“‘If Lee Jae-myung becomes president, Shincheonji is finished. We must back Yoon Suk-yeol.’”
Feeling this sense of crisis, Shincheonji is reported to have carried out an organized operation, allegedly under direct orders from its chairman Lee Man-hee, to systematically enroll its followers as members of the People Power Party.
The full-scale infiltration of Shincheonji members into the People Power Party is believed to have begun around 2021, when Yoon Suk-yeol was selected as the party’s presidential candidate.
Reporter Won Seok-jin reports.
This is a notice posted in a Telegram chat room where Shincheonji executives gathered in December 2023.
It states that “Pilates reports” would be collected over the next three days.
Soon after, lists containing names, contact information, and dates of birth were uploaded one after another.
The operation’s codename was “Pilates.”
It was a covert project devised by Shincheonji to receive reports on the results of its followers’ enrollment in the People Power Party.
[Lee ○○ / Former Shincheonji Executive (August last year, voice altered)]
“At the time, it was essentially a project to get young people to sign up as members of the People Power Party.”
To conceal the true objective—party enrollment—the operation was disguised as if they were collecting a list of members for a Pilates club.
[Lee ○○ / Former Shincheonji Executive (August last year, voice altered)]
“They knew how serious the issue was, so they gave it a name among themselves, pretending it was about recruiting members for a Pilates club.”
The organized enrollment of Shincheonji followers into the People Power Party appears to have intensified around 2021.
It is reported that this was a direct instruction from Chairman Lee Man-hee, after he was released on bail three months following his arrest in November 2020.
A former Shincheonji executive provided detailed testimony to MBC regarding this matter.
[Yoon ○○ / Former Shincheonji Youth Group Leader (voice altered)]
“There were indeed direct instructions regarding party enrollment.”
According to testimony, Lee Man-hee also issued instructions during the 2021 People Power Party presidential primary to actively support a specific candidate.
That candidate was reportedly Yoon Suk-yeol.
[Yoon ○○ / Former Shincheonji Youth Group Leader (voice altered)]
“If Lee Jae-myung becomes president, we’re finished. We must support Yoon Suk-yeol…”
Guidelines on voting for a specific candidate were allegedly disseminated through Shincheonji leadership.
[Yoon ○○ / Former Shincheonji Youth Group Leader (voice altered)]
“They would educate or verbally instruct the ‘missionaries’ (Shincheonji executives), and that guidance would eventually filter all the way down to rank-and-file believers.”
It is believed that Lee Man-hee had not forgotten the hardline response taken by Gyeonggi Province at the time, which triggered investigations into Shincheonji, and that he was seeking ways to blunt the edge of prosecutorial scrutiny.
During the presidential primary period, 190,000 new members joined the People Power Party.
If future investigations confirm that a significant number of them were Shincheonji followers, substantial political repercussions appear inevitable.
This has been Won Seok-jin for MBC News.
Posted by Freewhale98
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1. Summary
Shincheonji Church, aka COVID cult for triggering first mass-outbreak of COVID-19, is found to have infiltrated PPP to support Yoon Suk-Yoel in 2021. Lee Man-hee, its leader, feared that the election of Lee Jae-Myung would destroy heretical cults like his one, and infiltrated PPP to get Yoon elected.
2. How is this related to the sub
(1) Separation of church and state: It seem that Yoon Suk-Yoel secured supports from dark underbelly of Korean society: extremist Evangelicals, shamans, Moonies and now Shincheonji. This shows how dangerous religious meddling of politics is.
3. My opinion
Lee Jae-myung seemed to have been greatly feared among Megachurches, heretical cults and Shamans. But, their meddling into politics to stop him broke election laws and President Lee is unleashing full force of state institutions upon those heretics. He ordered Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Justice to form joint task force to hunt down religious meddling into politics and rounded up all the cults who were meddling in politics. PPP is whining about how this is 공안정국 (Security Politics) as many PPP members who found to be cultist infiltrators are brought to justice.