ADHRRF – On June 11, 2018, at the Town Hall of Rho in Milan, Italy, a film screening event was jointly held by The Church of Almighty God (CAG), Rho Migration Committee (Consiglio Cittadino Migranti di Rho) and Multicultural Oasis Association (Associazione Multiculturale Oasi, AMO), to expose the truth of Chinese Communist Party’s brutal suppression and persecution of Chinese Christians. The audience developed a better understanding of the current situation of religious freedom in China through the films and criticized the Chinese Communist government’s barbaric acts of persecuting Christians and trampling human rights.
Ms. Kilat Anzhela (President of Rho Migration Committee) and Mr. Ugo Terzani (President of Multicultural Oasis Association) attended this activity and delivered speeches.
Among the films shown on that day, the documentary Who Is the Culprit prompted a strong response from the audience. This movie describes the real experiences of Chinese Christian, Zhou Haijiang who was illegally arrested, tortured and abused to death by the CCP police, and provides a profound reflection of the flagrant encroachment of the religious freedom and human rights of Chinese Christians.
Lawyer Fabio Strazzeri said in an interview, “I have seen that it is a story about the persecution of Christians in China and it gives a good description of what is happening. I think this is something that not everybody knows in Italy, so it is positive and useful to show these things. … I know that all religions, not only Christians, are persecuted (in China), the Chinese government doesn’t allow free exercise of worship, so I think it is good to talk about these things. It is very good of you to make them public.”
“Everybody should be free to profess any religion, any ideas, and any thoughts, so under an authoritarian one-party regime as in China there is no real freedom, there is only feigned freedom. So this is the sentence that encompasses everything, in my opinion: As long as there is no freedom of religion in China, there will be no real freedom,” said the vice-president of Rho Migration Committee Mr. Paolo Penzo.
President of AMO Mr. Terzaghi Ugo Maria said, “Unfortunately, the Chinese regime indeed adopts these measures to control religion. Since they are atheists, they try to block everything involving religion. … This is actually a concrete example of what happens when there are dictatorships. China is trying to draw the world’s attention, to have good relations with the rest of the world, but this only concerns the economy and certainly not human rights.”
A viewer named Luca Ciotta said, “I already knew in the past, at the time of Mao, that Chinese religious minorities were persecuted, especially the house churches…. I am astonished by the fact that this kind of persecution, arrests and beatings still exists, which is really unimaginable. Especially we are in the 21st century, everybody should enjoy freedom of belief. It is really upsetting to know that there are such situations even today.”
Luca Ciotta hoped that the United Nations and the foreign governments would be able to intervene to solve these problems of religious persecution and human rights violations in China.
