CultNEWS101 Articles: 7/28/2025 (Worldwide Church of God, Shakahola Massacre, Church of Almighty God)

Worldwide Church of God, Shakahola Massacre, Church of Almighty God

BET: I'm a Black Woman Who Grew Up in a Cult - Here's Why I'm Finally Talking About It

"In this personal op-ed, actor and podcast host LaNisa Renee Frederick unpacks her childhood in the Worldwide Church of God, how racism shaped its theology, and the healing that came from naming the shame out loud.

Growing up in the '80s and '90s as a Black girl in the Midwest, I knew early on that my church was different—maybe even "weird"—compared to my peers'. But it wasn't until years later that I connected my experiences to the word cult, which sent me on a journey to unpack the shame and embarrassment I didn't even realize I was carrying.

Like many Black households, the church was a cornerstone of my upbringing. However, most of my school friends were Baptist, AME, or Pentecostal. I didn't really understand what we were, but I knew we were Sabbath keepers. From Friday sundown to Saturday sundown: no work, no parties, no Saturday morning cartoons. (Though my siblings and I did manage to sneak in episodes of He-Man and She-Ra.)

I remember being six and pulled from the class Halloween party because I wasn't allowed to participate. Heartbroken, I sat alone watching my classmates gobble down candy corn and M&M's, wondering what was so sinful about dressing up like Barbie.

And while other kids settled into the school year each fall, I was collecting homework assignments ahead of our annual two-week spiritual pilgrimage out of state. Sure, it was a little unorthodox. But I didn't start questioning the church's doctrines and ideologies until college. I was taking an intro to theology course and decided to use this new thing called Google to look up my old church. What I found shook me: article after article labeling it a cult.

That couldn't be right. I had fun in church! We went roller skating and had potlucks that even brought my non-member mom into the fold. Plus, we're Black. We don't do cults. Outside of "those Jonestown people," cults were something that happened to white folks in documentaries. Sure, we might deal with "church hurt," but cults? Nah. Not us.

Still, I kept digging—reading, researching, and talking to former members. At first, I defined a cult by what I could see. Then I began to understand, through experts, that cults aren't about optics. You don't have to live in Waco, wear matching Nikes, or drink the Kool-Aid to be under control. Fear-based obedience, punishment for questioning authority, strict hierarchies, and man-made rules disguised as biblical truths? That's culty too.

That's when I finally said out loud: 'Oh shit. We were in a cult.'"

Citizen Digital: Fresh fears of cult activity emerge in Kilifi, nearly two years after Shakahola Massacre

"Nearly two years after the gruesome discovery of mass graves in Shakahola Forest shocked the nation and the world, chilling new developments out of Kilifi County are stoking fears that the horrors of 2023 may not be behind us.

Authorities have recovered one body and rescued four severely emaciated individuals just kilometres from the original Shakahola site—raising alarming questions about the possible resurgence of cult-like activity in the region.

Even more disturbing is the revelation that among those arrested is a husband and wife, former victims of the Shakahola cult, who had previously been rescued during the 2023 operation but disappeared again earlier this year.

The couple, originally from Nyadorera in Siaya County, allegedly fled their home in March with six children—aged between 1 and 15 years—before resurfacing in Kilifi under circumstances now under active investigation.

A brother of the male suspect, whose identity has been concealed for safety, confirmed that the family had once been reintegrated into the community but mysteriously vanished months ago.

"Alitoka huko nyumbani na familia yake wakaenda Shakahola mara ya kwanza… wakati watu walikuwa wanatolewa, tuliweza kuwaokoa wakaenda nyumbani," he said. "Tulijua atareform akiwa nyumbani… lakini amerudi tena."

The whereabouts of the six children remain unknown. "Nimewaishi na hao watoto," the brother added. "Nimefuata kujua wako hali gani lakini sijawaona. Sasa nimeachia serikali ifanye uchunguzi."

Human rights advocates and local authorities fear the emergence of what they are calling a possible "Shakahola Two." Rapid Response Officer Mathias Shipeta expressed grave concern, saying one of the couple's children had been among those held during the initial Shakahola raid and placed in a rescue facility. "As we speak, we are concerned that Shakahola 2 inaweza kuwa imeanza," Shipeta warned. "We are calling upon the police to investigate the matter and ensure we do not have casualties or deaths as in Shakahola 1."

Ongoing investigations suggest that remnants of the original Shakahola network may still be active, quietly regrouping and continuing indoctrination efforts despite government crackdowns and nationwide condemnation.

"We have been told that some of those previously charged and detained at Shimo la Tewa are regrouping and conducting teachings to continue radicalizing Kenyans," Shipeta said.

The victim's brother echoed the growing alarm: "Naomba serikali hii mambo ya Shakahola ikapate kuisha kabisa… isiendelee tena. Inaonekana bado watu wanaendelea kuregroup huko msituni."

The original Shakahola tragedy, believed to have been orchestrated by controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie, claimed over 400 lives and triggered widespread calls for reform of religious and cult-related laws in Kenya."

HemeroSectas: Three months in a Chinese WhatsApp sect (Google Translation)

" ... This is a neo-Christian group founded in China in 1991. It preaches that Jesus has returned in the form of a Chinese woman named Yang Xiangbin, supposedly living in New York, although none of this is explained in the recruitment groups. They have been harshly persecuted by the communist regime, but are also accused of coercing and isolating believers. In the West, they are spreading rapidly through social media. This demonstrates their productive potential in the artistic field: their powerful website features numerous films (all about stories of Chinese neo-Christians persecuted by the regime), dance choirs, testimonies, sermon series, and highly developed music videos. It's clear that this is a growing religion and one that has financial resources.

