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| Chronicle Religious Persecutionon in China |
Since it took power in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party has been carrying out atheistic education throughout the country. Christianity has been designated as a tool of imperial “cultural invasion,” with Western missionaries expelled and Chinese preachers subjected to “thought reform.” All religions, including Christianity, have been regarded as “feudal superstition” and suffered severe suppression and banning. Over the past more than sixty years, The Chinese Communist Party has never ceased its persecution of religious beliefs; instead, it has step by step “legitimized” its crackdown and persecution of Christianity through legislation, and The Church of Almighty God suffered the most serious suppression. Since The Church of Almighty God was established in 1991, the CCP government has held numerous emergency meetings and drawn up and issued many secret documents. It has made use of television, radio, newspaper, and internet media to start libelous rumors and false accusations; it has defamed The Church of Almighty God, and has manufactured public opinion in order to confuse and deceive the populace; and it has conducted nationwide arrests of The Christians of The Church of Almighty God.
Thousands of members of The Church of Almighty God (CAG) have been incarcerated in China, following a further crackdown on unauthorized religious organizations. According to the rough statistics, more than 300,000 members of CAG were incarcerated and detained in China from the beginning of the persecutions in the 1990s to 2017. Many have been tortured and at least 30 died in custody in suspicious circumstances, according to a report just released by CAG and published by several human rights organizations internationally (see eg, http://www.cesnur. org/2017/almighty_china_report.pdf ). In the last few days, we have seen unprecedented media attacks against CAG published simultaneously in Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, which seem to be an answer to the publication of this report.
