MIDLAND, TEXAS (ANS) — According to ChinaAid for many years, China’s house churches, which uphold religious freedom and hold fast to the true faith, have been viewed by the Chinese government as a hostile group of dissenters and have become the target of persecution and crackdowns.

“Furthermore,” the organization says in a communiqué to Western media, “these vile acts of the government, which blatantly violate the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, have increased in frequency and severity year after year.”

ChinaAid says that in December 2010, the Communist Party Central Committee’s Public Security Commission issued a secret document to target China’s “house churches” in implementing its special suppression campaign “Operation Deterrence.”

Government officials of all levels were told to “guide” Christians attending those unregistered churches to worship in [government-approved] Three-Self churches, and to “break up” large churches like Shouwang Church into small groups, the organization says.

“Soon thereafter,” ChinaAid states, “beginning on Easter 2011, Beijing Shouwang Church was forced to hold its Sunday worship service outdoors, and various government agencies have joined together in continuous attacks on the church, which has had its former large-scale Sunday worship services ‘broken up’ into small groups meeting separately.”

“The so-called ‘house churches,’ this problem does not exist…,” Wang Zuo’an, head of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) said in an interview with Wu Xiaoli on her show “Q & A about Shenzhou,” which aired on Hong Kong’s Phoenix Satellite Television on the afternoon of Oct. 21, 2011.

“According to the Regulations on Religious Affairs promulgated by State Council, religious groups need to follow the related regulations and register with the government. Nevertheless, a well-known fact is that many Christians of China spontaneously get together and meet at illegal and unregistered locations. The number of these believers is not clear to us. They call themselves ‘house churches.’ Western countries call them ‘underground churches’.” ChinaAid says this remark of Wang’s signaled the Chinese Communist government’s new round of initiatives to eradicate house churches.

At the National Work Conference on Religious Affairs on Jan. 9, 2012, SARA deputy director Jiang Jianyong said that SARA in 2010 had started the process of certifying and creating files on clergy, and that the process is supposed to be completed in 2012. This was the starting point for promoting the implementation of the “Regulations on Religious Affairs.” The plan is to systematize and computerize the management of clergy in three years.

ChinaAid goes on to say that as a matter of fact, SARA is certifying and creating files only on clergy from government-approved religious groups; the purpose of this is to target religious groups unwilling to become part of the government-approved religious entities, to exclude them and purge and eradicate them. In this way, thousands of “house churches” in China will become “illegal” religious groups, and thousands of “house church” ministers will become “illegal” clergy.

ChinaAid states that at the same time, SARA held the first training class for “Patriots in the Christian Community” in Beijing in September 2011, and in 2012 a second class is planned for the near future. During this time, the China Christian Council and the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (CCC/TSPM) across China have been holding “Training Sessions for Ministerial Certification,” in which “patriotic” education is conducted.

Reports of these sessions have appeared on many religious websites, in the media and in periodicals. In some CCC/TSPM “Training Sessions for Ministerial Certification” that ChinaAid’s reporter has attended, the local religious bureaus had all made special arrangements for officials of the deputy bureau chief level or higher to speak on “Regulations on Religious Affairs” and “patriotism.”

According to ChinaAid sources, SARA’s certifying of and creating files on [church] ministers and its pervasive “patriotic” education are aimed at consolidating the joint forces of the CCC/TSPM and the Communist government so as to further eradicate the foundation upon which house churches stand. The government is calling this “solidify the foundation and reinforce the framework.”

In the course of reporting, ChinaAid’s reporter learned that in September 2011, when SARA held its first training class for “Patriots in the Christian Community,” a secret document issued jointly by SARA and the ministries of Public Security and Civil Affairs was released that addressed the issue of completely eradicating “house churches.”

Its main points were:
Phase One: from Jan. to June 2012, conduct thorough, intensive and secret investigations of house churches throughout the country and create files on them.
Phase Two: in two to three years, concentrate on cleaning up the “house churches” that have been investigated and have had files created.
Phase Three: in 10 years’ time, completely wipe out “house churches.”

The main strategies for implementing the above are:

1.  Incorporate denominationally affiliated “house churches” into the CCC/TSPM management system.
2. Comprehensively implement the management model of “meeting sites attached to churches” [i.e. house churches become “meeting sites” attached to an official Three-Self church]. Within the CCC/TSPM system, register those “house churches” that are willing to register and eradicate the “house churches” that do not want to register.
3. Ban the words “house church” as well as all reports on “house churches” from all websites, media and documents, and use “house gatherings” instead of the term “house church,” that is, call “house churches” “house gatherings.”
4. Implement humane law enforcement measures for “house churches”.

ChinaAid went on to say: “We have noticed since the beginning of 2012 an increase in the frequency of persecution and suppression of house churches by the Chinese Communist government. In addition to the continuing persecution of Beijing Shouwang Church which has lasted for more than a year, the number of other similar cases has risen 20 percent over last year and has spread into other areas, including Christian education publication and bookstores.