Their base in Spain is a house in an industrial park in Fuenlabrada. From there, they coordinate their virtual groups. I had joined out of curiosity and went with the flow. Now I was a step up, had a house in Madrid, a potential love proposal to respond to, and was scheduled for the first physical meeting."

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China brutalizes religious groups with repressive policies

Church of Almighty God members give accounts of detention, interrogation and torture

UCA News reporter, Hong Kong
April 30, 2021

Communist China has continued its crackdown on religious groups and practices by arresting and abusing hundreds of members, accusing them of being associated with entities that the state authorities deem illegal.

From January to March this year, some 750 members of the Church of Almighty God were arrested, interrogated and tortured in various Chinese provinces including Jiangsu, Henan and Sichuan.

At least 123 members were detained and abused in Jiangsu province in January and on Feb. 15, while 50 were arrested in Sichuan.

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They faced beatings and were forced to sit still facing walls for many hours, according to an April 27 report from Bitter Winter, a magazine on religious liberty and human rights.

A female member who was tortured in detention said she felt “my arms were nearly broken” and she sweated all over her body and “could not help screaming.”

China’s crackdown on the Church of Almighty God, also known as Eastern Lightning, a controversial Christian cult movement that is believed to have 3-4 million members, has been going on for years.

Sinicization aims to impose strict rules on societies and institutions, especially religious groups

The church’s 2020 report claimed that 5,587 members faced various forms of persecution by Chinese authorities last year.

Observers says the crackdown on the church is part of China’s wider repression of freedom of religion and belief with three draconian policies — the Sinicization of religion, regulations on religious affairs and its Beautiful Villages policy.

Sinicization aims to impose strict rules on societies and institutions based on the core values of socialism, autonomy and supporting the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party.

Controversial demolitions of dozens of churches and crosses across China since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2013 were prime examples of Sinicization of Christianity in the officially atheist country.

Officially, atheist China recognizes the legal entity of five religions — Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Islam and Taoism.

Since adopting new regulations on religious affairs in February 2018, Chinese authorities have escalated clampdowns on religious institutions and charities, accusing them of using welfare fronts for religious indoctrination and conversion.

The Beautiful Villages policy, based on China’s wide-ranging New Socialist Countryside policy, was adopted nationally in 2013 after being applied in some provinces since 2006.

The policy stipulates that a village should be certified as beautiful when it has implemented socialist norms, an ecological environment and eradicated all religious practices deemed illegal by the state.

Under the guise of the policy, banned religious sects including the Falun Gong, Church of Almighty God and Xie Jiao (a group of about 20 cults or belief groups labelled “anti-China” or “evil cults”) have been targeted and wiped out from many villages.

China is regularly listed among the worst offenders for repressing religious freedom in global reports

A village can be proclaimed beautiful if it can score 900 out of 1,000 points by conforming to parameters formulated by Beijing. Thus, local authorities enforce measures to eradicate all religious activity that might bar a village from scoring points to gain coveted Beautiful Village status.

The persecution of minority Uyghur Muslims has added to new dimension of religious repression in China. Independent experts estimate that between 900,000 and 1.8 million Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and other Muslims have been detained in more than 1,300 concentration camps in Xinjiang.

China is regularly listed among the worst offenders for repressing religious freedom in global reports.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom Report 2021, released on April 21, placed China among 14 countries where governments engage or tolerate “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations” of religious freedom or belief. Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, India and Vietnam were also on the list.

https://www.ucanews.com/news/china-brutalizes-religious-groups-with-repressive-policies/92305

China monitoring mobile phones, blocking 'harmful' words like 'Almighty God'

Leah MarieAnn Klett,
Christian Post Reporter
December 04, 2019

A former employee of one of China’s largest tech firms has revealed how the Communist regime is manipulating public opinion by monitoring citizens’ mobile phones, blocking any words deemed “sensitive to the state” — such as “Almighty God.”

Mr. Li, a former employee of China Mobile Online Services Company, a subsidiary of China Mobile Limited, the state-owned and largest telecommunications service provider in mainland China, told religious liberty magazine Bitter Winter that there is “simply no privacy in China,” with authorities monitoring social media, calls, and messages on mobile phones.

“If one says anything deemed unfavorable to the CCP, he or she will be punished. Every person is monitored and controlled under the pretext ‘to crack down on harassment,'” Mr. Li said.

Before resigning from his post, Mr. Li worked as a “censor” along with about 500 other employees, monitoring the company users’ phone calls and messages.

The surveillance program, which covers all China Mobile users in the 31 provincial-level administrative units, excluding Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, is programmed to automatically detect anything concerning politics and religious beliefs.

Once “harmful” information is discovered — such as remarks critical of the CCP and unfavorable to the state leaders — company employees are assigned to review it thoroughly, Mr. Li revealed.

“If anyone were not careful enough and missed a piece of sensitive information, this would result in the deduction in monthly salary and year-end bonus,” he recalled. “I usually had to handle more than ten thousand pieces of information every month. It was unavoidable to make mistakes, at least one or two a year.”

Religion-related words and phrases, like “Almighty God” and “Falun Gong,” are among words deemed “sensitive,” along with any mention of revoking membership in the Communist Party or the Communist Youth League.

