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Church of Almighty God Refugees Asylum Claims. 5. The Credibility of Individual CAG Members

Some applications for asylum by CAG refuges were rejected based on the argument that their stories were not “credible.”


January 9, 2025

Article 5 of 9. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, and article 4.

CAG members in Italy offering the movement’s literature.
CAG members in Italy offering the movement’s literature.

When discussing with a judge in Milan who had rejected several asylum requests from several CAG applicants, one of the authors (Introvigne) was told that the judge was an avid reader of what he had written on persecutions in China, and totally agreed that CAG members are persecuted there. He added, however, that this is not enough. Stories told by individual applicants should be credible and not include contradictions. Unfortunately, he concluded, in most of the cases he was called to decide the stories were not credible.

Two of us (Introvigne and Šorytė) have interviewed several hundred CAG refugees in different countries, and listened to their stories. They are very moving, but we do understand how stories told exactly as they were presented to us may create problems with the authorities. First, many refugees speak Chinese only. Their stories are complicated, and difficult to translate even by a good translator. As mentioned earlier, particularly at the administrative stages, translators may sometimes be underpaid and substandard. We personally examined the case of an interview in Italy where, each time that the refugee mentioned in Chinese the word 全能神教会 (The Church of Almighty God), the translator systematically translated “Catholic Church,” which obviously led to intractable misunderstandings.


Second, refugees who have suffered severe persecution, and in some cases torture, in China become very emotional when telling their stories. They also want to tell everything, and often include unnecessary details, which confuse and disturb busy immigration officers who should examine dozens of different refugee cases each week. Good lawyers may tell refugees to stick to the essential, but typically the asylum seekers confront the administrative authorities without an attorney, and only look for one when appealing to a court after a first negative decision.


We also mention “good” lawyers. We met many incredibly dedicated attorneys who did their homework and more, sometimes pro bono and for humanitarian reasons, in trying to understand the CAG and its refugees. In other cases, since most refugees are poor, they can only afford cheap or court-appointed attorneys, or are helped by lawyers provided by pro-refugees NGOs. Again, some of them do their homework, but others only find the time to cut and paste from different cases a standard religious persecution claim, without studying the peculiarities of the CAG. 


We also found a few cases where lawyers failed to appear, missed deadlines, and in one (admittedly extreme and rare) incident CAG refugees were among the victims of an Italian attorney who was eventually disbarred and arrested for forging documents and pocketing immigrants’ and refugees’ money while doing nothing for them.


CAG members in Italy performing in Torino in 2018.
CAG members in Italy performing in Torino in 2018.

One of the highest courts to consider CAG refugee cases was the Supreme Court of Cassation of Italy. In its decision of December 3, 2019, overturning one of the Milan decisions which had denied asylum to CAG refugees, it established three principles. First, that courts of law cannot rely on interviews before immigration officers and administrative commissions, where the applicant is not assisted by a lawyer and may be the victim of substandard translations. Courts should interview the applicant again. Second, the interview is not a match or a competition where the authorities should shop for contradictions to find reasons to deny the asylum. If they find contradictions, the courts should point them out to the applicant, make sure he or she understands the problem, and allow for an explanation. Third, an interview should not be divided in segments and, if one of it appears as not persuasive, lead to the conclusion that the applicant lacks credibility. Rather, the courts should assess the applicant’s narrative as a whole, considering that contradictions in matters of detail are frequent but do not mean that the basic story is false.


If applied, these principles should greatly help the refugees. But not all courts in all countries would accept them. The European Court of Human Rights examined a CAG refugee issue only once, on October 19, 2017, in the case of “Y.L. v. Switzerland.” The court observed that in matters of credibility it is not its function to second-guess the conclusions of the national courts, and it should only check whether they were sufficiently motivated. In the case of Y.L., the European Court found that Swiss judges had in fact explained why they relied on the first interviews and did not accept her argument that they were mistranslated, noting that she had signed the minutes, and why what they regarded as tall tales about the applicant’s daredevil escapes from the police were taken as evidence that she was not reliable.


CAG members trying to escape police in China. Painting by an anonymous CAG member.
CAG members trying to escape police in China. Painting by an anonymous CAG member.

Yet, Swiss judges can err, as proved by one of the cases that got some media attention, which involved a female CAG member called Wang Xiumei. The Swiss Federal Court confirmed on January 23, 2017 judgements by lower courts, that had regarded Wang’s story contradictory and not credible, and had also used the argument that she did not know her own religion, as her reconstruction of CAG’s theology contrasted with the then available (but erroneous) COI. After a deportation order, she went back to China and tried to hide, but was arrested and sentenced by the People’s Court of Linshu County on February 9, 2018 to three and a half years in jail. Interestingly, the Chinese court stated that Wang was part of an “editorial team” checking the accuracy of CAG publications, which clearly contradicted the Swiss judges’ claim that she was not familiar with CAG theology.


Perhaps it was just an unfortunate mistake, although in 2020 a leaked text of a secret 2015 agreement between Swiss and Chinese authorities was published by several media. Under the agreement, officers of China’s Ministry of Public Security traveled to Switzerland and assisted unofficially the Swiss authorities in cases involving immigrants and asylum seekers from China. In confirming that the document was authentic, Swiss authorities stated that the agreement, which had come under heavy criticism by opposition politicians and the media, was never used in cases of “Tibetan and Uyghur asylum seekers.” However, they confirmed that Public Security agents from China did visit Switzerland and advised on cases of other Chinese citizens who had sought asylum there. If Tibetan and Uyghurs were not involved, then that Chinese Public Security officers, unbeknownst to the applicants and their lawyers, “assisted” the Swiss authorities making decisions in CAG (and Falun Gong) asylum cases emerges as a distinct and troublesome possibility.


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