Editing CESNUR (section)

===Eastern Lightning and the murder of Wu Shuoyan===
In 2018, ''Bitter Winter'' was criticized for its sympathetic coverage of [[Eastern Lightning]], a group regarded as a [[cult]] in China.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.chinasource.org/resource-library/chinasource-blog-posts/sorting-rumor-from-fact |title=Sorting Rumor from Fact? Look for the Red Chop |last=Pittman |first=Joann |date=28 December 2018 |website=Chinasource |access-date=15 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191027082432/https://www.chinasource.org/resource-library/chinasource-blog-posts/sorting-rumor-from-fact |archive-date=27 October 2019 |url-status=live }}</ref> Introvigne discussed in ''Bitter Winter'' the 2014 [[murder of Wu Shuoyan]], attributed by Chinese authorities to Eastern Lightning.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Introvigne |first=Massimo |author-link=Massimo Introvigne |date=2018-09-20 |title=The McDonald's Murder of 2014: The Crime The Church of Almighty God Did Not Commit |url=https://bitterwinter.org/the-mcdonalds-murder-of-2014/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190404015617/https://bitterwinter.org/the-mcdonalds-murder-of-2014/ |archive-date=2019-04-04 |access-date=2019-11-13 |website=Bitter Winter |language=en}}</ref><ref name="asiatimes.com">{{Cite news |last=Salmon |first=Andrew |date=2019-03-21 |title=Chinese Christians live in fear, fleeing abroad |url=https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/03/article/chinese-christians-live-in-fear-fleeing-abroad/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190328165401/https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/03/article/chinese-christians-live-in-fear-fleeing-abroad/ |archive-date=2019-03-28 |access-date=2019-11-13 |work=[[Asia Times]] |language=en}}</ref> He supported the position first presented in articles of the Chinese daily ''[[The Beijing News]]'' in 2014,<ref>{{Cite news |date=2014-08-22 |title=山东招远血案被告自白:我就是神 |trans-title=Shandong Zhaoyuan blood case defendant confesses: I am God (machine translated) |url=http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2014-08-22/123730728266.shtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140825031858/http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2014-08-22/123730728266.shtml |url-status=dead |archive-date=25 August 2014 |access-date=2022-07-15 |work=[[Sina News]] |language=zh-ZH}}</ref><ref name="Xiao">{{Cite news |last1=Xiao |first1=Hui |last2=Zhang |first2=Yongsheng |date=2014-08-22 |title=一个 '全能神教'家庭的发展史 |trans-title=History of the Family of Almighty God Group |url=http://www.bjnews.com.cn/inside/2014/08/22/330806.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171027231422/http://www.bjnews.com.cn/inside/2014/08/22/330806.html |archive-date=2017-10-27 |access-date=2020-02-13 |work=[[The Beijing News]] |location=Beijing}}</ref> then advocated in 2015 by Australian scholar Emily Dunn,<ref name="Dunn">{{Cite book |last=Dunn |first=Emily |title=Lightning from the East: Heterodoxy and Christianity in Contemporary China |date=2015 |publisher=[[Brill Publishers]] |isbn=978-90-04-29724-1 |series=Religion in Chinese Societies |location=Leiden Boston |page=204 |language=en}}</ref> that the perpetrators were not members of Eastern Lightning at the time of the murder. This position was described in 2020 by reporter [[Donald Kirk]] as common among scholars.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Kirk |first=Donald |date=2020-02-09 |title=These Chinese Christians Were Branded A Criminal 'Cult': Now They Have to Flee |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/these-chinese-christians-were-branded-a-criminal-cult-now-they-have-to-flee |access-date=2020-02-13 |work=[[The Daily Beast]] |language=en-US}}</ref> However, while Dunn wrote that the two leaders of the group that committed the murder "started out as members of Eastern Lightning (in 1998 and 2007 respectively), [but] they had outgrown it" and were no longer part of the sect in 2014.<ref name=Dunn/> Introvigne, based on a different interpretation of the same Chinese sources quoted by Dunn, argued, both in ''Bitter Winter'' and in his 2020 book ''Inside The Church of Almighty God'', that they had never been members of Eastern Lightning.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Introvigne |first=Massimo |author-link=Massimo Introvigne |title=Inside The Church of Almighty God: The Most Persecuted Religious Movement in China |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2020 |isbn=978-0-19-008909-2 |location=New York |pages=80–101 |language=en}}</ref>

Mainstream reporting held that in 2002, members of Eastern Lightning kidnapped 34 members of the [[China Gospel Fellowship]] and held them captive for two months, with the aim of coercing them to join Eastern Lighting.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Henderson |first=Alex |date=2015-04-07 |title=6 modern-day Christian terrorist groups our media conveniently ignores |url=https://www.salon.com/2015/04/07/6_modern_day_christian_terrorist_groups_our_media_conveniently_ignores_partner/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191114222909/https://www.salon.com/2015/04/07/6_modern_day_christian_terrorist_groups_our_media_conveniently_ignores_partner/ |archive-date=2019-11-14 |access-date=2019-11-30 |work=[[Salon.com]] |language=en-US}}</ref> Introvigne, however, suggested in 2018 that China Gospel Fellowship invented the story of the kidnapping as justification for the fact that many of its members, including national leaders, had converted to Eastern Lightning.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Massimo |first=Introvigne |date=2018a |title=Captivity Narratives: Did The Church of Almighty God Kidnap 34 Evangelical Pastors in 2002? |url=http://cesnur.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/tjoc_2_1_6_introvigne_bis.pdf |url-status=live |journal=The Journal of CESNUR |language=en |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=100–110 |doi=10.26338/tjoc.2018.2.1.6 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180420210336/http://cesnur.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/tjoc_2_1_6_introvigne_bis.pdf |archive-date=2018-04-20}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Porfiri |first=Aurelio |date=2018-07-06 |title=EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MASSIMO INTROVIGNE – A Bitter Winter |url=https://www.oclarim.com.mo/en/2018/07/06/exclusive-interview-with-massimo-introvigne-a-bitter-winter/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191129034507/https://www.oclarim.com.mo/en/2018/07/06/exclusive-interview-with-massimo-introvigne-a-bitter-winter/ |archive-date=2019-11-29 |access-date=2019-12-01 |website=O Clarim |language=en}}</ref> In his 2020 book, he adopted a more nuanced position, suggesting that China Gospel Fellowship members described as "kidnapping" what was in fact "deception," as they were invited, and went voluntarily, to training sessions without being told that they were organized by Eastern Lightning.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Introvigne |first=Massimo | date=2020 |title=Inside The Church of Almighty God: The Most Persecuted Religious Movement in China|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=New York|pages=102–116|isbn=9780190089092}}</ref>

In 2019, CESNUR's ''Bitter Winter'' co-hosted in [[Seoul]] with [[Human Rights Without Frontiers International|Human Rights Without Frontiers]] a conference supporting the [[right of asylum]] of Eastern Lightning and [[Uyghurs|Uyghur]] refugees from China living in South Korea. Members of Eastern Lightning and the Uyghur diaspora also spoke in the conference.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://hrwf.eu/china-chinese-religious-persecution-harassment-of-refugees-abroad-denounced-in-seoul/|title=CHINA: Chinese religious persecution, harassment of refugees abroad denounced in Seoul|date=June 24, 2019|website=Human Rights Without Frontier|access-date=15 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200215114200/https://hrwf.eu/china-chinese-religious-persecution-harassment-of-refugees-abroad-denounced-in-seoul/|archive-date=15 February 2020|url-status=live}}</ref>