The group added: “In a recent random survey conducted by this [ChinaAid] reporter in several provinces, cities and regions, over 95 percent of house church ministers surveyed said they had strongly felt the impact of the relevant government departments launching intense investigations into and creating files on the house churches, which has extended to grassroots-level villages and towns. Over 85 percent house church ministers said that their local religious affairs departments had already created files on them. A house church pastor from Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, said he had received reliable information that the provincial government had issued secret documents regarding the eradication of house churches. He said, ‘The situation this year is especially tense.’”

The ChinaAid reporter has observed that the implementation of Phase One of the eradication of “house churches” as described in the secret document issued jointly by SARA and the ministries of Public Security Civil Affairs not only has already begun but has entered an intense phase. According to the main points of this secret document, this new round of the Chinese government’s campaign to eradicate “house churches” will be rolled out in three stages of six months, three years and ten years. Compared with Operation Deterrence launched in December 2010, it is gentler, longer, and more sustained, as well as being full of “united front” strategy [that is, using persuasion to try to achieve cooperation].

ChinaAid asked how will this new Chinese government campaign to eradicate “house churches” impact house churches that are seeking a path to religious freedom and holding fast to the true faith? “We’ll wait and see.”

“Meanwhile, we also pray for China’s house churches, asking that God protect them as they journey on the path to religious freedom. May God bless the house churches that proclaim the truth of the Gospel and may God strengthen Beijing Shouwang Church in the midst of severe persecution.”

DUBLIN (Compass Direct News) – Authorities in China again thwarted efforts by Shouwang Church to lease a worship facility at the year’s end, and the Beijing congregation again met outdoors on Sunday (Jan. 1) – resulting in the arrest of 48 members, sources said.

“The church tried three times to rent three different venues, but it was all to no avail because of the authorities’ intervention,” a source close to the church told Compass. “On Dec. 17, Shouwang signed a rental contract with a landlord for its new indoor worship venue. Two days later, the church’s books and some other belongings were moved into the new rented space.”

In the days that followed, however, the landlord terminated the contract due to pressure from “the local police station, the housing management office and leaders of various government agencies,” church leaders announced to members on Dec. 23.

Church leaders had initially arranged to have an indoor meeting on Sunday (Jan. 1) in a room they had leased from the Beijing Parkview Wuzhou Hotel on Dec. 17, according to a post on Shouwang’s Facebook page. But due to police interference and the cancellation of the lease, they moved to Plan B – a continuation of the outdoor worship services held every Sunday since April 10.

Shouwang began meeting outdoors last year after authorities blocked their attempts to rent worship venues or use a building they had purchased. Church leaders had hoped the situation would change early in the new year.

“The outdoor worship service has come to an end,” Shouwang had announced on its Facebook page. “We first want to offer our thanksgiving to God … We also pray that God will continue to open a way for us.”

The post also described how the church had recently signed three leases with landlords in Zhongguancun, the area where the church has worshiped since it was founded, but that all three were revoked.

New Year Arrests
Police detained at least 48 church members who gathered for outdoor worship on Sunday (Jan. 1), releasing 40 of them by midnight, Shouwang’s governing committee stated on its Facebook page.

Early on the morning of Dec. 25, church members had arrived at Zhongguancun square only to find it heavily guarded with industrial-strength rails blocking access, the committee reported. Police arrested 41 Christians who attempted to worship at the square, releasing all but one by midnight. The final detainee was released at 3 p.m. on Dec. 26.

During the 38 weeks of outdoor worship in 2011, police detained almost 1,000 church members and held many more under house arrest, according to the committee.

One church member who shared his testimony on the Facebook page on Dec. 26 said that the Christians detained indoors usually felt sorry for those waiting outside in the cold as they were able to “read books and have fellowship in a warm room.” But on Christmas Day an officer interrogated him, taunting him for being afraid to give his home address and threatening to “hold you for more than 10 days so that you will lose your job. I will find out where you live and force you to move.”

“As for my job, no one can fire me if God does not allow it,” the church member wrote. He also advised other church members, “How long they detain you has nothing to do with whether you cooperate with them or not, just as God’s love for you has nothing to do with what you do. So do not be afraid, and be brave in speaking out as the Holy Spirit guides you.”

His advice was timely as Shouwang church plans to continue meeting outdoors until a more permanent solution is found, and officials seem just as determined to stop them.

“By arbitrarily detaining peaceful religious believers in the capital city on the first day of 2012, Beijing authorities show that they are determined to continue their crackdown on independent religious groups in the coming year,” China Aid Association President Bob Fu stated on Sunday (Jan. 1).

BEIJING, CHINA (ANS) – Thirteen Chinese Christian believers were taken into custody by authorities during an outdoor worship service held by the Beijing Shouwang Church on September 11. The gathering was the church’s 23 outdoor service.

