If CAG Chinese members have been identified by China abroad, they will be arrested if they return to their native country.
Article 9 of 9. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, article 4, article 5, article 6, article 7, and article 8.
In some cases, asylum seekers in democratic countries were not persecuted in China as CAG members, but were persecuted as devotees of other groups labeled as xie jiao. They converted from another group banned as xie jiao to CAG abroad. Early in the history of the CAG a sizeable number of members of the Christian group known as the Shouters converted to the movement, and these conversions still happen today, including sur place overseas. The Shouters are also considered a xie jiao—in fact, they were the first group officially listed as such in the People’s Republic of China—and some asylum decisions recognized that, had they not converted to the CAG, the asylum seekers would have been persecuted in China as members of the Shouters.
A broader question is whether the Chinese authorities keep CAG communities abroad under surveillance, using inter alia facial recognition technology. If such is the case, it would not really matter whether the asylum seeker was persecuted in China, or even whether s/he was a CAG member there. If his or her activities on behalf of the CAG abroad are visible enough, the Chinese authorities would learn that s/he is a CAG member. They may not know his or her name, but identification through facial recognition may still cause the CAG member to be arrested if s/he returns to China.
The conclusion that Chinese surveillance of dissident communities abroad is systematic and pervasive is supported by several recent COI, although some decisions still dismiss it as anti-Chinese propaganda. In South Korea, where only one CAG applicant has been granted asylum (in 2021) to date, decisions consistently denied that such surveillance exists at all. This is paradoxical, considering that South Korea is a country where anti-cultists openly cooperate with Chinese authorities in identifying CAG refugees, and even publishing their photographs online..
A strong argument that facial identification is systematically used to identify CAG devotees abroad, making their arrest should they return to China very probable, was made in 2020 by the Italian refugee authority in COI devoted to this issue.
In the Freiburg decision mentioned in the past article of this series, the German court noted that the applicant appeared in CAG promotional videos recorded in Germany and available online, and had also participated in human rights demonstrations and public events criticizing China. The court dismissed the administrative authorities’ argument that he did so at his risk, and could not base his asylum claim on activities he could have avoided, stating that in Germany freedom of religion and of expression is granted and protected with respect to all those residing in the country, not only to German citizens.
The court stated that enough documents prove that “the Internet sites of forbidden religions are increasingly monitored by the security authorities. Since the Chinese security service has the technical means to identify persons not named in the videos using facial recognition software […]. the court is also convinced that the applicant has now been identified by the Chinese security authorities and is perceived as a threat to the Chinese state.”
The Freiburg Court noted that Chinese surveillance and repression of dissidents “are not limited to the territory of the People’s Republic. Rather, any behavior by Chinese citizens abroad regarded as deviant or critical of the regime also becomes the focus of the Chinese intelligence service’s activities,” as officially stated by the German government. Indeed, the court said, according to German intelligence agencies, “one focus of the activities of Chinese state agencies in Germany, especially the Chinese intelligence services, is spying on and combating movements that, in the view of the Chinese Communist Party, challenge its monopoly on power and pose a threat to China’s national unity. In the process, these agencies now no longer limit themselves to gathering information abroad, but also actively, systematically, and aggressively pressure dissident exiles, intimidate them, and threaten them, including by filming them at close range and without even hiding.”
In this context, the Freiburg judges concluded, “anyone who has come to the attention of the Chinese state security services for criticizing the regime abroad is blacklisted. Those returning from foreign countries are routinely checked in China, also in comparison with data previously recorded in China. Such Chinese, who are suspected of a behavior critical of the regime or otherwise deviant when abroad, often ‘disappear’ indefinitely if they return to China.”
If such is the case, those who appear as CAG members in CAG videos and events abroad or, worse still, participate in human rights protests critical of the CCP, run a serious risk of being detained or “disappeared,” should they return to China, which alone should be regarded as a convincing reason to grant them asylum.
Even applying for asylum abroad is something that China (illegally) monitors, how exactly is unclear. However, since 2022, a website probably linked to Chinese intelligence agencies—大爱网,Da Ai Wang—began publishing detailed lists of CAG members who had applied for asylum in Italy. The leak of this confidential information raises suspicions about the intelligence and information activities of Chinese agents in Italy. The scandal has been exposed by “Bitter Winter” and other media outlets. In addition, Da Ai Wang also published lists and personal information, including addresses, of Church of Almighty God members in South Korea, the United States, and other countries. Clearly, being on these lists is evidence that the devotees are known to the Chinese authorities as CAG members and will be arrested or worse if they return to China.
During our interviews, CAG refugees often expressed their disappointment that so many of them have not been able to be granted asylum. Favorable decisions continue to co-exist with rejections based on arguments the refugees hoped had become a thing of the past.
Yet, on a more positive note, refugees can look back at their situation as it was in 2014 or 2015, in the aftermath of the McDonald’s murder and the global CCP propaganda campaign against the CAG, and acknowledge that the situation has changed for the better. Unlike some other persecuted movements, the CAG decided that scholars were not the Church’s enemies, and that it would have been in its best interest to allow academics to study their movement. Since 2016, the CAG has been quite cooperative with scholars, allowing surveys, participant observation, and the study of documents about their history and theology, although this slowed down with COVID and after the pandemic. In turn, scholarly works have led to improved COI, at least in some countries, and a higher percentage of favorable asylum decisions.
This is not to say that the availability of balanced scholarly studies of the CAG and better COI solved all, or even most of the refugee problems. The situation of the refugees is still precarious and a matter of great concern. The pressure of an aggressive Chinese diplomacy is felt, and lawyers and asylum seekers in several countries found that Chinese embassies operate as hidden counterparts in CAG refugee cases. Their work is not ineffective and, although they are not the majority, some court decisions rely on Chinese embassies’ “information packages” to dismiss works by scholars and even some government-produced COI.
Asylum cases can, and are, won by CAG refugees, but they require good lawyers willing to devote substantial time to learn about a church few are familiar with, and to listen patiently to the individual stories of the asylum seekers. Although in asylum cases some first-class lawyers are willing to work pro bono for humanitarian reasons, and others have acquired a good operational knowledge of the CAG, they are not many, and in some countries the refugees’ poverty may lead them to rely on court-appointed, NGO-provided, or otherwise low-cost attorneys, who have no time, skills, or resources to prepare for what remain difficult cases.
Perhaps courts and governments, in designing their refugee policies, should consider all these factors. Although the Ukrainian and Middle East wars may cause some countries to become less generous in welcoming refugees in general, we should not forget that CAG members face persecution, torture, and in some cases death if they are compelled to go back to China. Sending back victims to their torturers is something economic or political reasons can never justify.
Source: bitterwinter.org
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