Media all over the world are focusing attention on Shincheonji Church, a South Korean Christian new religious movement, after members of the church’s Daegu congregation were infected by the coronavirus.
“As a scholar who has studied Schincheonji, said Prof. Massimo Introvigne, a well-known Italian sociologist of religion and the Managing Director of Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), I am concerned with the fact that international media that obviously know nothing about it have ‘discovered’ this church overnight because of the coronavirus incidents in Korea, and have repeated inaccurate information they found on low-level Internet sources,”
“Even of more concern,” added Introvigne, “is the fact that Shincheonji members who have contracted the virus, who are the victims in this story, are being treated unfairly by the Korean media and described as “cultists.” Worse still, some Shincheonji members have been insulted, discriminated and forced out of their jobs, as scapegoats for what has become a national and international hysteria about the virus.”
International articles hostile to Shincheonji quoted the English version of a press release dated February 19 of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), an organization under the South Korean Ministry of Welfare and Health, which described the church as a “Korean cult.” The word “cult” is not found in the Korean version of the press release, nor in comments by South Korean president Moon Jae-in, which constantly called Shincheonji a “church.”
Shincheonji is cooperating with the KCDC to contain the coronavirus, and complying with all the indication of the authorities, a press release of the Shincheonji Church indicated. At the same time, it raised questions on the fact that, despite concerns voiced by the Korean Medical Association, South Korea is not prohibiting entry into the country from China. The South Korean public news agency, Yonhap News, mentioned the possible relationship between the arrival of 1,000 Chinese students in school trips to Daegu last month and the outbreak of the epidemics there.
As part of its cooperation with the KCDC, Shincheonji supplied to the authorities a list of all members of its congregation in Daegu. Unfortunately this list was leaked to some media, which leads to Shincheonji members being discriminated, insulted, and in some cases dismissed from their jobs.
The anti-Shincheonji sentiment in South Korea is fueled by conservative and fundamentalist Christian groups, disturbed by Shincheonji’s rapid growth. These groups have a history of vitriolic propaganda and even physical violence against Shincheonji, whose members are routinely kidnapped and confined to be submitted to forced conversion (deprogramming), and now went so far to accuse Shincheonji members to intentionally spread the virus. “This propaganda is dangerous and irresponsible,” said both Introvigne and Willy Fautré, the head of Brussels-based NGO Human Rights Without Frontiers.
“The fact that South Korean authorities turned a blind eye to the illegal practice of forced conversion and deprogramming against Shincheonji members, said Fautré, resulted in further violence. Now, the same fundamentalist Protestants take advantage of the virus to disseminate hate speech and practices of discrimination that blatantly violate human rights.”