Free Republic

On May 30, 2014, The New York Times published a story by Ian Johnson about what seems to be a concerted government effort to clamp down on Christian churches in Wenzhou, the city with the highest percentage of Christians in China. It has long been known that there are regional differences in official attitudes toward religion, not always reflecting the views of the central government. It is conceivable that the events in Wenzhou could be a relatively local matter. But at any rate one aspect of the story makes one wonder: The provincial head of the Communist party who initiated...

This week's demolition of a massive Protestant church in the eastern city of Wenzhou highlights the growing uneasiness of the ruling Chinese Communist Party over burgeoning numbers of Christians in the nominally atheist country, analysts said. Authorities completed on Monday the demolition of the 85,000-square foot (nearly 7,900-square meter) Sanjiang church, which once dominated the city with its soaring spires, gleaming white walls, and stained glass windows, saying it had far exceeded the size allowed in the building permit. Christians in Wenzhou, whose large numbers have earned it the nickname "the Jerusalem of the East," launched a frantic campaign to...

A riot involving around 1,000 people broke out last Saturday in Cangnan county of Wenzhou city, Zhejiang province, resulting in the hospitalization of five chengguan, China's notoriously abusive and under-regulated urban enforcement officials. The alleged cause for the riots was the five's brutally killing a civilian. According to reports, the chengguan "hit the man with a hammer until he started to vomit blood, because he was trying to take pictures of their violence towards a woman, a street vendor." This man later died while being rushed to the hospital. [....] According to eyewitness accounts, the crowd -- which was growing...

Christians have flocked to defend a church in eastern China after Communist Party officials claimed it was an "illegal construction" and announced plans to demolish it Thousands of Chinese Christians have mounted an extraordinary, round-the-clock defence of a church in a city known as the 'Jerusalem of the East' after Communist Party officials threatened to bulldoze their place of worship. In an episode that underlines the fierce and long-standing friction between China's officially atheist Communist Party and its rapidly growing Christian congregation, Bible-carrying believers this week flocked to the Sanjiang church in Wenzhou hoping to protect it from the bulldozers....

It's not every day that an American labor union gets investigated for possible ties to two of the world's most lethal terrorist organizations. But Chicago's Service Employees International Union Local 73 isn't an everyday union. Last September 24, FBI agents raided residences in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan of more than a dozen radical activists in an effort to connect them to the Hamas (Gaza and the West Bank) and FARC (Colombia) guerrilla movements. Two of the occupants were SEIU Local 73 chief steward and executive board member Joe Iosbaker and former local board member-steward Tom Burke. Neither they nor anyone else has...

As Russian tanks rumble through Georgia, and Western pundits talk of the "new Cold War," one trope keeps reappearing in their discourse. Russia's newly aggressive stance, we are told, is partly our fault: After the fall of Communism, the West went out of its way to humiliate and trample Russia instead of treating it as a partner--and now, an oil-powered Russia is striking back. "Russia's litany of indignities dates to the early 1990s when the Soviet empire collapsed," Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and former Barack Obama adviser, wrote in Time. "A bipolar universe gave...

The British government sought on Tuesday to limit the information it would disclose at a planned inquest into the death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former officer in the K.G.B. who succumbed to radiation poisoning in London more than six years ago. The coroner hearing the case said that it may now be postponed. “Due to the complexity of the investigation which necessarily precedes the hearings,” the coroner, Sir Robert Owen, said, “it may not be possible to adhere” to the planned May 1 start date for the hearings. The inquest would be the first — and probably the only...

A tape apparently recorded by murdered Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko a year before he was poisoned has revealed he was digging up links between Vladimir Putin and one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. A Telegraph investigation uncovered the audio recording, in which the dissident claims from beyond the grave that Russia’s president had a “good relationship” with Semion Mogilevich - a Ukrainian crime boss who was on the FBI's most wanted list and whom Mr Litvinenko believed was selling weapons to al-Qaeda. The apparent recording of Mr Litvinenko is published for the first time ahead of a public inquiry...

Kenosha, Wisconsin has been ravaged. Minneapolis has been burned. Black Lives Matter and Antifa continue to tear the heart out of once-great cities like Portland. A siege of the White House is being planned. Nationwide, violence has moved into suburban areas and residential neighborhoods. Groups of extremists are specifically targeting the residences of mayors, chiefs of police and other political enemies. The establishment press continues to peddle the notion that what we are seeing across the nation is nothing more than “peaceful protest” designed to achieve change within the existing system. No doubt, even many people in the streets believe...

“The issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution,” said the late David Horowitz, quoting a 1960s rebel. The Palestinian conflict, the climate, transgenderism, immigration, and abortion are all proximate causes for protests and now terrorism. But they are all also part of an amalgamated “omnicause” whose real purpose is to bring down the United States and the West. Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk and other recent tragedies that are rightly garnering worldwide attention, our leaders have finally woken up and are looking into who the perpetrators are and who organizes and finances them. After Kirk’s death,...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s liaison to China is the daughter of a computer scientist building a genealogical database for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) who has considerable ties to Chinese intelligence and military personnel, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered. Amy Tong has held multiple cabinet positions in Newsom’s administration, such as serving as the Government Operations Agency secretary, and is now listed as “senior counselor to the governor,” government records show. Newsom has repeatedly sent Tong to negotiate with CCP officials and Chinese intelligence personnel, and “appointed Tong to lead people-to-people exchanges with China,” according to a July...

