“Epidemic Prevention” Chinese Communist Party Style: Persecute Religious Minorities

May 24, 2020 by Jill

by Judith Bergman, Gatestone Institute:

Since early 2020, China has been doubling down on its already extreme suppression of religious freedom, and the Covid-19 outbreak has done nothing to curb the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) enthusiasm. If anything, the virus outbreak has served as an excuse to crack down even more on freedom of religion.

In February, for instance, officials came to inspect whether a church in Henan province was implementing lockdown instructions, but, according to one church member interviewed by Bitter Winter, “seeing some bible verses written on a blackboard they said, ‘China is the land of the Communist Party, and we are not allowed to hold religious beliefs'”. The officials then “smashed everything in the venue and left, locking the door…”

The CCP also continued its crackdown on The Church of Almighty God (CAG), a group China banned and that it considers a “dangerous cult”. Between February and March, authorities arrested at least 325 members of the group “as a result of investigations in the name of epidemic prevention”. One member of the group, who had been released, said that the police had “threatened to send her to the coronavirus epicenter in Hubei Province to be infected if she continued practicing her faith”. At the height of the epidemic in early February, authorities in the province of Shanxi “launched a special crackdown campaign against the CAG, encouraging masses to report on its members”. A government employee from Anhui province said that he had been instructed “not to delay investigations into CAG members because of the pandemic: On the contrary, government personnel should use preventive measures as a pretext to enter residents’ homes”.

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