House Church Prayer Meeting Raided in Jiangsu Province, China
By Dan Wooding
Founder of ASSIST Ministries
MIDLAND, TX (ANS) — China Aid Association (CAA) has revealed that Chinese police raided a House Church Christian prayer meeting in Jiangsu province at 10:40am February 7, 2007.
A CAA news release, made available to ANS, says, “The local police from Shanghuang Township, Suyang City, Jiangsu Province, along with officials from Suyang Religious Bureau and National Security Protection Squad under Suyang Police Bureau, raided a Christian prayer meeting of over twenty believers held in the home of Tan Jianwei, No.15, Gangxi Village, Shanghuang Town.
“While the Christians were engaged in prayer, the police interrupted the meeting without showing ID. The police took individual pictures of these Christians and asked them to write their names for identification purposes. The Christians who refused to write their names were subsequently beaten. Without a search warrant, the police searched the house of Tan Jianwei, singling out and confiscating his Christian books without leaving a record of the books confiscated.â€
The release goes on to say that Tan Jianwei (male, 36 years old), his wife Qin Qing and another lady named Yin Yanling (42 years old), were taken to Shanghuang Town Police Station for interrogation without a summons. The police forced Tan Jianwei, his wife and Yin Yanling to write a promise to cease holding religious activities in Tan Jianwei’s house on threat of criminal detention and severe beatings.
“Five people directed this raid: Peng Luzhong, head of the National Security Protection Squad under Suyang police bureau Policeman Zhang Weifeng, policemen from Shanghuang police station, Zhong Linjun (ID 059442), Bi Qingxi (ID 058869), and Lu from Suyang religion Bureau,†the CAA release concluded.