• 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
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • TESTIMONIES
  • 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

Printing House Raided and Fined for Religious Literature

06/25/2018Bitter Winter |

Source: Direct Reports from China
Date: June 25, 2015

A printing house in Liaoning Province is being persecuted by Chinese authorities for printing religious literature. In late November 2017, the Communist Party police organized a thriller-like raid of the printing house, fined it with a large sum and, since then, have been subjecting the manager to nonstop summons and threats, repeatedly searching the premises.

Mengxing printing house in Gushan town, the city of Donggang, was regularly printing religious literature for a bookstore in Shenyang. Around 1:00 p.m. on November 29, over 30 officers and officials surrounded the plant and forcibly entered the building. As it turned out, the cause for the joint operation between the Dandong City Public Security Bureau, the Dandong Cultural Inspection Bureau, the Gushan town government, and Gushan police was a religious booklet, Questions and Answers on the Key Way, that was printed by Mengxing. At the time of the raid, the booklet was no longer in print but was still sold.

Once inside, the police searched the premises and used knives to cut open all the packaged books and papers in the warehouse, making a mess of the entire place. They took videos and photos of eight employees who were working in the printing house at the time. Later, the officers confiscated some of the religious literature and all of the computers they found in the printing house. The manager of Mengxing, Gao Quan, was forcibly taken to the municipal Cultural Inspection Bureau for interrogation. Consequently, he was fined 10,000 RMB for printing religious literature and had to spend 30,000 RMB more to get back the confiscated computers.

This, as it turned out, was not the end of troubles forMengxing printing house. On March 28, 2018, the Outline of the Five-Year Working Plan for Promoting the Sinicization of Christianity in China – a document that outlines the strategy of adapting religion to China’s socialist society – came into force, tightening control over Christian churches and forbidding sales of Bibles both online and in bookstores. As a result, authorities confiscate and burn religious materials, including Bibles, even in the government-controlled Protestant Three-Self churches. Bitter Winter has reported earlier of such incidences.

Due to the policy change, Mengxing printing house was searched again, and Gao Quan subjected to investigation. During one of his interrogations, officials told him that the government does not permit to print Christian, Buddhist, and Islamic materials and constitutes it a crime. Around 9:00 p.m. on June 3, 2018, two officials with the Dandong Cultural Inspection Bureau came to the printing house again and attempted to forcibly pry open the door to search inside after the warehouse manager refused to let them in. Threatened by the officials, he later opened the door to allow them inside. Even though no religious materials were found, they arrested and questioned Gao Quan, releasing him only after he assured that no more religious books are printed at his printing house.

 

 

Tagged With: Religious Liberty, Sinicization of religions

bw-profile
Bitter Winter

Bitter Winter reports on how religions are allowed, or not allowed, to operate in China and how some are severely persecuted after they are labeled as “xie jiao,” or heterodox teachings. We publish news difficult to find elsewhere, analyses, and debates.
Placed under the editorship of Massimo Introvigne, one of the most well-known scholars of religion internationally, “Bitter Winter” is a cooperative enterprise by scholars, human rights activists, and members of religious organizations persecuted in China (some of them have elected, for obvious reasons, to remain anonymous).

Related articles

  • La loi japonaise sur les dons religieux. 1. Un texte ambigu

    La loi japonaise sur les dons religieux. 1. Un texte ambigu

  • Un hiver amer (Bitter Winter) pour la MIVILUDES

    Un hiver amer (Bitter Winter) pour la MIVILUDES

  • Japan’s Religious Donations Law. 2. “Fear” and Religious Fraud

    Japan’s Religious Donations Law. 2. “Fear” and Religious Fraud

  • European Court of Human Rights: Governments Should Not Call Minority Religions “Cults”

    European Court of Human Rights: Governments Should Not Call Minority Religions “Cults”

Keep Reading

  • Japan’s Religious Donations Law. 3. An American Precedent
    Japan’s Religious Donations Law. 3. An American Precedent

    In 1931, in the landmark case “People v. Blackburn,” the Supreme Court of California stated that claiming an inspired religious knowledge and collecting donations even for a marginal religious movement is part of religious liberty.

  • La crise de l'Église de l'Unification au Japon : Les trois ennemis de la liberté religieuse
    La crise de l'Église de l'Unification au Japon : Les trois ennemis de la liberté religieuse

    Le Japon apparaît comme le principal champ de bataille entre les forces qui attaquent la liberté religieuse depuis des siècles et celles qui la défendent.

  • A Bitter Winter for MIVILUDES
    A Bitter Winter for MIVILUDES

    The deep crisis of the French governmental anti-cult mission has been revealed by the resignation of its chief, Hanène Romdhane.

  • Spanish Supreme Court: Political Parties Cannot Exclude “Cult” Devotees as Candidates
    Spanish Supreme Court: Political Parties Cannot Exclude “Cult” Devotees as Candidates

    The judges sanctioned the Podemos party for its discrimination of members based on the sole reason that they belonged to the Prometheus Initiatory School.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • Pro-Chinese Propaganda by The World Muslim Communities Council: Uyghurs Strike Back by Gulfiye Y
  • Zhanargul Zhumatai: “Help Me, I Just Want to Leave China” by Ruth Ingram
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 1. The Aesthetic Mind by Massimo Introvigne
  • Stricter Rules on Private Tutoring Protect Ideology Rather than Parents by Wang Zhipeng
  • Japan Religious Donations Law. 4. The Return of Brainwashing by Massimo Introvigne
  • Hong Kong: Christian Scholar Peng Manyuan Released but Not Rehabilitated by Gladys Kwok
  • The Weaponization of the CCP’s “Zero COVID” Against Tibet by Marco Respinti
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 3. Art as Communication by Massimo Introvigne
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 4. Art and Illustration by Massimo Introvigne
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 5. Professionals vs. Amateurs by Massimo Introvigne

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

Instant Exclusive News
Instant Exclusive News

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

Follow us

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

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