Harassed because of his religious activities and two trips to Taiwan, a house church leader was forced to hide from the authorities for years. The leader of a house church in Pandian town, Qihe county of Shandong Province, Jin Xin (pseudonym), has traveled to Taiwan...
“Official” or “government-controlled” religions are often mentioned in China. Five religious bodies are indeed authorized by the regime, although even their liberty is limited. Massimo Introvigne Bitter Winter readers often encounter news about “government-controlled”...
Chinese officials intimidate senior believers by forcing them to renounce their faith, or their allowances would be discontinued. As per stories coming out of Henan province, local government officials have taken to intimidate elderly Christians for their faith. These...
The Chinese authorities often target Christians or Chinese citizens who flee the country but then return. In August 2017, Jiang Han (pseudonym) returned to China. A member of The Church of Almighty God, a Chinese Christian new religious movement, he had returned to...
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has mobilized people from all walks of life to gather information on believers and report on them. The CCP has implemented a reward-based reporting system and has mobilized sanitation workers, community building supervisors, retired...
Venerable Xuecheng, the abbott of Beijing’s Longquan Temple and the President of the Chinese Buddhist Association, a staunch supporter of the CCP, is investigated for sexual abuse. Is the CCP protecting Xuecheng or trying to get rid of him for political reasons? On...
Dai Xiaoqiang, a pastor from Zhejiang Province, discloses details of being detained in a water dungeon. In June 2015, the local police of Qianxi arrested and detained Dai Xiaoqiang, a pastor in a house church in Hangzhou, in the Guiyang airport. He was accused of...
A university student and a member of The Church of Almighty God in Liaoning Province was arrested because of her faith and was later forced to quit her studies. On June 27, 2018, five officers from a police station in Jinzhou city, Liaoning Province burst into a...
In an exclusive interview, a teacher in Xinjiang talks about life as a government cadre in the “home-stay” program. As Bitter Winter reported earlier, a massive “home-stay” program is being implemented in Xinjiang since the beginning of this year, with over one...
The government has dismissed leaders of official churches in Henan for not implementing central government policies sufficiently. After the implementation of the new Regulations on Religious Affairs, Cultural Revolution-style religious management policies are back in...