China Christian Persecution: Police beat up pastor, leave him critically injured
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – China’s Communist Party police beat up a Christian pastor in Guiyang, Guizhou province on May 23, leaving him critically wounded, International Christian Concern reports. China currently ranks 17 on the US Open Doors Watch List of countries that persecute Christians.
Pastor Yang Hua of Living Stone House Church was attacked when the police discovered he planned to visit other Christians in Quindao, Shandong, on May 24, ICC said. This was not the first time Pastor Hua had dealings with Chinese police: following a government crackdown on his church, he spent two and half years in prison before being released in June 2019.
The pastor was beaten by a single officer in plain clothes who claimed to represent the district level Committee of Political and Legal Affairs, ICC said. Three other officers stood by and watched the attack.
Pastor Hua was hospitalized after the beating and was treated for wounds to his ear and neck and for tinnitus symptoms, ICC said. The attack also caused a flare-up of pre-existing pancreatitis.
The Open Doors persecution watchdog organization has ranked Christian persecution in China as very high.
“The Communist Party relies strongly on Chinese cultural identity to stay in power and limits whatever it perceives as a threat to its control on society,” Open Doors states in its website report on China. “Churches are being monitored and closed down, whether they are independent or part of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the officially sanctioned Protestant church in China,” Open Doors says.
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