China’s Regime Is No Match for Defiant Christians
Dozens of police and state security officers—up to 70 of them according to parishioners—raided the Early Rain Covenant Church in the southwestern Chinese city of Jiangyou on June 14.
The police, some wearing body armor marked “SWAT,” eventually took 31 into custody. Officials demanded that detained parishioners sign statements that they were not allowed to read. Most refused.
Two senior church elders, Yan Hong and Wu Wuqing, were kept in custody. Both have been repeatedly detained, most recently in January for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” Previously, Wang Yi, the founding pastor of the church, was sentenced to nine years for, among other charges, “inciting subversion of state power.”
This Presbyterian church, founded in nearby Chengdu in 2008, has been a target of officials for some time.
The officially atheist Communist Party recognizes five religions, two of them Christian. The awkwardly named Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Church, is the official Protestant one.
The post The Gordon Chang Report–China’s Regime Is No Match for Defiant Christians appeared first on Pacific Research Institute.
