A family of three who are all members of The Church of Almighty God were detained during the “Operation Thunder” in Liaoning’s Dandong city. As Bitter Winter reported earlier, on June 26-28, a full-scale “Operation Thunder” was implemented in Liaoning Province,...
Xie Jiao Organizations
House Church Coworker Sentenced for Believing in Xie Jiao
A believer was arrested in 2015 and sentenced to two years in jail for believing in a heterodox religious movement. Article 300 of the Chinese Criminal Code states that “using” a xie jiao (heterodox teachings) is a crime punishable with jail penalties from three to...
If Your Religion is a Xie Jiao, You Go to Jail – But What Is A Xie Jiao?
The current list of xie jiao, compiled by Hong Kong scholar Ed Irons Since the late Ming era, China has used xie jiao to designate religious movements the government does not like. Their repression has always been brutal, but what a xie jiao is, is far from being...
Chilling Details Emerge About Pastor’s Detention
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...
University Student Forced to Drop Out Because of Her Faith
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...
Chinese Ministry of State Security Takes Over the Campaign Against Bitter Winter
Since the arrests of reporters did not stop Bitter Winter, China escalates the campaign against our magazine and adopts extraordinary measures to prevent the leaks of secret documents. Bitter Winter reported on August 1 that several reporters that have sent...
Elderly Christians Harassed And Tortured
Stories of three elderly Chinese Christians in Jilin Province and how they were persecuted for their belief. In the spring of 2015, Xiao Hong arrived home from the Tumen city market when three police officers apprehended her in plain clothes. She was arrested without...
House Church Leader Forced to Pay for Prison Meals
While a house church leader was serving her sentence, her family has been drained of money in paying for her prison meals. In October 2015, Wang Hui (pseudonym) was arrested with five others while they were having a religious gathering at a house church in Liaoning...
ID Cards Help Authorities to Persecute for Religious Belief
A woman that belonged to a government-approved Protestant Three-Self Church in Fujian was blacklisted when her religious faith was marked as xie jiao (a heterodox organization) on the official identity database. The religious affiliation of a person, among other...
Nine NGOs write to Angela Merkel: “Do Not Deport Sister Zhao Back to China”
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...









