Bitter Winter

Bitter Winter is a daily online magazine on religious liberty and human rights in China published from May 2018 in several languages by the Italian research center CESNUR. It has been criticized in China for alleged biases based on anti-communism, and the NGO Human Rights Without Frontiers reported that in July 2018 some of its correspondents from China had been arrested.[1]

History

Bitter Winter grew out of CESNUR’s interest and academic activities about new religious movements and religious pluralism in China. CESNUR-associated scholars, including CESNUR’s managing director Massimo Introvigne were invited to China in 2017 to discuss the situation of “cults” there. [2] Plans for the magazine were disclosed by CESNUR on May 14, 2018, at the 2018 edition of the Turin International Book Fair, in an event concluding the Fair’s five-days festival devoted to religion and music.[3] The daily magazine was originally published in English only. However, in the following months, editions in Chinese, Korean, Italian, Japanese, French, German, and Spanish followed.[4]

Structure

All national editions of Bitter Winter include six sections.[5] A “weekly feature” is offered as an encyclopedia-entry-like article on an aspect of religion in China. “Articles” are normally authored by scholars, while “news” have a more journalistic style and often include unpublished photographs or videos from China. “Testimonies” are personal stories, mostly about violations of religious liberty in China. In the “Documents” section, the magazine has published appeals by international organizations and NGOs about human rights in China. “Interviews” appear periodically, and interviewees have included academics and other experts of religion in China, including AsiaNews’ editor-in-chief, Father Bernardo Cervellera.[6]

The editor-in-chief of Bitter Winter is Italian sociologist Massimo Introvigne. Italian journalist Marco Respinti serves as the director-in-charge, and there are two deputy editors, [7], Willy Fautré, the Belgian founder of the NGO Human Rights Without Frontiers, and the former Lithuanian diplomat and former chair of the European Union Working Group on Humanitarian Aid,[8], Rosita Šorytė.

Reception

Bitter Winter has been welcomed as a daily source of hard-to-find information on persecuted religious groups in China by some Christian and Muslim media. The official magazine of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Macau called it “an invaluable resource for all these interested in religion in the country [China.]”[9] The German online Catholic magazine Katolisches also praised its richness of information.[10] The World Uyghur Congress reprinted repeatedly articles from Bitter Winter.[11]

Conservative media that routinely criticize China have also found in Bitter Winter ammunitions for their campaigns. The conservative American online magazine The Federalist (website) called Bitter Winter “supremely informative” and its editor “an authority on religion and human rights in China.”[12]

Predictably, those on the opposite end of the political spectrum had a more negative reaction. In May 2018, both Katolisches and the online edition of the Italian weekly L'Espresso reported extensively on criticism of Bitter Winter by liberal Catholics and others who believed that the magazine was supporting anti-Communist campaigns against China promoted by the American administration and was trying to torpedo the agreement between China and the Vatican then in the making. [13]

Others, however, criticized Bitter Winter for its moderate attitude about the same Vatican-China deal. The Federalist (website), a staunch opponent of the deal, found it “disconcerting” that Bitter Winter believed that the Vatican might have a valid long-term strategy.[14] The Filipino daily The Manila Times, which covers extensively the Catholic Church in Eastern Asia, classified Bitter Winter among “those who believe that the concordat would not be entirely bad for the Chinese Catholic Church.”[15]

Chinese criticism

Chinese authorities believe that Bitter Winter is just another tool of anti-Chinese propaganda and of those who defend groups China regards as “cults” and has banned. Bitter Winter itself published documents by the Chinese Communist Party denouncing the magazine and warning that those working for it as correspondents from China would be punished.[16] Both Bitter Winter and some NGOs reported that several Chinese correspondents sending articles to the magazine were arrested in July 2018.[17]

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Human Rights Without Frontiers (2018).
  2. ↑ KKNews (2017).
  3. ↑ Vatican Insider (2018).
  4. ↑ Bitter Winter (2018a).
  5. ↑ Bitter Winter (2018a).
  6. ↑ ”Bitter Winter Interviews” (2018).
  7. ↑ Bitter Winter (2018).
  8. ↑ FOB (2018).
  9. ↑ Porfiri (2018).
  10. ↑ Nardi (2018).
  11. ↑ See e.g. World Uyghur Congress (2018).
  12. ↑ Mullarkey (2018).
  13. ↑ Nardi (2018); Magister (2018).
  14. ↑ Mullarkey (2018).
  15. ↑ Tatad (2018).
  16. ↑ Bitter Winter (2018b).
  17. ↑ Human Rights Without Frontiers (2018).

Sources

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