Bitter Winter has received a classified document revealing the organized crackdown on The Church of Almighty God in Henan.
The document, issued by an office that deals with the prevention of heterodox religious movements in one of Henan’s cities, states that The Church of Almighty God, a Chinese Christian new religious movement, needs to be urgently banned, both domestically and abroad. It indicates that President Xi Jinping “pays high attention” to the work of banning The Church of Almighty God. The document requests the “balance between thorough investigations of the ‘The Church of Almighty God’ and other organizations,” to ensure the achievement of the goal to “destroy its domestic foundation and crippling its influence abroad” during a 1-year-long suppression campaign.
All levels of governments should, “use various media platforms, based on the new demands for propaganda efforts requiring that one must ‘both do and say,’” to launch counter-advocacy efforts targeted at The Church of Almighty God. Authorities are encouraged to extensively use “the Internet, WeChat [Chinese social media platform], and other means well received by the populace to strengthen interaction in all directions, mobilize the population’s enthusiasm in advocating criticisms.”
The document also calls on to organize society in general and family members of believers in Almighty God in particular “to report information regarding the activities of The Church of Almighty God, and cooperate in developing criticisms against them and their exposure.”
The document demands to collect information about believers on local levels for a “comprehensive database” and employ “education and conversion” methods on the captured members of the Church.
Since May, mass campaigns against the Church have taken place in the municipality of Chongqing, and the provinces of Jiangsu, Shandong, and Liaoning, currently totaling at least 900 arrested believers in Almighty God. Several hundred of them have been imprisoned; families of many of whom do not know anything about them.
At the same time, the CCP has launched persecution operations against the members of The Church who were forced to flee China. Particularly, in South Korea, where the CCP has been using fake news and rumors to influence public opinion.
Authorities in China are attempting to extradite by any means possible the believers in Almighty God who have been detained abroad and face persecution when they are returned home. Recently, Bitter Winter reported about the cases of members of The Church of Almighty God facing repatriation to China: Zou Demei who is detained in the USA, and Ms. Zhao held in Germany.
Source: BITTER WINTER
