• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS GLOBAL
    • TESTIMONIES GLOBAL
    • OP-EDS GLOBAL
    • FEATURED GLOBAL
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
    • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / News China

Nine NGOs write to Angela Merkel: “Do Not Deport Sister Zhao Back to China”

08/01/2018Bitter Winter |

doors in a prison
Credits

Germany plans to deport back to China a member of The Church of Almighty God detained in Ingelheim. Nine NGOs tell Chancellor Merkel that in China she will be arrested and may be tortured.

Nine NGOs active in the field of religious liberty wrote on August 1 to German Chancellor Angela Merkel about the urgent situation of a Chinese refugee, Ms. Zhao, currently detained in Ingelheim, after she resisted forcible deportation to China on July 9.

Ms. Zhao is a member of The Church of Almighty God, a Chinese Christian new religious movement founded in 1991, which is heavily persecuted in China and is included since 1995 in the official list of xie jiao.

Xie jiao (customarily translated as “evil cults,” but in fact meaning “heterodox teachings”) are movements the government does not approve of. Being active in a xie jiao is a crime punished by Article 300 of the Chinese Criminal Code with a jail penalty of 3 to 7 years or “more.”

A confidential CCP document leaked to Western media indicates that a new massive campaign for “eradicating” xie jiao and CAG has been launched in 2018, with the number of arrests increasing.

“We urge you to consider that, should Ms. Zhao be returned to China, she would certainly be arrested and might be subject to torture or ‘disappear’ while in custody” write the NGOs. They also note that “those who have sought asylum abroad are regarded as particularly dangerous members of the CAG and as disloyal citizens, and are prime candidates for harsher jail penalties, with a serious risk of torture and extra-judicial killing.”

“We urge Germany to honor its well-known tradition of protecting human rights and religious liberty and not to return Ms. Zhao and other CAG members in similar conditions, to her persecutors, granting them the asylum they deserve,” concludes the appeal.

 

Tagged With: The Church of Almighty God, Xie Jiao Organizations

Related articles

  • Chinese Deprogrammer Honored by Xi Jinping

    Chinese Deprogrammer Honored by Xi Jinping

  • Church of Almighty God Persecution Continues to Increase

    Church of Almighty God Persecution Continues to Increase

  • More than 10,000 Church of Almighty God Members Were Arrested in 2022

    More than 10,000 Church of Almighty God Members Were Arrested in 2022

  • China’s Public Security: To Protect Economy, Crack Down on Illegal Religion

    China’s Public Security: To Protect Economy, Crack Down on Illegal Religion

Keep Reading

  • CCP Fearful of Religious “Infiltration” from Vietnam Among Mien Minority
    CCP Fearful of Religious “Infiltration” from Vietnam Among Mien Minority

    Border villages in Guangxi are under surveillance and targeted by propaganda against “cults” and Christian groups.

  • China: Anti-Religious Education Comes to Kindergarten
    China: Anti-Religious Education Comes to Kindergarten

    Propaganda against “xie jiao and illegal religion,” not very successful with adults, now targets children as young as 3.

  • Church of Almighty God Refugees: Favorable Decisions by Italian Supreme Court and Court of Rome
    Church of Almighty God Refugees: Favorable Decisions by Italian Supreme Court and Court of Rome

    Judges recognized that the CAG is severely persecuted in China, and members are harassed by the CCP even abroad.

  • UFO Beliefs Growing (and Increasingly Repressed) in China
    UFO Beliefs Growing (and Increasingly Repressed) in China

    Millions of young Chinese follow contactees who claim to receive messages from the aliens. Some end up in jail.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • Cultural Genocide: The Indoctrination of Uyghur Children by Gulfiye Y
  • Wenzhou, Parents Asked to Sign a “Kindergarten Family Commitment Not to Believe in Religion” by He Yuyan
  • Why “Cults” (and “Brainwashing”) Do Not Exist by Massimo Introvigne
  • Pakistan: Ahmadi Mosque Vandalized by Police During Ramadan by Marco Respinti
  • A Uyghur View: Putin Got His Arrest Warrant—Xi Jinping Should Be Next by Kok Bayraq
  • Thailand and Pakistan: No Friends of Uyghur Refugees by Marco Respinti
  • “Do Not Dissolve the Unification Church!” 1. An Award-Winning Journalist Speaks Out by Masumi Fukuda

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY