ADHRRF – On June 30 of 2018, the 6th Human Rights Festival was launched in Cologne, Germany by six organizations, including Menschenrechte Köln and Allerweltshaus Köln eV. Amnesty International, Association for the Defense of Human Rights and Religious freedom (ADHRRF), and some other human rights organizations participated in this event. The theme of this festival is “Fleeing and Immigration,” around which a wide range of activities took place. On that day, ADHRRF gave a seminar about the persecution of Christians in China, calling for the German government’s attention to the Chinese Christians’ plight of being persecuted in China and their current situation of asylum application in Germany.
The seminar on the theme of “The Persecution of Christians in China” started at 3 p.m. at the Quaker Neighbourhood Centre (Quäker Nachbarschaftsheim). At the beginning of the seminar, the documentary about religious persecution in China, To the Brink and Back, was screened. It’s a film about a Chinese Christian Chen Wenzhong who was wanted by the Chinese Communist police for his belief in God and was forced to be on the run in China for over ten years. Eventually, his family was ripped apart, which forced him to go into exile overseas. This documentary faithfully reproduces the plight and persecution of Christians in China.
Also shared at the seminar was a Christian from The Church of Almighty God (CAG) Zhao Liang’s experience of fleeing from the CCP’s persecution. It’s learned that Mr. Zhao fled to Germany to seek asylum in April of 2015. However, his asylum application has been rejected by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in this January.
The sufferings of Chinese Christians shocked the participants. A participant stated that they only know that there are no human rights in China, but do not know the truth that Christians are persecuted so brutally by the Chinese government.
A staff member from the ADHRRF explained the main reason why the public barely knows the truth of Christians’ persecution in China is that Chinese Communist government has kept a tight rein and blockade on information to prevent the public from knowing how brutal the persecution Christians have suffered is and the great risk they are taking in China. This is also one of the main reasons why an overwhelming percentage of Chinese Christians’ asylum application has been declined.
It’s noted that the Chinese Communist government has intensified the religious persecution in recent years. Some Christians were forced to flee abroad to seek political asylum, but the results so far instill little optimism. According to the ADHRRF’s statistical analysis of the situation of Chinese Christians seeking political asylum in Germany, at least 360 Christians are seeking refuge in Germany, of whom 305 have been rejected by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, 12 are waiting for the results, 6 are living daily with the threat of deportation and 1 has been repatriated. Most of them are from the CAG, the most persecuted religious group by the Chinese Communist government.
According to incomplete statistics, in 2017 alone, 5 CAG Christians having returned from South Korea and 2 Christians from Switzerland were arrested by the CCP. Most of the CAG Christians who were sent back to China have gone missing, and whether they are alive or dead remains a mystery.
ADHRRF called on the German government to pay more attention to the situation of Chinese Christians’ asylum application in Germany and do not hand them over to their persecutors.