“Anything deemed unfavorable to the CCP is labeled ‘political,’” Mr. Li explained. “For example, immediate measures will be taken to intercept messages that mention the CCP’s organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners to prevent leaks.”

“If any sensitive words were deducted during phone calls, in MMS, SMS, or messages on social networking sites like WeChat, the system would automatically intercept the information and users’ services would be deactivated instantly, disabling these people to make phone calls or send messages,” Mr. Li continued. “If users want to reactivate the service, they have to go to a China Mobile service center with their ID card and write a statement promising never to share any sensitive information again.”

Comments deemed particularly “inappropriate” can carry harsher penalties, Mr. Li revealed. He shared how, in May, a resident in the southeastern province of Fujian was intercepted on the border, and his passport was destroyed by border guards who told him that he was prohibited from traveling abroad because he had previously made remarks criticizing the CCP and state leaders.

His comments were deemed “insulting to the government” and “disturbing public order.”

“The censorship criteria have been constantly updated in recent years, resulting in more heavy censorship and fewer loopholes,” Mr. Li added.

Anther employee of an internet censorship company told Bitter Winter that jokes and satirical remarks or videos about the government and its leaders have to be deleted immediately. A minor oversight by the employee results in harsh punishment, the employee said.

The Chinese government’s censorship of online activity is well documented.

Any references to Winnie the Pooh have been banned from China’s social media platforms, including Weibo and WeChat. Additionally, sharing information about the fictional teddy bear has been deemed illegal ever since President Xi Jinping was compared to it in 2013.

Last year, China banned online retailers from selling the Bible in efforts to control the country’s growing religious scene.

This week, footage circulated on social media of a man handcuffed to a metal chair being interrogated by the Chinese police for criticizing the traffic police on social media. The man, called Luhua, is forced to confess to “badmouthing” police on various social media platforms. He then apologizes for his comments.

On December 1, the Chinese government rolled out plans requiring all-new smartphone owners to register with facial recognition scans, Radio Free Asia reported.

The measure was described by the ministry of industry and information as a way to “protect the legitimate rights and interest of citizens in cyberspace.” However, the new rule makes Chinese mobile phone and internet users easier to track, reflecting the central government’s increasing crackdown on the rights of private citizens, rights activists warn.

"In China, the government can ask us to surrender any privacy without any conditions or limitations," Pan Lu, a former high school teacher in the eastern province of Jiangsu, said. "This is exactly like [the slogan] 'Big Brother is Watching You' in the novel '1984' [by George Orwell]."



https://www.christianpost.com/news/china-monitoring-mobile-phones-blocking-harmful-words-like-almighty-god.html

CultNEWS101 Articles: 11/21/2019

Tajul Khalwatiyah Syekh Yusuf School, Robert Jay Lifton,  Jehovah's Witness, Church of Almighty God

Coconuts: Sect leader who claims to be a prophet and able to extend followers' lives by 15 year

"Police in Gowa, South Sulawesi recently arrested an elderly man named Puang Lalang on suspicion of blasphemy over his leadership of a sect that was considered too deviant for Indonesia.

According to the police, Puang Lalang founded the Tajul Khalwatiyah Syekh Yusuf school — an Islamic offshoot —  in 1999 and declared himself a prophet.

In mainstream Islamic beliefs, the Prophet Muhammad is believed to be the last messenger of God.

"The suspect spread misguided beliefs by having followers take a pledge, indoctrinating them and promising them safety in life and the afterlife," Gowa Police Shinto Silitonga told reporters this week.

Police suspect that the sect was a vehicle for self-enrichment for Puang Lalang. According to the police, Puang Lalang charged followers IDR10,000-50,000 (US$0.71-3.57) for the aptly-named "heaven card" to signify membership. He also mandated members to pay religious alms, which amounted to IDR5,000 for every kilogram of the followers' body weight."

Wall Street Journal: Five Best: Robert Jay Lifton on Worlds Destroyed

The author, most recently, of 'Losing Reality: On Cults, Cultism, and the Mindset of Political and Religious Zealotry' selects books on the aftermath of cataclysm.

Vice: Calling Out Sexual Abuse in the Jehovah's Witnesses Is a Horrific Struggle

"In 2013, after Debbie McDaniel left her Jehovah's Witness congregation in McAlester, Oklahoma, she went to police and told them members had been sitting outside her apartment, monitoring her every move. The Witnesses, she said, were trying to make the case that she was unfit to parent her son, on account of being in a relationship with a woman. But it was something else she told a detective that most alarmed the cops, she said: "You would think an organization that would allow me to be molested for years could now just let me go in peace."

Within weeks, cops had arrested Ronald Lawrence, whom McDaniel, 50, accused of molesting her when she was underage, as Reveal News reported. At least two other people came forward with similar allegations. According to the Tulsa-World, Lawrence told prosecutors he had been "disfellowshipped" (basically excommunicated) from the church over sexual abuse allegations, that he had admitted misconduct in the past in order to be reinstated, and that law enforcement had never previously been informed. He has also denied abusing any Jehovah's Witness children, including McDaniel. When brought before a judge in 2014, 19 charges of sexual abuse against him were deemed to have passed the statute of limitations, and he walked free.

Eventually, Witnesses stopped waiting outside McDaniel's home."

