A blind activist who became a symbol of the fight more religious and political rights in China has fled to the United States embassy in Beijing after escaping from house arrest, but others close to him have been detained, Christian rights activists told Worthy News.
In Xilinhot, officials from the Religious Affairs Bureau, the Public Security’s Domestic Security Protection Squad, the United Front Work Department as well as local police raided a house church, confiscating its property and arresting the pastor and several of his congregation.
Chinese authorities have stepped up their “longstanding opposition to Christianity” in China last year, an influential human rights group said in comments monitored by Worthy News.
One of China’s largest house congregations planned to hold its last outdoor worship service on Christmas Day in the capital Beijing after months of detentions, while elsewhere several congregations were raided by Chinese security forces as part of a Christmas season crackdown, local Christians and activists said.
China has unexpectedly released a prominent house church leader from prison amid international concerns about his health, his family and rights activists confirmed Monday, September 19.
Last Sunday five members of a house church in Fangshan tried to worship with members of the embattled Beijing Shouwang house church in a public square in Beijing.
Fifteen house church leaders from remote regions of China are being detained while local police attempt to extort money from their families for their release.
Pastor Shi Enhao, deputy chairman of the Chinese House Church Alliance, has been sentenced to two years of “re-education through labor,” an extra-judicial punishment handed out by police that requires no trial or conviction of a crime, Worthy News has learned.
A leader in China’s growing underground church movement who disappeared last month was actually in police custody.
Held on “suspicion of using superstition to undermine national law enforcement,” Shi Enhaoi is one of 150 million Chinese Christians who refuse to join the Communist Party’s Three-Self Patriotic Movement: the only officially sanctioned Protestant church on the mainland.
Chinese authorities recently expelled yet another member of Beijing’s largest unregistered house churches.
Chuan Liang was the second member of the Shouwang “keeping watch” Church to be expelled from the city since authorities compelled the congregation to meet outdoors; the first expulsion came after Shouwang Church held its fifth consecutive outdoor Sunday worship service when 15 members were taken to 10 police stations across Beijing, but most were released within 24 hours.
Police detained 16 more members of Beijing’s Shouwang House Church and placed others under house arrest: two were held in protective custody while the rest were sent to 10 different police stations; most were released by Sunday morning.
Chinese authorities have detained a key official of an influential umbrella group of house churches in China as part of a wider crackdown on unauthorized worship in the country, rights activists and Chinese Christians said Thursday, June 2.
Pastors of “house” churches in China urged the country’s parliament to investigate a police crackdown on one of Beijing’s largest underground churches while Chinese Christian leaders in the United States and Canada launched a global signature campaign to support the embattled Shouwang Church, supporters said.
Chinese authorities have detained at least 10 “house” church leaders who were involved in a world evangelism congress, a well-informed religious rights group said Wednesday, April 27.
Chinese police harassed female members from one of Beijing’s largest underground Protestant churches before releasing them and most of other Christians detained Sunday, April 17, a church member told Worthy News.
Police detained dozens of members from one of the largest underground churches in China’s capital Beijing Sunday, April 17, as part of a wider crackdown on dissent, a Christian rights group said.
Chinese police detained “over 100 members” of one of China’s largest unregistered Protestant churches Sunday, April 10, after its members tried to hold an open-air prayer meeting in the capital Beijing, a Christian rights group said.
An ethnic minority house church leader remained detained in China’s troubled northwestern Xinjiang region Sunday, March 6, after a court rejected an appeal to review his 15 years prison sentence on charges of revealing state secrets to overseas groups.
An advocacy group with close links to Chinese house church Christians said Thursday, December 2, that two of its Websites have collapsed under cyber attacks possibly originating from China.
Chinese officials in Guangzhou have banned “house churches” from holding services while the city prepares to host the 16th Asian Games.