Bitter Winter

by Yang Feng Heilongjiang Women’s Prison. From Weibo. A woman of eighty-four, frail and repeatedly hospitalized, was taken away on a stretcher in early July 2025 and died in custody nine months later. Her family and fellow practitioners learned of her passing on July 25, weeks after she had already been buried amid official silence.

by Massimo Introvigne Lawyers enter the courtroom for the Athanor trial. Screenshot. A senior intelligence officer once celebrated for defending republican values against alleged “cultic deviances” created a clandestine structure in the shape of a deviant Masonic lodge, “Athanor,” which operated through manipulation, clandestine influence, and violent missions, revealing a story that unsettles the foundations of France’s anti‑cult narrative. The story started four years ago.

by Gladys Kwok Tong’s confession and apology are recorded in jail. Public confessions have long been a familiar instrument of Communist power. The Stalinist trials of the 1930s turned admissions of guilt into theatrical displays, where defendants rehearsed their own destruction under the glare of cameras and party officials. During the Cultural Revolution, the ritual expanded into a mass spectacle.

by Lopsang Gurung Destruction at Larung Gar. Source: Central Tibetan Administration. A new phase of coercive measures has begun at Larung Gar, Tibet, once the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastic community in the world, where Chinese authorities have launched a large-scale plan to dismantle more than a thousand monastic residences. The operation began in mid-July and has unfolded at a pace that leaves little room for clarity or recourse.

by James T. Richardson A young Konstantin Rudnev with disciples in Russia. The formidable collection of papers about to be published, focused on the decade-long international persecution saga of Konstantin Rudnev, should give pause to political and judicial authorities in Russia, Montenegro, and Argentina who have pursued this charismatic leader and his followers so vigorously.

by Hu Zimo The Central Party School, Beijing. Credits. A July 13 commentary on the new Ethnic Unity Law in the “Beijing Daily,” written by Central Party School ethnologist Chen Shanshan, offered an unusually candid explanation of the direction in which China’s ethnic policy is now moving. The Central Party School is where senior party cadres are trained, and her commentary may be considered semi-official.

by Massimo Introvigne Political philosopher Masaki Nakamasa. The conversation between literary critic Ogawa Eitaro and political philosopher Masaki Nakamasa unfolds as a portrait of a man who lived inside the world now being judged, left it decades ago, and returned to the public stage only because the current climate leaves almost no one else willing to speak. His account begins in the early 1980s, when the ideological landscape of Japanese campuses still had density and conflict.

by Massimo Introvigne The author praying with Shincheonji believers before being admitted inside the Seoul Detention Center. The road to the Seoul Detention Center has a peculiar stillness in a Korean summer afternoon. It is a place where time seems to slow down, as if the air itself were aware of the stories carried within those walls. On August 6, accompanied by Hans Noot of Human Rights Without Frontiers and Thierry Valle of CAP‑LC, I walked once more along that familiar path.

by Abdurehim Gheni Uyghur Police and paramedics at the attack site on August 4, 2008. Screenshot. “Calling the struggle of an oppressed people under colonization ‘terrorism’ is merely a tactic used by aggressors to conceal their own crimes”—Nelson Mandela Chinese media on August 4 reported commemorations for the victims of what authorities describe as a “terrorist attack,” an event that continues to generate debate and sharply differing interpretations.

by | Aug 4, 2026 | Featured Global, The Rudnev Case by Willy Fautré Article 8 in a series. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, article 4, article 5, article 6, and article 7.