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In this mailing:
* Judith Bergman: "Epidemic Prevention" Chinese Communist Party Style: Persecute Religious Minorities
* Amir Taheri: The Supreme Leader's New Tom and Jerry Sequence


** "Epidemic Prevention" Chinese Communist Party Style: Persecute Religious Minorities ([link removed])
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by Judith Bergman • May 24, 2020 at 5:00 am
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* One member of [The Church of Almighty God], who had been released, said that the police had "threatened to send her to the coronavirus epicenter in Hubei Province to be infected if she continued practicing her faith." — From Bitter Winter, May 6, 2020.
* Members of CAG are imprisoned in education camps alongside Uyghurs and other Muslims, Christians and Falun Gong practitioners. One CAG member said that the Xinjiang camp she was sent to had 400 inmates, mostly Uyghurs, Christians and Falun Gong members. She was beaten, nearly raped and subjected to all sorts of torture as part of the indoctrination effort. — From Bitter Winter, March 18, 2020.
* When the elderly man in charge of the church asked why the government had destroyed it, the police viciously beat him. In April, authorities demolished a Three-Self church in Xining for being "illegal". Throughout the coronavirus outbreak, the Chinese regime continued to remove crosses from Three-Self churches in Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong, and other provinces. — From Bitter Winter, April 11 and 23, 2020.
* "Independent experts estimate that between 900,000 and 1.8 million Uighur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and other Muslims have been detained in more than 1,300 concentration camps in Xinjiang." — United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCRIF), April 28, 2020.
* "Meanwhile, authorities in Xinjiang and other parts of China have destroyed or damaged thousands of mosques and removed Arabic-language signs from Muslim businesses." — United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, April 28, 2020.
* "Human rights advocates and scientists presented evidence that the practice of harvesting organs from prisoners—many of whom are believed to be Falun Gong practitioners— continued on a significant scale." — United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, April 28, 2020.

China's regime continues its crackdown on The Church of Almighty God, a group China banned as a "dangerous cult". In February and March, authorities arrested at least 325 members of the church "as a result of investigations in the name of epidemic prevention". One member said that the police had "threatened to send her to the coronavirus epicenter in Hubei Province to be infected if she continued practicing her faith". Pictured: Members of The Church of Almighty God commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, on June 4, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Since early 2020, China has been doubling down on its already extreme suppression of religious freedom, and the Covid-19 outbreak has done nothing to curb the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) enthusiasm. If anything, the virus outbreak has served as an excuse to crack down even more on freedom of religion.

In February, for instance, officials came to inspect whether a church in Henan province was implementing lockdown instructions, but, according to one church member interviewed by Bitter Winter, "seeing some bible verses written on a blackboard they said, 'China is the land of the Communist Party, and we are not allowed to hold religious beliefs'". The officials then "smashed everything in the venue and left, locking the door..."

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** The Supreme Leader's New Tom and Jerry Sequence ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • May 24, 2020 at 4:00 am
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* The mullahs have threatened "dire consequences" if the US does try to stop the tankers. Since the Islamic Republic lacks the naval power to escort the tankers right down to Venezuelan ports, the "dire consequences" would not come in the form of a naval battle in the Caribbean. Instead, as the daily Kayhan, expressing "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei's views, said in an editorial Monday, retaliation may come in the form of a seizure of one or more US oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Another option is targeting all oil tankers in the waterway for a fixed period as Iran did in 1988.
* Last week, the ayatollah called for the formation of a "young Hezbollahi government", serving notice that President Hassan Rouhani and his "New York Boys", now old and not Hezbollahi enough, are moving towards the exit.
* Khamenei has compared his struggle with the American "Great Satan" with the Tom and Jerry conflicts in the word of Hollywood cartoons. On many occasions viewers think that the playful mouse is done for, only for him to dodge the cat and bounce back with a new trick.
* Four decades of Tom & Jerry Iranian-style was made possible by the gullibility and impatience of Americans who always wanted quick results, took their wishes for reality, and allowed the mischievous/playful mouse to live another day for another adventure.

Iran's mullahs have threatened "dire consequences" if the US tries to stop its oil tankers from reaching Venezuela. Since the Islamic Republic lacks the naval power to escort the tankers right down to Venezuelan ports, its retaliation may come in the form of a seizure of one or more US oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Pictured: Iranian Revolutionary Guards patrol around the British-flagged tanker Stena Impero on July 21, 2019, after Iran seized it and brought it to the port city of Bandar Abbas. (Photo by Hasan Shirvani/AFP via Getty Images)

Is a military clash between the United States and Iran inevitable? Since January, when the Americans assassinated Tehran's top general, Qassem Soleimani, policy circles in major capitals have grappled with the question without reaching a consensus.

At the time of this writing, the question is bouncing back as Iranian tankers carrying oil to Venezuela risk running into an American cordon designed to keep them away.

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