Young, Persecuted Member of The Church of Almighty God Is Granted Asylum in US

18-year old Sister Danxiang Cheng was recognized as a refugee after a legal battle that lasted several months.

Sister Danxiang Cheng is an 18-year-old member of The Church of Almighty God (CAG). During her time as a CAG member in China, she experienced several episodes that made her uncomfortable and fearful of living in Chinese society as a CAG member. She received intense scrutiny in school regarding students’ religious affiliation and, even though she was a good student, this pressure resulted in her dropping out of school. Her mother was nearly arrested by the police for her CAG membership and narrowly escaped, forcing her to hide in another town away from her daughter. In addition, two CAG members that Ms. Cheng was close to were arrested by the police and one of them was even sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment for her beliefs and activities!

Protection of Uyghurs, Church of Almighty God Refugees Requested at OSCE Meeting in Warsaw

Three speakers at the yearly Human Rights Implementation Meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ask OSCE participating States to grant asylum to religion-based refugees fleeing China.

On September 13, during the yearly Human Rights Implementation Meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Warsaw, three speakers have asked States in the OSCE area to grant asylum to religion-based refugees who flee from China.

Willy Fautré, of Human Rights Without Frontiers, focused on The Church of Almighty God (CAG). He explained the persecution of this Christian new religious movement in China, mentioning cases of torture and extra-judicial killings, and the scandalous attitude of several OSCE participating States, which do not recognize the obvious persecution of the CAG, refuse to grant asylum to the majority of CAG refugees, and even deport some of them back to China.

Church of Almighty God’s Sister Zou Demei Is Free

Supported by a campaign by Bitter Winter and several NGOs, the former leader of the CAG in four Chinese provinces, who escaped to the US with a false passport, has finally left jail.

Sister Zou Demei is free. This is very good news for Bitter Winter and the NGOs who supported her case and, together with the Lantos Foundation and supported by the International Religious Freedom Roundtable, wrote to President Donald J. Trump asking for her release. It is also good news for her lawyer, Mr Russell Abrutyn, who spared no efforts to secure the result. In March, the Immigration Judge had granted her withholding of removal based on his conclusion that she will be persecuted in China because she belongs to The Church of Almighty God (CAG). He found, based on statements by scholars, the human rights community, and her fellow church members, that she is in fact Zou Demei, she belongs to the CAG, and China persecutes CAG members. Although asylum in the US was not granted for a number of technical reasons, Sister Zou is allowed to remain in the country. And now she has left the jail where she had been detained in Detroit for more than two years, and is a free woman.

South Korean False Demonstrations Against The Church of Almighty God Refugees End in Disgrace

Police intervention stops further false demonstrations by CCP executives and anti-cultists harassing harmless refugees in Korea. 

Bitter Winter has reported in the last few days about false “spontaneous demonstrations” organized in South Korea against The Church of Almighty God (CAG) by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) executives who came from China for this purpose, with relatives of CAG asylum seekers they had “persuaded” to join them and local anti-cultists led by pro-Chinese activist Ms. O Myung-ok. For a fortunate coincidence, the Austrian journalist Peter Zoehrer, secretary of FOREF (Forum for Religious Freedom Europe), was in Seoul for collecting material about CAG members who suffered torture in China, and was able to document and photograph the events for Bitter Winter.

Anti-Refugees “Demonstrations” in South Korea: The Real Story

On September 2–4, 2018, Austrian journalist Peter Zoehrer was an eyewitness to false “spontaneous demonstrations” staged by the CCP and Korean anti-cultists against asylum seekers of The Church of Almighty God in Seoul. He tells the whole story to Bitter Winter.

Bitter Winter reported extensively about the false “spontaneous demonstrations” organized in South Korea between August 30 and September 4 by the Chinese Communist Party and Korean anti-cultists against the asylum seekers of The Church of Almighty God, a Chinese Christian new religious movement heavily persecuted in China.

We also reported that an Austrian journalist, Peter Zoehrer, was an eyewitness to the events. Zoehrer is also the secretary of FOREF (Forum for Religious Freedom Europe) and has uploaded on FOREF’s YouTube channel videos of the events. We have interviewed Zoehrer in Warsaw, where he was attending the Human Dimension Implementation Meeting of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe).

Refugees of The Church of Almighty God in Japan

Oral statement of Ms Christine Mirre, of the accredited NGO CAP-LC, at the 40th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, 13 March 2019.

As of January 2019, 270 members of The Church of Almighty God (CAG), a Chinese Christian new religious movement, have escaped China and applied for asylum in Japan. None of the requests has been granted.

That the CAG is ruthlessly and cruelly persecuted in China is an established fact. The CAG claims that more than 300,000 of its members have been arrested, and scholars regard the figure as credible. There are hundreds of published Chinese court decisions showing that CAG members have been sentenced to heavy jail penalties for the only circumstance of being active in a banned religious organization. NGOs have also reported instances of torture, extra-judicial killings, and organ harvesting.

We acknowledge and respect the problems of Japan in dealing with a high number of asylum requests. However, the members of the CAG seeking asylum in Japan, whose number (270) should not create a national problem, run the serious risk of being arrested and sentenced to heavy jail penalties, or worse, should they be sent back to China. We urge Japan, a country widely respected for its commitment to human rights, to lend its helping hand to the refugees of The Church of Almighty God.

Source: BITTER WINTER

Persecution of Chinese Refugees of The Church of Almighty God in South Korea Should Not Start Again

That The Church of Almighty God (CAG) is heavily persecuted in China, with thousands of arrests and many documented cases of torture and extra-judicial killings, is now an established fact, recognized inter alia by official United Nations and U.S. State Department documents. Hundreds of CAG members have escaped to South Korea, where they are seeking refugee status.

Story of O: Korea #1 Bigot Harasses Refugees (and Many Others)—Again

On July 22, new false demonstrations against refugees from The Church of Almighty God start in Korea. The bigot promoting them is spreading hate against all minorities.

New Bitter Winter Movie on The Church of Almighty God Refugees Unveiled in Toronto

A session of the Parliament of the World’s Religions focused on religion-based Chinese refugees and introduced The Hoax, a movie about China’s attempt to harass the asylum seekers of The Church of Almighty God in South Korea.

The Parliament of the World’s Religions is the largest global inter-religious gathering. Thousands congregate every three years in a different city of the world, renewing a tradition inaugurated in Chicago in 1893.

The 2018 Parliament of the World’s Religions opened in Toronto on November 1. Among the events of November 2, A Question of Justice: The Refugees of The Church of Almighty God discussed the dramatic situation of the members of The Church of Almighty God who escape the severe persecution they are subject to in China and seek asylum abroad.

HK Media Attack The Church of Almighty God, Peril to Religious Freedom in HK - Massimo Introvigne

On November 20–21, 2017, in just two days, seventeen reports attacking The Church of Almighty God (CAG) were published intensively on Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po, the mouthpiece media of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Hong Kong (HK), citing the rumors and fallacies consistently fabricated by the CCP to discredit and condemn the CAG. What signal can we get from the CCP’s sudden attack and condemnation against the CAG in HK? What will the situation of religion be like in HK? Prof. Massimo Introvigne, an Italian sociologist, the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), makes comment on this.

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