Bitter Winter: Inside the Shenzhen Family Suicide (II): Political Driving Force Behind Fake Case

" ... Chinese media reported a case involving the unusual deaths of Qian Xude and three of his family members from Xinzhuang village, under the jurisdiction of Nanjing city in the eastern province of Jiangsu. The bodies of Qian Xude and two others were found hidden in a freezer in a rental room in Shenzhen city in the southern province of Guangdong, while Qian Xude's daughter, Qian Limei, committed suicide by jumping off a building in Shangqiu city in the central province of Henan. However, the police never filed a case after investigating the deaths, attributing some to natural causes and others to suicide.

On October 17, The Beijing News, owned by the Beijing municipal Party Committee, and Southern Weekly, a well-known newspaper owned by the Guangdong provincial Party Committee, simultaneously published an article, repackaging and sensationalizing this sensational case, placing the blame on The Church of Almighty God (CAG). Afterward, this fake news story was widely reported by the official media, in an attempt to create a new public opinion campaign against the CAG."

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China crackdown on cults targets house churches

Beijing's anti-cult drive is also sweeping up underground Christian congregations

ucanews.com reporter, Beijing China
August 5, 2015

When two underground pastors were sentenced to three and four years in prison for “using a cult to undermine law enforcement” in late May, confusion reigned in and outside of the courtroom in Shandong province.

Pastor Zhao Weiliang’s lawyer, Chen Jiangang, argued the Cao County court had “completely distorted the facts”.

Protesting outside, Zhao’s wife Liu Cuiping complained her husband had never heard of the banned Christian cult he was accused of joining.

“It was only because of this case that we gradually learned about the Total Scope Church,” she said.

As Chinese authorities accelerate a campaign against religious cults, Christian groups warn that house churches — the unregistered underground churches that operate in a legal gray area — have increasingly found themselves caught in the crackdown.

So far this year, dozens of house churches have been forcibly closed and their members arrested, according to a US congressional commission on China led by Senator and Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio late last month.

“Unfortunately, the persecution of the house church continues to worsen in 2015,” Bob Fu, the director and founder of China Aid, testified in the hearing in Washington D.C.

“The Chinese government consistently cites ‘attacking cults’ as a pretext to launch large-scale persecution campaigns against house churches.”

The catalyst appears to be Beijing’s desire to wipe out unorthodox Protestant sect ‘Church of Almighty God’.

What constitutes a cult?

In May last year, five members of the same family were caught on security cameras beating a woman to death in a McDonald’s restaurant in Shandong. The case shocked many in China, receiving wide coverage on blogging sites and in state media.

“Almighty God is not only a bad influence in the church, it’s also truly [bad] for society,” wrote one user last year on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.

Zhang Lidong and daughter Zheng Fen were executed for the killing in February. In the two months after the attack, Chinese police arrested about 1,000 suspected members of the Church of Almighty God, according to state media, which has increasingly publicized its crackdown against the sect.

Last month, at least 19 of its members were sentenced to between 18 months and four years in prison in three separate trials, state media reported.

Zhao Weishan, who founded the group — also known as Eastern Lightning — in 1990 and has reportedly fled to the United States, did not respond to questions emailed through the Church of Almighty God’s listed office in the US.

Based on the idea that Jesus was resurrected in China in the form of a woman, the Church of Almighty God is one of dozens of religious cults banned in China.

In the late 1990s, as Beijing looked to banish the increasingly popular Qi Gong sect Falun Gong, it passed an anti-cult law, and has since added the names of other groups deemed to be “damaging social orders and stability”.

But there is little consensus on what constitutes an illegal cult, even among government departments.

After the McDonald’s killing last year, the government published the names of 14 illegal cults. Meanwhile, the state-backed China Anti-Cult Association (CACA) has identified 20 such groups, the vast majority Christian.

In one ongoing case, eight members of a house church in Guizhou province were detained for “organizing cult activities” following a police raid on May 24.

Among those detained was Dai Xiaoqiang from another house church in Zhejiang, thousands of kilometers further east. But despite defense lawyers producing a letter stamped by the district Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau in Zhejiang confirming Dai’s church is not a cult, all eight Christians remain in police custody.

“In Zhejiang, he [Dai] is considered a good man, but in Qianxi County [Guizhou province], he is a captured member of a suspected cult,” wrote Dai’s lawyer, Zhuang Daohe, in an open letter to Guizhou Governor Chen Min’er on July 12.

“Such logic is not very reliable and subverts common sense.”

Shrinking space

As part of a renewed publicity campaign by the government across China, many posters have singled out the Church of Almighty God as an illegal organization. Other public notices in rural areas, including in Henan province adjacent to Beijing, talk of cults generally while urging Chinese to “rely on science”.

Adding to the confusion, articles in the state media have lumped cults and house churches together. A month after the McDonald's attack, the state-run Global Times ran an article entitled “Attack Cults Immediately” in which it warned against the rapid spread of cults and house churches.

“The situation is extremely grim,” wrote Lu Dewen, associate professor of Central China University of Science and Technology.

“There should be an increase in rural culture construction, especially to strengthen the grassroots governance capacity, which in turn will shrink the space available for underground churches and cults.”

Fu of China Aid argues that the government’s confusing of cults with legitimate Christian worship not registered with the state — particularly house churches — appears increasingly deliberate.

“This is not only part of the effort from the government to force religious activities under its control but also a strategic step to change the authentic doctrines of religion — especially Christianity — in order to make religion ‘compatible with socialism’,” he told ucanews.com.

The situation facing legitimate Christian worshippers is only likely to worsen, warns Fu. China is currently drafting amendments to the Criminal Law that could raise the maximum penalty for cult activities from 15 years to life imprisonment, according to state news agency Xinhua.

