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Coronavirus South Korea
This Week in AsiaHealth & Environment

Exclusive | Hong Kong group has links to Shincheonji sect at centre of South Korea’s coronavirus outbreak

  • Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) has organised events at a local primary school and at the University of Hong Kong
  • It is known as a front of Shincheonji, the secretive church at the centre of South Korea’s coronavirus outbreak

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A "peace education" event held by Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light, a self-described peace organisation linked to the South Korean religious sect Shincheonji, at Yan Chai Hospital Chiu Tsang Hok Wan Primary School in Tsing Yi. Photo: Twitter
John Power
A self-described peace organisation known as a front of Shincheonji, the controversial Christian sect at the centre of South Korea’s spiralling coronavirus outbreak, has a company registered in Hong Kong and has held events at a local primary school and the city’s most prestigious university.

Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), led by Shincheonji founder and self-proclaimed messiah Lee Man-hee, organised events at Yan Chai Hospital Chiu Tsang Hok Wan Primary School and the University of Hong Kong (HKU) in 2018, the Post can reveal.

In March that year, HWPL members visited the primary school in Tsing Yi to provide “peace education” to students and celebrate the second anniversary of Lee’s “Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War”, social media postings by the group show.

An event held by Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light at Yan Chai Hospital Chiu Tsang Hok Wan Primary School in Tsing Yi. Photo: Twitter
An event held by Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light at Yan Chai Hospital Chiu Tsang Hok Wan Primary School in Tsing Yi. Photo: Twitter

The group claims to have met numerous political leaders and civil society representatives around the world as part of its efforts to get the proclamation adopted as a legally binding declaration at the United Nations.

Photos posted on Twitter at the time show children at the school posing with drawings of bombs next to a number of adults making a hand gesture associated with Shincheonji, which mainstream Christian churches in its home base of South Korea regard as a cult.

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