Government wants 'decommunization' law 12.09.2006 The ruling Law and Justice is pressing for creating legislation on 'decommunisation'. The purpose of the new law is to rid public and political life in Poland of the remnants of Communist influence still to be found, believes the government, in many areas of public life. Story by Slawek Szefs These former Communist 'aparatchiks' have not only swiftly and painlessly entered Poland's democratic ranks, but have also been reaping considerable financial profits from the country's economic transformations, passing in silence over their abrupt change in orientation. The Law and Justice parliamentarians claim that it's high...

Like a frenzied pack of howling curs, America’s malignant Left ravenously feasted upon the Abu Ghraib scandal when it broke. The opportunity it provided for them to engage in a wholesale orgy of America bashing was an allure they could not resist. In short order, horrified gasps of moral outrage were heard from leftist mainstream media as their headlines blared, “House of Horrors…sadism at Abu Ghraib prison!” (U.S. News and World Report) and “sexual depravity, sadism and violence orchestrated by US soldiers” (Chicago Tribune). Soon, pictures of Iraqi prisoners were being gleefully brandished as evidence that American soldiers were, indeed,...

Congress has been warned to be on high alert for Chinese spies after a suspected Beijing espionage plot was uncovered in British parliament. Earlier this week, a parliamentary researcher with links to MPs with classified information was arrested for 'spying for China.' The suspect is thought to be linked to numerous Conservative members of Parliament - including Security Minister Tom Tugendhat and Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Alicia Kearns. According to reports, several of the members with links to the suspected spy are 'privy to classified or highly sensitive information', however none have been accused of wrongdoing. The suspect, who was...

In a memo to the college community on Tuesday, President Audrey Bilger said she first learned of the incident through media reports and confirmed that an independent third-party investigator will conduct the review. According to a report by OregonLive, a federal affidavit revealed that investigators identified alumnus Robert Jacob Hoopes as a suspect accused of throwing a rock that struck a federal officer in the face. The incident occurred during a June 14 protest outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in South Portland. According to the affidavit, FBI investigators used facial recognition software along with images from OregonLive and...

A former National Intelligence Officer for Cyber under President Trump and Joe Biden has come forward with explosive allegations: the CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) deliberately buried evidence of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) interference in the 2020 presidential election—and fired him when he refused to play along. The whistleblower’s damning post came in response to General Mike Flynn’s tweet Monday questioning why foreign election interference by the CCP wasn’t exposed back in 2020: “So there was foreign interference by the CCP in the 2020 presidential election. Who was running the USIC at that time and...

Malik Fard Muhammad, 25, and his girlfriend Kristin McGuire traveled from Indianapolis, Ind., to Portland, Ore., to fight with cops. Muhammad will be extending his stay for an extra ten years, compliments of the feds. Muhammad is alleged to have traveled to Portland with his girlfriend from their home in Indianapolis for the specific purpose of violently engaging in civil disorder during recent area riots. On September 5, 2020, during a large civil disturbance in east Portland, demonstrators threw dangerous objects at police, including commercial grade fireworks, Molotov cocktails, and bottles. At least one demonstrator was seriously burned by a...

MUST WATCH. John Kiriakou tells a story he NEVER TOLD PUBLICLY.. "THE FASCINATING JOURNEY OF JOHN BRENNAN'S ASCENSION TO HEAD OF CIA" John Kiriakou says, "When I got hired Brennan was a DS-14 nobody. Deputy Director of the Arab/Israeli analysis group. He worked for a women Martha Kessler who was a great mind on Syria & they did not get along and he was imposed on her. He went to her asked her for a promotion & wanted her blessing". She said, "Not only are you not ready for the Senior Service but you are FIRED." John explains that "...

The Russian Communist Party has announced it will form a coalition government with the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) in three regions where Kremlin-backed candidates suffered rare gubernatorial election defeats over the past week. Incumbents from the ruling party in the Far East Khabarovsk region and central Russia’s Vladimir region lost gubernatorial runoffs to LDPR on Sunday. Candidates from the Communist Party and A Just Russia will compete for the governor’s seat in the Siberian republic of Khakasia on Oct. 7 after its governor’s withdrawal from the race. “We will now form a coalition government in Khabarovsk, Vladimir and Khakasia,”...

About 277,000 Chinese students studied in the U.S. last year, making them the second largest group of foreign students in the U.S., after people from India. “The chilling effect on Chinese students choosing the United States as their preferred place to go for study will be enormous,” said Rosie Levine, executive director of the US-China Education Trust, a nonprofit education group. “There are some 99 million Communist Party members in China, so depending on how they enforce this, it could catch up probably every Chinese student interested in coming to the United States who could have some Communist Party connection...