The Chinese government is facing public pressure to crack down on cults in the wake of the McDonald's attack, a move welcomed by many mainstream churches in China alarmed at the growth of unorthodox sects.

But these same Christian groups have become fearful they are being caught in the anti-cult crossfire, says a China researcher at Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) who declined to be named for security reasons.

“In a worst-case scenario, churches could be left with two choices: join the state-sanctioned church or be labeled a cult,” the CSW researcher told ucanews.com.

“We are still a long way from this scenario, but the space for unregistered religious activities does appear to be shrinking.”

http://www.ucanews.com/news/china-crackdown-on-cults-targets-house-churches/74027

China jails five cult members in northeast province: Xinhua

Pete Sweeney

Reuters

July 25, 2015

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A court in China's northeast Liaoning province has sentenced five members of a banned religious cult to prison for trying to spread rumors and recruit believers, state media reported on Saturday.

China's Communist Party, obsessed with social stability, brooks no challenge to its rule. It has cracked down on cults, which have multiplied in recent years. Demonstrations have been put down with force and some sect leaders executed.

The official Xinhua news agency reported that the five accused, who live in the city of Panjin, were members of the group Quannengshen, or the Church of Almighty God. It said they were caught with proselytizing materials in their possession.

Quannengshen gained notoriety in 2014 when a video distributed online appeared to show group members beating a woman to death at a McDonald's food chain. That incident led to two members being sentenced to death for murder.

http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKCN0PZ04120150725

China tries cult members for murder at McDonald's

Calum MacLeod

USA TODAY

August 21, 2014

BEIJING — Five members of a banned Chinese Christian cult stood trial Thursday on charges they murdered a woman at a McDonald's restaurant in east China because she refused to give them her telephone number as they tried to recruit her into the Church of Almighty God.

The case has shocked China ever since footage and images of the May 28 attack at a McDonald's in Zhaoyuan city, in east Shandong province, went viral online. Chinese prosecutors say the five accused used chairs and a metal mop handle to beat to death Wu Shuoyan, 37, a patron at the restaurant.

Although diners at the restaurant filmed and photographed the attack, none intervened to prevent Wu's murder.

In an interview from detention aired by state broadcaster CCTV, Zhang Lidong, a member of The Church of Almighty God, expressed no remorse and called Wu a "monster" and "evil spirit."

The case highlights the fast spread of heretic cults in China despite government efforts to control the religious activities of citizens and restrict them to five officially approved faiths: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Protestantism and Catholicism.

While underground or "house" churches are sometimes tolerated, officials have cracked down harshly on several groups it labels dangerous "cults," including the Falungong spiritual movement banned in the late 1990s. Members of that group have alleged widespread torture of detained believers.

The Church of Almighty God, also called Eastern Lightning, is among 14 groups that China has listed as outlawed cults. It originated in central Henan province, and claims that Jesus was resurrected as a middle-aged Chinese woman, the wife of the sect's founder, who now lives in New York's Chinatown. The pair fled to the USA in 2000.

Since June, Chinese police have arrested nearly 1,000 suspected members of the cult, who are allegedly involved in over 500 cases and include almost 100 "high-level organizers and backbone members," China's Ministry of Public Security said this week.

The cult "cheats people, illegally collects money and violates the law under the guise of religion. A series of acts by its members have harmed people's lives and property and disrupted social stability," the ministry said, according to the state news agency Xinhua.

A website that appeared to represent the views of the group denied involvement in Wu's death, saying reports were seeking to discredit the Church of Almighty God.

Some of the proceedings of the trial in Yantai, Shandong province, were posted Thursday on the court's official micro-blog account. The trial, which involves charges on cult-related offenses as well as the murder charge, may conclude quickly but pronounce sentence after a few weeks, as is common in China. Controlled by the ruling Communist Party, China's courts almost always reach guilty verdicts in criminal cases.

The lawyer for the victim's family, Gao Cheng, said they seek the death penalty for the accused, and $650,000 in compensation, reported the Legal Evening News paper. However, Wu's husband, Jin Zhongqing, worries that if the five are given death sentences, then other cult members will target her relatives as "enemies," Jin's uncle Lu Xueyi told The Paper, a news website under the Shanghai News Group.

Online, many Chinese called for the harshest penalty.

"If they can't give these five people the death sentence, then the law to me is just a scrap of paper," Cheng Haoxi, a writer based in Hangzhou, posted on the Sina Weibo micro-blogging service.

"The difference between a cult and a religion is its attitude towards life," wrote Mu Huaidong, the Imam of Beijing's Deshengmen Mosque. "A cult disregards human life, a religion loves life."

Contributing: Sunny Yang

China rounds up members of doomsday cult

Jamil Anderlini December 17, 2012

BEIJING— Police across China are rounding up members of a quasi-Christian doomsday cult who have been preaching the end of the world and urging people to launch a “decisive battle” to slay the “big red dragon” of the Communist Party.

Scores and perhaps hundreds of members of an outlawed cult known as the Church of Almighty God have been detained throughout the country in recent days as Beijing tries to stop believers from taking drastic action on what they believe to be the eve of the apocalypse, according to relatives of cult members and state media reports.

The sect, which preaches the second coming of a female Jesus, appears to have adapted an ancient Mayan prophecy that some people believe predicts the end of the world on Dec. 21, 2012, and has been popularized by Hollywood movies such as “2012”.

