A press release of the Church of Almighty God October 14, 2017 The Church of Almighty God (CAG), also known as Eastern Lightning, is one of the religious groups most severely persecuted by the Chinese Communist government, and that for a long time. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself does not deny the severity of its persecution of CAG, but maintains that it is justified by CAG’s criminal activities. In fact, these charges are mere CCP’s malicious fabrications and slanders. Among all the false accusations created by CCP, the most infamous one concerns the McDonald’s murder of May 28, 2014, in Zhaoyuan, Shandong Province, China. According to CCP’s official reports, on May 28, 2014, a man called Zhang Lidong and his five associates, who were having dinner in a McDonald’s in Zhaoyuan City, asked customers for their phone numbers for future proselytization purposes. One client, Wu Shuoyan, refused to supply her phone number and was beaten to death by Zhang and his accomplices. On the third day after the killing, the CCP swiftly attributed it to CAG, and this before any court had judged the case. Then, CCP conducted nationwide a repression and persecution of CAG, and at the same time of independent Chinese house churches, that was even more severe than before. Some overseas human rights activists and religionists successively published articles to condemn the CCP for its use of the McDonald’s murder as a pretext for a cruel campaign oppressing religious freedom (see e.g. http://www.hrichina.org/chs/zhong-guo-ren-quan-shuang-zhou-kan/xin-shu-yan-zhong-guo-dang-ju-he-ceng-zun-zhong-guo-zong-jiao-xin ; http://biweeklyarchive.hrichina.org/article/18374.html ) On August 21, 2014, the perpetrators were tried by the Intermediate People’s Court of Yantai in Shandong Province. At trial, Lü Yingchun, who was one of the two leaders of the group, clearly explained: “Zhang Fan [the other leader of the group] and I are the unique spokeswomen for the real ‘Almighty God.’ The government has been cracking down on the Almighty God that Zhao Weishan believes in [i.e. the Church of Almighty God, also known as Eastern Lightning], not the ‘Almighty God’ we mention. They are fake ‘Almighty God,’ while we are the real ‘Almighty God.’” Zhang Fan also stated, “I am God in substance. Lü Yingchun is also God in substance. The relationship between Lü Yingchun and I is two fleshly bodies sharing one soul. We are the substitute to each other.” “In the Almighty God organization, Lü Yingchun and I have the highest positions. We are ‘God … Continued