40 Christians Arrested in Nanyang

By Michael Ireland
Chief Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

HENAN, CHINA – More than 40 Christians were detained at a Christian leaders’ gathering in Taoling village, Pushan town, Nanyang city, Henan Province on December 16, 2008.

ChinaAid reports that officials told them they must pay a 1,000 to 2,000 yuan fine to be released. Some Christians were released after paying the fine. However, 16 Christians were sentenced to 10 to 15 days administrative detention for engaging in an “illegal religious gathering.” Mr. Yan Linshan, the host of the meeting received 10 days of administrative detention and a 1,000 yuan fine.

Also, this morning (Dec.18) around 9:45 a.m. (US-CST), 11:45 p.m. in Beijing, Pastor ‘Bike’ Zhang Mingxuan called ChinaAid from the back of a police car where he was being forcibly escorted from Beijing to Hubei province by three Public Security Bureau (PSB) officers.

The PSB officers dropped off Pastor Bike at a hotel in Hubei with 20 yuan to pay for a room. This is the second time in two weeks Pastor Bike has been forcibly escorted out of Beijing.

During the call, PSB officers raised the volume of the car radio to try and drown out the conversation, but Pastor Bike was able to communicate to ChinaAid some of the details of the incident.

ChinaAid says that around 11:15 p.m. Pastor Bike, president of the Chinese House Church Alliance house church network, was staying with Pastor Hua Huiqi at his home when three PSB officers pounded on the door.

According to Pastor Bike, two of the officers, Officer Yang and Officer Qin, from the Beijing PSB had been ordered by a higher government authority to force Pastor Bike to leave Beijing. The other officer was from the district PSB. Pastor Bike says he thinks he has been secretly followed and watched since he was forced out of Beijing on December 9.

On December 9, Pastor Bike was staying with Pastor Hua Huiqi when police broke into the home around 11: 30 p.m. This incident happened on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the UN’s “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the signing of “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” by the Chinese government

Radio Free Asia interviewed Pastor Bike and Pastor Hua a day after the incident.

According to Radio Free Asia, Pastor Hua shared, “Zhang Mingxuan let me read the document of abolishing the alliance. Then, we had a dinner in the evening. At 11:30, the police broke in when my door was not locked. Wang Xiaoyi from Fengtai District Bureau of Religion and some agents in charge of religious affairs from Fengtai District Domestic Defense Protection Squad and several police officers dragged and pushed me into another room, claiming that they wanted to talk to me.

“I told them I had a guest in my home and they shouldn’t tell me that my guest couldn’t stay here. He [Pastor Bike] and I hadn’t seen each other for quite some time. The police blocked me in that room and wouldn’t let me go to the other room, saying, ‘We don’t allow you to receive him as a guest.’ It was 10 minutes to 12 o’clock when Pastor Zhang Mingxuan was escorted by force to a police vehicle. He and I are personal friends. Since he came to Beijing, we have been very good friends. We are also very good brothers in Christ and there is nothing wrong in receiving him as a guest.”

ChinaAid says Police harassed Pastor Hua, as well, trying to convince him to cooperate. Pastor Hua’s mother, Shuang Shuying, 78, is currently in prison. She is serving a two-year sentence for “intentional damage of properties” since February 2007.

Pastor Hua said, “The Municipal Public Security Bureau has been telling me that as long as I cooperate with them, I can, first of all, make a fortune and then I can also get my mother out.”

Pastor Hua says the requirements for “cooperation” include spying on other Christians and not helping those who are persecuted. Pastor Hua regularly hosts persecuted Christians in his home and helps them pursue legal cases.

“When I asked why the problems in my family have not been solved, they said it is just because I refuse to cooperate with the police. The leaders in the Public Security Bureau said on purpose that they are taking my mother as a hostage,” he said.

“There are only two months left in my mother’s sentence. According to the current law of China, people over 70 are released when they have served half of the sentence. However, my mother is almost 80 and the people in the prison’s Bureau of Administration said: ‘It is not we that don’t want to release her, but the Municipal Public Security Bureau wouldn’t release her.’ The Municipal Public Security even withholds my minimum social security payments because I don’t cooperate with them. They create problems in every aspect of my life.”

Pastor Bike was escorted from Beijing on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the UN’s “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” and on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the signing of “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights” by the Chinese government.

Bob Fu, President of ChinaAid, said, “Zhang Mingxuan is a member of the house church, an ordinary Chinese citizen, but his basic freedom of residence, the freedom of visiting friends and relatives and the freedom of practicing his religious belief and of seeing his Christian brother, Hua Huiqi, are deprived. From this, one can imagine how bad the status of basic human rights in China is. This arouses one’s indignation.”