Campaign to Crack Down on Fringe Sects in China Worries Mainstream Churches

Andrew Jacobsjune
June 11, 2014

BEIJING — Last month, as she waited for her husband and 7-year-old son at a McDonald’s in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong, Wu Shuoyan was approached by members of a Christian sect who were on an aggressive recruitment drive.

After Ms. Wu refused to give them her number, several members of the group beat and kicked her to death, an act of brutality captured by cellphone and widely shared on the Internet.

Although the Chinese public’s outrage initially focused on the many bystanders who failed to intervene, the national news media has sought to shift the indignation toward what the government calls “evil cults” — the roughly two dozen outlawed religious sects often demonized by the authorities as coercive and dangerous.

In the two weeks since the killing, state-run publications have produced a steady drumbeat of alarming articles detailing what they say are the predations of the Church of Almighty God, the group blamed for the McDonald’s attack. On Tuesday, the Xinhua news agency said the authorities had rounded up about 1,500 cult members, although it appears many of those were arrested as early as 2012.

“Religious cults recruit and control adherents by fabricating and spreading superstitions and heresies,” the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement carried by state-run news media last Wednesday.

China's 'cult' crackdown: 1,500 members of two sects rounded up

Associated Press
06/11/2014

BEIJING -- China on Wednesday announced the roundup of hundreds of alleged cult members following a deadly attack in which a group of adherents beat a woman to death in a McDonald's restaurant.

Slightly more than 1,500 cult members have been detained and prison terms handed out to at least 59, the official Xinhua News Agency said Wednesday. It wasn't clear when the arrests took place, although the reports said some went back as far as two years.

Wednesday's reports appeared to be an effort to reassure the public following outrage over violence and other illegal activity blamed on cult adherents.

The reports said cult members were given terms of up to four years on charges of "using a cult organization to undermine enforcement of the law." Accusations against them included that they used threats, violence and other illegal measures to expand their memberships and organizations.

Those detained were allegedly members of the Church of Almighty God and the Disciples Sect, groups drawing on an unorthodox reading of Christian scripture.

Six members of the Church of Almighty God are accused of beating a woman to death at a McDonald's in the eastern city of Zhaoyuan last month after she refused to tell them her phone number as part of a recruitment drive.

The group, whose Chinese name "Quannengshen" also translates as "All-powerful spirit," was founded in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang in the early 1990s and later spread to the country's eastern provinces, according to Chinese media reports.

China has struggled at times to control grassroots religious movements based on Christian or Buddhist ideology, most notably the Falungong meditation movement that attracted millions of adherents before being repressed in 1999.

Suspects in Cult Violence 'Feel No Remorse'

Suspect of the killing Zhang Lidong [Xinhua]

June 7, 2014
Sandy Zhu
(Source: Xinhua and China Daily)

The self-confessed cult members arrested on suspicion of beating a woman to death on May 28 at a McDonald's restaurant in Zhaoyuan, Shandong Province, have shown no regret for the incident.

Zhang Lidong, a 54-year-old suspect, said in a detention house that he was a businessman before becoming obsessed with the heretic sect Quannengshen, translated as "Almighty God", seven years ago.
Zhang said he was influenced by his elder daughter Zhang Fan, 30, who was the first in the family to join the cult after reading a book about it. He then stopped working. The car he drove on the evening of May 28, the night of the attack, was a 1-million-yuan ($160,100) Porsche, which he said he bought with his savings.

On the night of the attack, the father and five other cult members were attempting to recruit new members, police said. When Wu, the mother of a 7-year-old boy, refused to give them her telephone number, they beat her to death, according to the police.

In addition to his daughter Zhang Fan, Zhang Lidong also has a daughter, Zhang Hang, and an underage son whose name has not been released to protect his identity. All allegedly participated in the assault.

Zhang Fan's friend and Zhang Lidong's lover are also suspects in the beating.

Zhang Lidong said on Sunday that he beat Wu because Zhang Fan told him that the woman was a "devil" or an "evil spirit".

He said the devil should go to hell, so he has no remorse for his behavior. He did, however, confirm that he has had on two occasions doubted "Almighty God", the first time when he arrived in Zhaoyuan and the second when he was arrested.

Zhang Fan, who is a university graduate and briefly studied overseas, said she would kill her mother because she is the "biggest devil" and has shared that idea with her friend, one of the suspects.

Zhang Fan met the friend on the Internet in 2008. In 2009, the Zhang family came to Zhaoyuan to live with the friend, she said. She added that she has donated more than 100,000 yuan to the cult.

At the home where the suspects lived, words like "massacre" are painted on a white board. Zhang Fan said she killed her dog the night before the beating because she thought it was also an "evil spirit".

Both the father and his elder daughter said they are not afraid of the law nor are they repentant for what they did.

The cult first came to light in the 1990s in Henan Province. It claims that Jesus was resurrected in the form of Yang Xiangbin, wife of the sect's founder Zhao Weishan, who is also known as Xu Wenshan. The couple fled to the United States in 2000.

China lists 14 illegal cults, including Falun Gong and "Almighty God". Nine key members of "Almighty God" were arrested in Changde, Hunan Province, the Changde public security bureau said on Thursday.

Previously, five "Almighty God" members were sentenced to three years or three and a half years in prison in Henan province. Four others in Liaoning Province were sentenced to three to four years in prison.

http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/173421-1.htm

Anger in China over fatal beating of woman by cult followers

June 4, 2014
The Irish Times

Five members of a religious cult known as the Church of Almighty God have been arrested on suspicion of beating a young woman to death in a McDonald’s restaurant in Shandong for refusing to give her mobile phone number.

