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CHINA: Former “anti-cult” top bureaucrat Peng Bo is in jail

Former “anti-cult” top bureaucrat Peng Bo is in jail

As Bitter Winter predicted, expulsion from the CCP has been followed by arrest and prosecution.

by Gao Zihao

Jailed: Peng Bo. From Weibo.

Bitter Winter (01.09.2021) – https://bit.ly/3Bz764E – Bitter Winter has reported previously about the fall of Peng Bo, former no. 2 of the CCP machine fighting the banned religious movements labeled as xie jiao (“heterodox teachings,” sometimes less correctly translated as “evil cults.”)

When Peng was expelled from the CCP on August 17, with an unusual lengthy note of explanation accusing him of taking bribes and engaging himself in “superstitious activities,” Bitter Winter predicted he would soon go to jail.

It was not a difficult prediction, and Peng was jailed last week. Under the anti-corruption directives of President Xi Jinping, it risks a long jail sentence, if not execution.

The Hong Kong daily South China Morning Post took the opportunity of the fall of Peng Bo to explain to its readers that as a “cult-buster” the bureaucrat was fighting “cults,” i.e., “groups engaging in inhumane, antisocial or unconstitutional practices, which could involve violent crimes, fraud, sexual abuse.”

This is only true if you believe the CCP propaganda. The CCP often accuses groups labeled as xie jiao or their leaders of fraud and sexual abuse, but in many if not most cases the only charge is that their teachings are incompatible with the CCP ideology and generate hostility to the government. It is difficult, for example, to accuse the Shouters, the first group historically labeled a xie jiao, of “fraud or sexual abuse,” and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a peaceful and puritanical group, have also been called a xie jiao in recent years. In the cases of other groups labeled as xie jiao, charges of abuse or violence are largely trumped up.

This is not a problem with the South China Morning Post article only. It was a problem with Peng Bo. Most of the accusations launched against xie jiao were so obviously false that they did not stick. Few took them seriously in China, although they were propagated by some CCP’s “fellow travelers” and hired guns abroad. Most importantly, black propaganda, arrests, and even executions failed to eradicate movements labeled as xie jiao that have been active in China for decades, such as The Church of Almighty God and Falun Gong (whose meditation to boost the immune system made it popular again during the COVID-19 crisis), or to prevent the birth and growth of new “heterodox” religious groups.

Perhaps Peng Bo took bribes or, like many other CCP bureaucrats, engaged in divination or feng shui. But he is in jail mostly because his attempts to eradicate the xie jiao proved remarkably ineffective.

CHINA: Seventh-day Adventist clergy of house churches get heavy jail sentences

Seventh-day Adventist clergy get heavy jail sentences in Guizhou

Officially, Adventist congregations in China are part of the Three-Self Church. Those who kept their distinctiveness are now persecuted.

By Wu Guoxuan

Bitter Winter (18.08.2021) – https://bit.ly/3k5AiJp – On August 14, 2021, the court of Kaili city, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture, Guizhou province, sentenced Zhang Wenying (female) and three other clergy of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Kaili city to heavy jail sentences. Zhang should spend 12 years in jail, and her co-defendants from 3 to 6 years.

The Adventist clergy were sentenced for “fraud.” Seventh-day Adventism is not labeled as xie jiao (“heterodox teachings”), and is theoretically allowed to exist in China, as long as its congregations accept to be part of the government-controlled Three-Self Church.

In fact, Chinese Seventh-day Adventists officially joined the Three-Self Church in 1951. Many, however, did it as part of a survival strategy, and with mixed feelings. They tried to keep their Adventist style, and supplemented the public Three-Self services with meetings in private homes with a more distinctive Adventist flavor. They joked that they went even beyond the Three-Self formula, as Adventists were “Four-Self,” as they also “self-theologized,” and freely chose their theology rather than having it dictated by CCP-controlled institutions. For this reason, several Adventists were arrested even before the Cultural Revolution, when all public religious activity had to cease.

After the Cultural Revolution, Adventists understood that with Deng Xiaoping’s new limited tolerance policy, they were free to have private meetings and maintain some distinctive Adventist practices, as long as they did not challenge the idea that all Protestants should be under the ultimate aegis of the Three-Self Church.

As it happened to others, they have discovered that this is no longer allowed under Xi Jinping, whose “sinicization” policies also mean that all remains of distinctive denominational traditions still present in Three-Self congregations should disappear.

The reaction of some Adventists who cherished their traditions was to establish independent Adventist house churches. They were kept under watch by the authorities and were not legal, but some were grudgingly tolerated. They were particularly successful in Guizhou and Hubei provinces. For instance, the congregation of those sentenced in Kaili city has been in existence for some 20 years. In fact, some of the new Adventist communities, including the one in Kaili city, duly applied for registration certificates, but these were denied.

In 2019, Bitter Winter reported that an Adventist pastor in Hubei was tried with seven co-workers and sentenced to five years in jail, in that case for having printed religious material without the requested authorizations, a frequent pretext for sentencing Christians, the legal theory being that only the Three-Self Church is authorized to print Protestant books and leaflets.

Similarly, only the Three-Self Church is authorized to collect gifts and offerings. When, after twenty years of comparatively peaceful existence, authorities in Kaili city, implementing Xi Jinping’s new policies, decided to crack down on the Adventist community, they accused the clergy of “fraud” for collecting offerings outside of the Three-Self Church. As the Kaili city proves, accusations of monetary “fraud” are particularly dangerous, and lead to spending many years in jail.

Photo : Still venerated: the grave in Hong Kong of the first Seventh-day Adventist missionary to China, Abram LaRue (1822–1903). From Twitter.

Further reading about FORB in China on HRWF website

CHINA : Special bimonthly FoRB newsletter (01-15.08.2021)

General

16.08.21 – There’s a religious revival going on in China – under the constant watch of the Communist Party

The Chinese Communist Party is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding in 1921. For most of those decades, the party sought to restrict or obliterate traditional religious practices, which it considered part of China’s “feudal” past.

CHINA: Former “anti-cult” top bureaucrat Peng Bo is in jail

Former “anti-cult” top bureaucrat Peng Bo is in jail

CHINA: Seventh-day Adventist clergy of house churches get heavy jail sentences

Seventh-day Adventist clergy get heavy jail sentences in Guizhou

CHINA : Special bimonthly FoRB newsletter (01-15.08.2021)

CHINA : Special bimonthly FoRB newsletter (01-15.08.2021)

CHINA : Special bimonthly FoRB newsletter (16-31.07.2021)

Special bimonthly FoRB newsletter (16-31.07.2021)

CHINA: Freedom of religion or belief – Special bimonthly digest (01-15.07.21)

CHINA: Special bimonthly FORB digest (01-15.07.21)