Bitter Winter has received a secret Communist Party document with a plan to close down churches and religious meeting places in Liaoning Province. Since February 2018, following the implementation of the new national Regulations on Religious Affairs, authorities in...
Bitter Winter
Ten Years Later: Remembering the Menglian Incident of July 19, 2008
When farmers from the Dai minority protested against the exploitation by a rubber company, the police sided with the company, killed two villagers and seriously wounded another ten. The Menglian incident of July 19, 2008, was followed with considerable emotion in...
Disappearing Mosques of Xinjiang
Since spring 2017, Chinese authorities have increased their suppression efforts against Islam, demolishing innumerable mosques and sending Muslims to re-education camps. Recently, a Bitter Winter reporter visited the sites of six demolished mosques in the city of...
Four Elderly Believers Arrested and Threatened by Police
On June 1, 2018, the police raided a meeting place of The Church of Almighty God in the Yongchuan district of the city of Chongqing, arresting four believers. Three elderly members of The Church of Almighty God, a Chinese Christian new religious movement, Tang Yong...
More Crosses Taken Down in Henan
Over the past few months, government-controlled Protestant Three-Self churches in various locations in Henan Province have either been shut down or forced to take down their crosses. After the crosses of the Central Church in the town of Wolong and Bo’ai Church in the...
Arbitrary Detention: The Attorney Who Challenged China
The London attorney, and president of the European Federation for Freedom of Belief, has filed a high-profile complaint against China at the United Nations’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Alessandro Amicarelli, a member of the firm Obaseki Solicitors...
House Church Christian “Disappears” in Henan
Bitter Winter has learned that house church Christian Qiao Gang (pseudonym) of Shangqiu City, Henan, was summoned to a local police station on May 4 of 2018, and has not been heard from since. When Qiao’s family inquired into the matter, they were told that he had...
Like a Lamb to the Slaughter: Will the United States Send This Woman to Her Death?
A leader of The Church of Almighty God is threatened with deportation to China, where she will be at risk of being executed. This may be the most important article published by Bitter Winter to date. It is, literally, a question of life and death. It regards an asylum...
Henan Government Attempts to Block Foreign Journalists From Reporting About Persecutions of Religions
Source: Direct Reports from China Date: July 3, 2018 Henan’s Gongyi city government prepared special measures to prevent foreign journalists from getting information on religious beliefs in the province, discloses an official internal document. A Special Operation...
Over 400 Uyghur Women Detained in Unbearable Conditions
Source: Direct Reports from China Date: July 2, 2018 Chinese Communist authorities have created an immense network of “re-education” camps for Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang since the beginning of its massive “sinicization of religion” campaign. Presented as the...