The vicious attack triggered nationwide outrage after a video of the beating went viral online. It allegedly took place on Wednesday last week in Zhaoyuan after the woman, surnamed Wu, refused to give her mobile phone number to the group, which was in the restaurant recruiting new members, Shandong police told Chinese state media.

Zhang Lidong, (54), and two of his daughters are among the six suspects accused of taking part in the McDonald’s attack. A son of one of the suspects who was also involved in the attack has not attained the age of criminal responsibility, according to Zhaoyuan police.

“She was a demon. She was an evil spirit,” Mr Zhang said in an interview on state broadcaster CCTV. He was shown handcuffed in prison garb, and showed no indication of remorse.
The Church of Almighty God, also known as Eastern Lightning, was set up in the early 1990s by Zhao Weishan, a physics teacher from Heilongjiang province, according to Chinese state media.

It was banned by Chinese authorities in 1995, after which Zhao fled to the US, the Global Times newspaper reported, and in late 2012, authorities arrested more than 450 people accused of belonging to the group after they held secret gatherings and spread leaflets in the apparent belief the world was going to end on December 21st that year.

China’s Public Security Bureau has announced a crackdown on the Church of Almighty God, focused on its activities in Shandong. “Religious cults recruit and control adherents by fabricating and spreading superstitions and heresies. They use various means to harm people and collect large amounts of money,” the bureau said in a statement.

Adherents to the cult believe that Jesus Christ was reincarnated as a woman surnamed Deng from central Henan province. They also claim to be on a mission to fight and slay the “big red dragon,” or China’s ruling Communist Party.

The incident has revived memories of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, as the two movements hail from the same part of China and have many similar characteristics.

China has labelled the Falun Gong an “evil cult” that encourages suicide, makes people neglect severe medical conditions and takes their savings. The authorities carried out a nationwide crackdown in 1999, putting thousands of members behind bars.

Beijing does not allow new religions outside the streams of the Communist approved versions of Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism.

Chinese authorities are particularly wary of cults, which can grow in power and turn into national rebellions. Both the Boxer and Taiping rebellions in 19th century China had their origins in groups with spiritual or mystical components.

“The persistent existence and rampancy of cult activities in this country reveals worrying failures in both education and administration. That cults like the Church of Almighty God, whose crude ‘theories’ are nothing more than awkward blends of rural superstition and a madman’s ravings, have so easily established themselves and expanded in rural China is a loud slap in the face for the education authorities and their proud indices of success,” the China Daily said in an editorial.

Zhu Lijia, a public management professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, told the Global Times that followers were lured by the sense of security cults profess to offer. “Society is changing rapidly, which has led to individuals being unsure about their future. They are looking for spiritual relief and are easily influenced by cults,” he said.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/asia-pacific/anger-in-china-over-fatal-beating-of-woman-by-cult-followers-1.1820417

China Detains Five ‘Cult Members’ for McDonald’s Murder

Bloomberg News
Jun 3, 2014

Police in eastern China arrested five alleged members of a religious cult on murder charges after a 35-year-old woman was beaten to death in a McDonald’s restaurant for refusing to give out her phone number.

The victim, surnamed Wu, was attacked May 28 by members of a sect known as the Church of Almighty God who were trying to recruit followers, Zhaoyuan city police in eastern Shandong province said on its official Weibo account late yesterday. After she refused to give them her number, the assailants beat her, believing she was a demon and evil spirit, it said.

The five suspects are also charged with organizing and using a cult to undermine law enforcement, after police seized books and other material from the suspects’ homes, the Zhaoyuan police said. The provincial and city police will increase scrutiny of such cases and crack down on illegal and criminal activities of cults, it said.

The attack has led to widespread condemnation of religious sects on China’s strictly controlled Internet, as well as in state media. Lu Dewen, a deputy professor at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, called for an immediate crackdown on cults in an article in the Chinese-language Global Times newspaper today.

The persistent existence of cult activities reveals “worrying failures in both education and administration,” the China Daily newspaper said in an editorial today. “There will undoubtedly be a harsh crackdown on the illicit cult,” it said.

Jesus ‘Reincarnated’

China carried out a nationwide crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement in 1999, putting thousands of members behind bars. In late 2012, authorities arrested more than 450 people accused of belonging to the Church of Almighty God after they held secret gatherings and spread leaflets in the belief the world was going to end on Dec. 21 that year.

The Church of Almighty God, also known as Eastern Lightning, was set up in the early 1990s by Zhao Weishan, a physics teacher from Heilongjiang province, according to Chinese state media. It was banned by Chinese authorities in 1995, after which Zhao fled to the U.S., according to the Global Times newspaper.

The cult believes Jesus Christ was reincarnated as a woman surnamed Deng from central Henan province. Adherents also believe they are on a mission to fight and slay the “big red dragon,” as it refers to China’s ruling Communist Party, the Beijing News reported in December 2012.

Zhang Lidong, 54, and two of his daughters are among the six suspects who took part in the McDonald’s attack, the Beijing News said today, citing unnamed sources. A son of one of the suspects who was also involved in the attack hasn’t reached the age of criminal responsibility, according to Zhaoyuan police.

