Bitter winter
Bitter Winter is a daily online magazine about religious freedom and human rights in China that has beenpublished in several languagesby the Italian research center CESNUR since May 2018. It has been criticized in China for being biased against communism and the government. The NGO Human Rights Without Frontiers reported that some Chinese correspondents for the magazine were arrested in July 2018.
history
Bitter Winter grew out of CESNUR's interest in new religious movements and religious pluralism in China. Researchers affiliated with CESNUR, including the managing director of CESNUR, Massimo Introvigne , were invited to China in 2017 to discuss the situation of " sects " there. Initial plans for the magazine were unveiled by CESNUR on May 14, 2018 at the 2018 Turin International Book Fair as part of an event dedicated to music and religion that concludes the five-day music festival. The magazine was originally published in English only. In the following months, however, editions in Chinese, Korean, Italian, Japanese, French, German and Spanish followed.
The editor-in-chief of Bitter Winter is the Italian sociologist Massimo Introvigne . The Italian journalist Marco Respinti is the head, while there are still two deputy editors: Willy Fautré, the Belgian founder of the NGO Human Rights Without Frontiers, and the former Lithuanian diplomat and chair of the European Union Working Group on Humanitarian Aid, Rosita Šorytė.
reception
Bitter Winter has been hailed by some Christian and Muslim media outlets as a daily source of otherwise hard-to-find information on religiously persecuted groups in China. The official magazine of the Diocese of Macau described it as "an invaluable resource for all those who are interested in religion in China ." The World Uighur Congress has reprinted articles by Bitter Winter several times.
Conservative media, which regularly criticize China, also use Bitter Winter as ammunition for their campaigns. The conservative American online magazine The Federalist described Bitter Winter as "highly informative" and its publisher as "an authority on religion and human rights in China".
As expected, actors on the other side of the political spectrum reacted more negatively. In May 2018, both Catholic and the online edition of the Italian weekly L'Espresso reported extensively on criticism of Bitter Winter from liberal Catholics and others who believed the magazine was promoting anti-communist campaigns by the American government against China and one at the time I tried to torpedo negotiated agreement between China and the Vatican.
Others, however, criticized Bitter Winter for his moderate stance on the same Vatican-China deal. The Federalist , a staunch opponent of the deal, said it was "worrying" that Bitter Winter believed the Vatican could have a sound long-term strategy. The Philippine daily newspaper The Manila Times , which writes extensively on the Catholic Church in East Asia, counts Bitter Winter among those who "believe that the Concordat would not only be bad for the Chinese Catholic Church".
Chinese criticism
The Chinese government believes Bitter Winter is just another tool used by anti-Chinese propagandists defending groups that China sees as " sects " and has banned. Bitter Winter himself published documents in which the Chinese Communist Party denounced the magazine and warned that its correspondents working from China would be punished. Both Bitter Winter and some NGOs reported that several Chinese correspondents who had sent articles to the magazine had been arrested.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Human Rights Without Frontiers (2018); Vatican Insider (2018b); Magister (2018b)
- ↑ KKNews (2017).
- ↑ Vatican Insider (2018a).
- ↑ Bitter Winter (2018a).
- ↑ Bitter Winter (2018).
- ^ FOB (2018).
- ^ Porfiri (2018).
- ↑ See e.g. B. World Uyghur Congress (2018).
- ^ Mullarkey (2018).
- ↑ Nardi (2018); Magister (2018).
- ^ Mullarkey (2018).
- ↑ Tatad (2018).
- ↑ Bitter Winter (2018b).
- ↑ Human Rights Without Frontiers (2018).
swell
- Bitter Winter (2018a). "Bitter Winter."
- Bitter Winter (2018b). "The first document against Bitter Winter." August 3.
- FOB [European Federation for Freedom of Belief] (2018). “Rosita Šorytė.”
- Human Rights Without Frontiers (2018). "Chinese Ministry of State Security Takes Over the Campaign Against Bitter Winter." 18th of August.
- KKNews (2017). “「 反 邪 動態 」美國 、 義大利 專家 赴 鄭州 進行 反 邪教 學術 交流 ('Anti-cult': US Italian expert went to Zhengzhou for an academic anti-cult exchange)." KK News , July 11, 2017.
- Magister, Sandro (2018a). "The Latest From Santa Marta: There Is an American Conspiracy Against the Agreement Between Rome and Beijing." L'Espresso , May 29th.
- Magister, Sandro (2018b). "Christmas Behind Bars In China, For the Martyrs of the Free Press." L'Espresso , December 29th.
- Mullarkey, Maureen (2018). "Vatican Agreement with China Legitimizes a Christian-Torturing Regime." The Federalist , September 26th.
- Nardi, Giuseppe (2018). "Persecution of Christians with the tolerance of the Pope." Kahtolisches , May 29th.
- Porfiri, Aurelio (2018). "Exclusive Interview with Massimo Introvigne — A Bitter Winter." O Clarim , July 6th.
- Tatad, Francisco (2018). "Can the Church Survive China's Embrace?" The Manila Times , October 5th.
- Vatican Insider (2018a). “'Bitter Winter', in Italia un nuovo quotidiano online su religione e diritti umani in Cina.” La Stampa , May 14th.
- Vatican Insider (2018b). “Arrestati in Cina 45 giornalisti, trasmettevano notizie al magazine italiano 'Bitter Winter'” . La Stampa , December 28th.
- World Uyghur Congress (2018). "Weekly Brief, October 5th"