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Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / News China

Bitter Winter’s Marco Respinti Receives Media Award at the Turin Book Fair

05/14/2019Massimo Introvigne |

Our director-in-charge is honored for his contribution to religious liberty, as part of a day of events devoted to denouncing persecution and advancing religious freedom.

Massimo Introvigne

Marco Respinti receiving the award at the International Book Fair of Turin, Italy
Marco Respinti receiving the award

At the International Book Fair of Turin, Italy, the second largest book fair in Europe, every year several FIRMA (International Festival of Religions, Music, and Arts) Awards honor personalities who promoted religious liberty and interreligious dialogue throughout the world. This year, the awards ceremony was part of a public event on religious persecution at the Book Fair, preceded by a private session of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable, the first ever in Italy, at Terrazza Solferino. Several religious groups and NGOs attended the roundtable, together with Italian politicians and U.S. diplomats. Among the themes discussed at the Roundtable was the situation of Chinese refugees from The Church of Almighty God who come to Europe fleeing religious persecution. Less than 15% of them are granted asylum in Europe, against 85% in Canada and almost 100% in New Zealand.

The movie screening at the Book Fair
The movie screening at the Book Fair

In the public event, the movie Tiananmen and Religious Persecution in China, produced by Bitter Winter, had its first screening in Italy. The movie remembers the events of June 4, 1989 in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and discusses how they influenced religion in China, both by contributing to a religious revival and by scaring the CCP leaders, determining the subsequent crackdown on all religions.

A CAG refugee tells his story, with Attorney Francesco Curto, of FIRMA’s jury
A CAG refugee tells his story, with Attorney Francesco Curto, of FIRMA’s jury

A refugee from The Church of Almighty God told his experience of persecution and torture in China, followed by similar tragic stories reported by a member of the Ahmadiyya Community, a Muslim religious movement persecuted in Pakistan and Algeria.

The FIRMA awards honored personalities who promoted religious liberty and human rights throughout the world and in Italy: Dr. Hong Tao Tze, from Taiwan, founder of the qi gong school Tai Ji Men and of the Federation of World Peace and Love; Apostle Naasón Joaquín García, leader of the church la Luz del Mundo, headquartered in Mexico, and of its network of humanitarian and charitable activities; Greg Mitchell, founder of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable; and Italian Pentecostal journalist and champion of religious liberty, Alessandro Iovino.

The party at Terrazza Solferino honoring the awardees
The party at Terrazza Solferino honoring the awardees

The media award for a journalism promoting religious liberty went to Marco Respinti, director-in-charge for Bitter Winter. In accepting the award, Respinti said he understands the jury did not intend to honor him alone, but all the staff of Bitter Winter, including the news editor Arune Kontautaitė, the webmasters, translators and editors of the editions in eight different languages, and above all the brave reporters who constantly risk being arrested for sending news, videos, and photographs from China.

The main daily newspaper in Turin, La Stampa, covered the event in an article published in its respected section about religion.

Tagged With: Religious Liberty

Massimo Introvigne
Massimo Introvigne

Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio.  From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.

www.cesnur.org/

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MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

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