with the South Korean government and request extradition of these Christians, they were putting together this civilian “family-finding group” to put pressure on South Korea, and then the Chinese government would come forward after the South Korean government had taken notice of this. Such despicable and evil behavior by the CCP under the guise of “helping victims’ families find their relatives” is incredibly shameless! The CCP has always arrested and persecuted Christians in China forcing us away from our homes, leaving us with no choice but to flee the country. Now we have fled China, but the CCP still masquerades as an angel of light, shamelessly, wantonly advocating overseas, distorting right and wrong saying that we believers have been misled and that they’re helping our families to get us to come home. The truth is that when Christians go back to China it’s not remotely “coming home,” but is going into prison. After returning to China, some brothers and sisters have been arrested, subjected to brutal torture, and given heavy sentences. Some are still in prison and some are missing to this day. The CCP coerced the relatives of persecuted Christians into coming to make a scene in South Korea and spread lies to deceive international society. Its true aim is to get Christians extradited to China, to exterminate us. I can’t help but feel angry seeing such hypocrisy and evildoing by the CCP. In today’s world, what country’s ruling party would do something so shameless as relentlessly pursue and attack Christians and their families? And what ruling party would be so evil and vicious as to despise God and Christians?
Last month more than ten brothers and sisters in our church learned from mainland relatives that the CCP would play the same old tricks to deceive and coerce them into coming to South Korea to “look for relatives,” claiming that they wanted to make substantive “progress.” Mainland China is in a downturn and the people are seething; people in every region are constantly protesting for their rights, but the CCP continues to comprehensively ban all religious beliefs, expending vast resources, human and material, to go abroad to harass Christians and try to bring them back to China. I really never imagined that the CCP would do something so inhuman, so evil.
It is my hope that international human rights organizations and people of righteousness in South Korea continue to take note of the CCP’s persecution of religions, and provide assistance for religious refugees who have fled to South Korea. Thank you.
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