Received from Bitter Winter and HRWF. FOB shares and endorses their efforts and projects to contrast Chinese religioius persection.

A lot is being talked about and heard about nowadays, concerning boundaries. The defense of Europe’s outer boundaries; the defense of Italy’s outer boundaries.

This necessity has become a sort of recurring item in the very moment when, practically everything, demonstrates the uselessness of the defense of any given outer boundaries.

18 October 1948 - 22 september 2018

It is with deep sadness that we heard about the passing of William (Bill) Walsh BA, JD of Washington DC.

Partner at Bisceglie and Walsh Law Firm, Bill was an energetic and passionate International Human Rights attorney who dedicated over 40 years to human rights matters, representing clients nationally and internationally in the US, Europe and in the International courts too.

In April, Germany deported back to China an Uyghur asylum seeker who “disappeared” after his repatriation. Now, Germany has apologized for the “mistake,” yet plans to deport on August 31 Sister Zhao of The Church of Almighty God, who will likely “disappear” as well.

German authorities have announced that on August 31 they will forcibly deport to China Sister Zhao, an asylum seeker currently detained in Ingelheim who resisted repatriation on July 9.

The Board of Immigration Appeals granted on August 13 a stay of removal to the leader of The Church of Almighty God in four Chinese provinces, who was to be deported to China after August 15.

Mr. Russell Abrutyn, attorney for the leader of The Church of Almighty God in four Chinese provinces currently detained in Detroit, who faces deportation back to China and possible execution there, has filed a motion to reopen her case, with new evidence.

1 August 2018 – Lord Alton of Liverpool shows support in the UK Parliament to the complaints recently filed with the United Nations by FOB's president Alessandro Amicarelli in his capacity as human rights attorney on behalf of victims of religious persecution in China.

The President of the European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB) Attorney Alessandro (Alex) Amicarelli, participated to the opening event held at the American Senate that marked the beginning of the Religious Freedom Week organized by Secretary of State Mr Michael Pompeo in Washington. Together with CESNUR* director Prof. Massimo Introvigne and and Mrs Rosita Šorytė, Lithuanian diplomat and President of ORLIR**, Mr.

The religious freedom In China – if we dare to call it so – is granted only to some “State Churches” that are approved by the totalitarian Communist Party government. All the other religious communities are not admitted. Since 1995 the government issued and routinely update a list of so called Xie Jiao (literally that are considered illegal. The Chinese Criminal Code article # 300 foresees a jail penalty of 3 to 7 tears “or more” for the sole active membership to a religious movement included in the Xie Jiao list.

Bitter Winter, the magazine specialising on Religious Liberty and Human Rights in China, has interviewed our Chairman regarding the situation of religious freedom in China with a specific focus on the cases of arbitrary detention of the members of The Church of Almighty God (CAG) heavily persecuted in China.

On May 14, 2018, a new online news magazine has been launched at the International Book Fair of Torino, in Italy, Bitter Winter. The name refers both to the difficult situation of religious liberty in China and to a theme in classical Chinese painting.

On last 18 April in the Uttarakhand State, Northern India, a new law was approved whereby "forced or fraudulent conversions" can be punished with imprisonment from one to five years, without bailing chance. Moreover, one would need to get a governmental allowance for a religious conversion to be accepted.

A "forced or fraudulent conversions" is the charge versus the Christians on the part of the Hindu extremists who represent the nationalist government.

Police in at least seven cities across Russia have conducted aggressive raids against Jehovah's Witnesses. In what appears to be a coordinated campaign, special police forces (OMON), at times wearing masks and carrying machine guns, raided Witnesses' homes, pointed guns at them, and detained both young and old for interrogations.

We are introducing and relaying this interesting, well-specified article from Epoch Times, which tells about a recent interview with professor Massimo Introvigne, one of the most important scholars of religion in the world, regarding the ongoing persecution against religious minorities in the Chinese Popular Republic on the part of the ruling Communist Party.

Materials from the international conference of October 23, 2017, Seoul, Korea

Council of Europe cross-party initiative: Parliamentarians from 14 European countries call upon Russian government to put an end to religious freedom violations against minorities

FOB – A secretive and very close conference against religious minorities took place in the city of Salekhard – which is the regional capital of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug of Russia (YANAO). Subject of the conference was “Destructive and pseudo-religious organizations, sects and cults: challenges and solutions”. It took place from 27 to 29 September 2017 in the administration building of the YANAO Government.

Gregorian Bivolaru, a Romanian yoga teacher who was illegally arrested by Romanian authorities, has been finally released. FOB published several articles in defense of Bivolaru and now we are glad to spread the following press release by our federated Soteria International who, together with our federated LAYMS, for long time has fought to free Gregorian Bivolaru.

Professor Massimo Introvigne attended in the last few days a conference at the University of Hong Kong, where he spoke on the Chinese notion of xie jiao. The aim of the conference was a dialogue between the Chinese Anti-xie-jiao Association, which is connected with the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese authorities and scholars, and Western scholars, on xie jiao an on one particular movement China regards as xie jiao, the Church of Almighty God.

Human Rights Without Frontiers Int’l

OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting

Warsaw, Tuesday 12 September 2017
Working Session 2 - Freedom of association and peaceful assembly

Russia: Ban of Jehovah’s Witnesses and other peaceful religious movements

On 25 August, the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination of the United Nations published its Concluding Observations about the report from the Russian Federation.