The Voice of the Martyrs has learned that house church leader Guoxing (Philip) Xu has been sentenced to 18 months of so-called “re-education through labor” after his arrest for leading a house-church service last month.
The spread of the SARS virus has not distracted Chinese officials from their campaign against unregistered churches. At least 52 key house church leaders have been arrested in recent months. Police also arrested and fined hundreds of “ordinary” Christians in the first four months of 2003.
Two South Korean pastors and two laymen, imprisoned in China because of their pastoral and humanitarian work among North Korean refugees, await court decisions on their fate.
On July 13, police raided a house church in Xiaoshan City, Zhejiang province, China, and arrested at least three church leaders. According to a China Aid Association press release dated July 24, the raid came at 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning while the Christians were meeting for prayer and worship.
(Probably 80 percent of the house church leaders in China know or have heard the name of this house church leader, but he asked that his name not be used. Possibly as many as 2 million Christians are involved in his house church network. He has been arrested several times and imprisoned a total of 10 years for his faith in Jesus Christ. He spoke recently with an Open Doors team. The following is his testimony.)
(Voice of the Martyrs) — A Chinese house church leader is on the run from Public Security Bureau officers after his church was raided February 9.
At about 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 5, 2003, approximately 10 unidentified men burst into the home of Brother Hua Huiqi and his wife, Ju Mei in Beijing. Forcing all of the members of the household, including Hua’s elderly parents, to lay on the floor, the attackers savagely beat the family, breaking one of the legs of Hua’s 80-year-old father. They then confiscated all of the home’s portable heaters, leaving the family to suffer from the cold of winter. It is believed that the intruders were either sent by the police or could even have been plain-clothes policemen.
The letter outlines inconsistencies between the way the retrial was handled by judges of the Jingmen City Middle Court and the mandates of China’s criminal court statutes. “The families of all the victims feel deeply sad and worried about the result,” the letter states. Complete text of the letter is available on the VOM web site at www.persecution.com.
Four female leaders of the South China Church, an unregistered house church network, were declared innocent by the Hubei Provincial Court on October 11. However, only hours after their release they were re-arrested by the Public Security Bureau and sent to three years of “re-education through labor.”
The treatment of Chinese Christians–who now outnumber Chinese Communist Party members–must be placed near the top of the agenda when President Bush meets Friday with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
The treatment of Chinese Christians–who now outnumber Chinese Communist Party members–must be placed near the top of the agenda when President Bush meets Friday with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
Families of jailed South China Church leaders complained about mistreatment and injustice in an open letter to United Nations officials.
NASHVILLE, TN (ANS) — The sheer volume of hard evidence presented at the press conference was staggering.
Names, addresses and photographs of 23,686 Chinese Christians recently arrested for their faith. Twenty thousand beaten. One hundred twenty-nine killed. More than 4,000 sentenced to labor and “re-education†camps. Homes and property confiscated or destroyed, leaving tens of thousands of children homeless orphans.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — An uncertain number of leaders of a major house church movement in China have disappeared in what at first was thought to be a massive government raid. Now cult activity is suspected.
In late April, reports filtered out from China that about 100 leaders of the evangelical China Gospel Fellowship — a major house church grouping that claims some four million members — had been arrested by the police. Soon after, contradictory but more reliable reports said these key leaders had almost certainly been kidnapped by the sinister Lightning from the East (LFE) cult in a carefully orchestrated strategy.
Leaders of the South China Church have had their sentences reduced by the same court that tried them the first time after a retrial was ordered by the Hubei Province Supreme Court.
Leaders from a mainstream house church in China have been released after being abducted.
The 34 senior leaders from the China Gospel Fellowship were abducted on April 16 by a group called Eastern Lightning (EL), which uses violence against church members.
WUHAN, China (BP)–Attorneys for a Chinese Christian leader who barely escaped execution in January want his retrial to be conducted in public this time, according to sources close to the case.
BEIJING, CHINA – All of the 33 leaders from the China Gospel Fellowship who were kidnapped in April by the Eastern Lightning cult have been released, according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) of the UK. News of how this occurred is not yet available.
A crucial paradox lies at the heart of China’s persecution dynamics. Over the past 30 years, conditions have improved for Christians in China. But during the past five years, they have deteriorated markedly.