Five from Church of Almighty God cult jailed in China ucanews.com

A court in the city of Wuhan has sentenced five Church of Almighty God members to between three and four years in prison as China continues a crackdown against the Christian cult.

The group was found guilty of recording “cult training materials” using mobile phones, laptops and voice recorders in September, the Wuhan Evening News reported Wednesday.

“They spread the materials among cult members and others,” the newspaper said. “They also communicated with each other with handwritten notes taken during the training in order to ‘cultivate dissemination talents’.”

Another court in Hubei province sentenced six members of the same cult to similar prison terms for “brainwashing” and spreading information in mid-May.

Authorities have arrested more than 1,000 Church of Almighty God members over the past year after five members of the same family were arrested for the killing of a woman in a McDonald’s restaurant in Shandong province in May last year.

Five from Church of Almighty God cult jailed in China ucanews.com

UPDATE::The murderous Chinese cult that thinks Jesus has returned — as a Chinese woman - The Washington Post

It was at the back of the restaurant – beyond the fry stand, the grease-slicked counter, the droves of gawking patrons — where the murder happened. The restaurant was a McDonald’s. It was a Wednesday evening. The murderers, who bludgeoned the woman to death with chairs and a mop, belonged to a cult described as China’s “most radical.” Called the Church of the Almighty God, it claims to have a million followers, aggressively promotes Doomsday scenarios, wants to destroy the Chinese Communist Party and believes that Jesus Christ has returned — as a Chinese woman.

But it was the McDonald’s murder that has consumed a Chinese court’s attention over the last two months. Days ago, two church members were convicted and sentenced to death for a killing that, even by the standards of the Church of the Almighty God, was peculiar and brutal.

According to prosecutors, five members tried to recruit a woman patronizing the McDonald’s in question, asked for her phone number and beat her to death when she refused. Defendant Zhang Lidong, who arrived that night in luxury Porsche Cayenne car, never offered much explanation.

“You could just tell she was not a good person,” he said in a state television interview, describing the 35-year-old mother. “She was a demon, the evil spirit. We had to beat her to death.”

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Much of the church’s teaching hinges on Jesus, who to them is now a woman named Yang Xiangbin. Little is known of the woman beyond this: she reportedly suffered some sort of mental breakdown after failing a national exam and “has a history of mental illness,” according to China’s People’s Daily. In the early 1990s, the 30-year-old woman came into the orbit of a square-jawed man named Zhao Weishan in Zhengzhou, Henan province, according to the Christian Research Institute. Zhao claimed that God had told him she was the “female Christ,” and he began attracting followers to her.



The murderous Chinese cult that thinks Jesus has returned — as a Chinese woman - The Washington Post

UPDATE::BBC News - The Chinese cult that kills 'demons'

China is about to try one of the most notorious murders in recent memory.

In late May a group belonging to a banned cult beat a woman to death in a fast food restaurant. Her only crime was to refuse to give them her telephone number.

The cult in question is called the Church of the Almighty God and claims to have millions of members.

It was an ordinary evening in a small town McDonald's in east China until a family of six arrived trying to recruit new members to their Christian cult.

They moved between the tables asking for phone numbers and when one diner refused they beat her to death, screaming at other diners to keep away or they would face the same fate.

The savage murder was filmed on closed circuit TV and on mobile phones.

It shocked China. Who were these people prepared to kill over a telephone number?

Interviewed in prison later, one of the murderers, Zhang Lidong, showed no remorse and no fear.

He said: "I beat her with all my might and stamped on her too. She was a demon. We had to destroy her."

BBC News - The Chinese cult that kills 'demons'

Shocking moment mother is murdered in McDonalds by religious cult trying to recruit her - Mirror Online

Wu Ting, 23, is believed to have refused to give her telephone number to members of the All-Powerful Spirit cult moments before she was smashed round the head with a mop.

People watch on helplessly as the attack continues with the young woman lying on the ground as the man who appears to be attacking her is egged on by fellow members of the cult.

Nobody stepped in to help the woman, instead standing around before leaving the McDonald's before standing outside and watching through the window.

The lack of action by other people has shocked many in China where the incident happened.

In a video of the attack a woman can be heard shouting "beat her to death" while someone else says "call the police".

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The All Powerful Spirit cult was founded in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang in the early 1990s and later spread to the country’s eastern provinces. The cults philosophy is based on a distorted reading of the Christian Bible and it was banned under the country's corporals in 1995.

Shocking moment mother is murdered in McDonalds by religious cult trying to recruit her - Mirror Online