Deadly attack raises concern about growth of 'evil cults' in China

Julie Makinen
LA Times
June 7, 2014

Twenty minutes later, she lay dead on the floor, beaten to death with a metal pole. Authorities say the perpetrators were six members of a religious cult, including a middle-aged man, his two grown daughters and his 12-year-old son, who became angry when Wu refused to give them her phone number.

A bystander recorded the horror with a cellphone camera; in the footage, uploaded to the Internet, Wu's main attacker can be heard bellowing, "Go die! Evil spirit!" as he pummels her. A female accomplice screeches at onlookers: "Whoever interferes will die!"

Religious belief is on the upswing across China, with underground and fringe groups as well as mainstream, state-approved congregations attracting many new members. The savage, apparently random attack last week in the eastern city of Zhaoyuan has prompted calls in the state-run press for a crackdown on "evil" religious organizations. It also has sparked questions about whether the government's longtime controls on belief groups of all sorts may inadvertently be hampering efforts to combat possibly violent sects.

"That cults … have so easily established themselves and expanded in rural China is a loud slap in the face for the education authorities and their proud indices of success," the China Daily newspaper said in an editorial.

In a jailhouse interview broadcast on state-run CCTV, the suspected ringleader of the McDonald's slaying, Zhang Lidong, said he had been a member of the Almighty God organization for seven years; the group has been banned by Chinese authorities since 1995.

Zhang calmly admitted to killing Wu, calling her a "monster" and a "demon," and expressed no remorse. "We are not afraid of the law. We have faith in God," said Zhang, who was identified as an unemployed former businessman. Asked how he felt, he said, "Great."

The Almighty God group began about a quarter of a century ago in northeastern Heilongjiang province; the group is sometimes also called Eastern Lightning and has connections to earlier sects, including a 1980s movement called the Shouters.

Founder Zhao Weishan preached that Jesus had come back to Earth in the form of a local woman named Yang Xiangbin, also known as Lightning Deng. Both Yang and Zhao subsequently immigrated to the United States. The sect claims to have up to 5 million members worldwide and opposes China's Communist Party, calling it the "Great Red Dragon."

It's quite difficult to get true information from Mainland China ... and some say maybe the government uses the same kind of tactics as [the] Almighty God [religious sect].
- Pastor Wu Chi-wai, general secretary, Hong Kong Church Renewal Movement

China cracked down in late 2012, when members prophesied that the world would end Dec. 21. Nearly 1,000 Almighty God adherents were detained for handing out leaflets about the apocalypse and "spreading rumors." It was one of the biggest operations against a religious group since the 1999 ban on Falun Gong, which draws its beliefs from Eastern traditions including qigong and Buddhism.

The communist government officially permits Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, and Catholic and Protestant Christianity; the religious groups are supposed to be affiliated with a government-approved umbrella organization. Tens of millions of Chinese, however, have joined "house churches" and other unsanctioned groups.

Such unregistered organizations make Chinese authorities nervous, in part because large uprisings have sprung from Christian sects in the past. The Taiping Rebellion of the 1800s, started by a man who said he was Jesus Christ's brother, led to civil war and contributed to the downfall of China's last dynasty.

Some observers sense a newly intensified effort to counter unpermitted belief groups. Red-and-white banners with messages such as "Believe in science, create culture, make great efforts against evil cults," can be seen in parks and many other public spaces across the country.

"I think it's more visible. After the Falun Gong [crackdown], there was a wave of this kind of propaganda," said Nanlai Cao, associate professor in religious studies at the People's University in Beijing. "The past five years, I don't think it was very visible, but now I think it's a big issue, and has become a top priority for government officials."

In the wake of the McDonald's slaying, state-run media have linked the Almighty God organization to riots in Henan in 1998, the killing of an elementary school student in 2010 and a mass stabbing of schoolchildren in 2012.

"Maybe in the past, they choose not to report it, but in the current context there may be more coverage," Cao said. "It's a reconstruction of the story in a new framework, an anti-cult framework."

Liu Ling, a Peking University graduate student who has been studying the Almighty God group for two years as part of her thesis work, said she had read numerous media reports about the group's violent acts but had been unable to verify most of them.

She was able to substantiate one incident in which sect members abducted 34 members of a house church and tried to indoctrinate them, and more recently occasions of Almighty God believers invading house church services, pushing pastors offstage and trumpeting their own teachings.

Because house churches are not legal, their members would be reluctant to report harassment. "When they're raided and attacked by Almighty God, they would just warn other home churches, not tell police," she said.

Liu said she interviewed relatives of Almighty God believers who said members of the sect had broken their windows or set small fires in their yards to intimidate them into joining the group. However, she added, the slaying of Wu, apparently a total stranger, did not fit any known pattern of the group's behavior.

Other details of Wu's slaying as reported in state-run media have raised eyebrows, including witness reports that the unemployed Zhang and his group arrived in a Porsche Cayenne and that they carried out such an attack at a restaurant near a police station.

Pastor Wu Chi-wai, general secretary of the resource group Hong Kong Church Renewal Movement, says the Almighty God group is "quite rich" and has bought full-page ads in local newspapers to trumpet its beliefs. He says his organization has heard reports that the sect has kidnapped and bullied people and tried to blackmail others with accusations of sexual improprieties, but that the McDonald's killing seems out of the ordinary.

"Some people are not certain that this is linked" to the sect, he said. "It's quite difficult to get true information from Mainland China … and some say maybe the government uses the same kind of tactics as Almighty God."

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-cults-20140607-story.html#page=1