According to ChinaAid (www.chinaaid.org), many believers have been detained at home since Saturday.

A report on the ChinaAid website says police from Guangying Police Station took a female believer to a hotel for detention.

“As far as we know,” ChinaAid says, “at least thirteen believers were taken away on Sunday morning for going to the planned location to join the outdoor service, either at the spot or on their way there (including Pastor Wang Shuangyan and a male believer from a church in another city).”

ChinaAid says two of them were released on the way to a police station, and others were sent to eight local police stations of their respective areas. Four believers who went to visit at Malianwa Police Station were dragged into a room for interrogation by force.

Eleven believers were later released (including the female who was taken away on Friday night), and the other three believers were still under detention in two different police stations until Midnight on the 12th. The last male believer was released at 7:30am on uesday, the 13th.

According to ChinaAid, one of the females among those who were detained in police stations, who was celebrating her birthday, was taken away because she went to the outdoor service with other two women in the morning. She was released for a while around noon, and then was taken into Zhongguancun Police Station again and was detained in the basement.

“Many believers, taking moon cake and birthday cards, went to accompany her, and waited outside the police station,” ChinaAid said.

“When she was released around 11:00pm at night, they celebrated together and enjoyed the love of being in the fellowship of Christ. May God remember what she and other believers sacrificed.”

The man who was arrested, who was not released until Tuesday morning (after forty-eight hours detention), spent an unforgettable Mid-Autumn day at Shuguang Police Station.

ChinaAid reported: “In this special evening of Mid-Autumn day with no moonlight, our brother met his wife and child in the lobby of the police station under the watch of guards. Our sister witnessed that he was full of peace and joy when he hugged his child. Although it was Mid-Autumn day, a day to be with family, many believers went to wait outside police stations to be companions with those who were under detention. During this period of spiritual warfare, our love of being one family in Christ makes this Mid-Autumn day very special.”

BEIJING, CHINA (ANS) – Compass Direct News (CDN) is reporting that one of the largest unregistered Protestant churches in Beijing plans to risk arrest by worshipping in a park this Sunday (April 10) after eviction from the restaurant where they have met for the past year.

The CDN story says that a source has told them that the owner of the Old Story Club restaurant issued repeated requests for the Shouwang Church to find another worship venue, and authorities have pressured other prospective landlords to close their facilities to the 1,000-member congregation.

“Unwilling to subject themselves to the controls and restrictions of the official Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the congregation has held three services each Sunday in the restaurant for more than a year,” the story continued.

“The Church members have said they are not opposed to the government and are not politically active, but they fear authorities could find their open-air worship threatening. ‘Normal’ (state-sanctioned) religious assembly outdoors is legal in China, and even unregistered religious gatherings are usually tolerated if no more than 50 people gather, said a source in China who requested anonymity.”

Although the congregation technically risks arrest as an unregistered church, the primary danger is being viewed as politically active, the source said. “For a larger group of Christians to meet in any ‘unregistered’ location led by an ‘unregistered’ leader is illegal,” he said.

“The sensitivity of meeting in a park is not being illegal, but being so highly visible. Being ‘visible’ ends up giving an impression of being a political ‘protest.’”

For more information, please go to www.compassdirect.org

BEIJING, CHINA (ANS) — In a troubling setback, Chinese authorities last week launched a crackdown directed at Christians who belong to China’s huge network of unregistered house churches, calling a “cult” one of the fastest-growing populations of Christians in the world.

According to a news release from ChinaAid, the powerful Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party launched “Operation Deterrence” on Dec. 1.

ChinaAid said according to the Politburo’s top-secret instructions, the crackdown on the largest component of the mainland Chinese church is to continue through March 2011.

“CCP Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Social order,” the foot soldiers of China’s security apparatus, have been told to collect information about house churches throughout the country and turn these reports in to their superiors. A long “blacklist” of church leaders and influential believers has also reportedly been drawn up.

ChinaAid said earlier and sketchier reports had described “Operation Deterrence” as a broader crackdown on human rights defenders and activists during which 20 rights defenders were to be arrested and sentenced. The action was timed to coincide with the Dec.10 award ceremony for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

The latest information, obtained by ChinaAid from more than one reliable source, makes it clear however that the target of the crackdown is more narrowly focused and may be directed solely at China’s network of house churches and their members.

Recent government actions against Christians, including official harassment of influential house church leaders, the ordination of a Catholic bishop in defiance of the Vatican’s wishes and even the cyberattacks that brought down ChinaAid’s Chinese and English news websites, appear to have been a prelude signaling the advent of the crackdown.

ChinaAid said in recent years, the Beijing regime had stepped back from its previous hostility toward, and adamant opposition to, the house church movement. That led many Christians in China and overseas to believe these unregistered congregations could win official sanction without having to join the government-run Three-Self Patriotic Movement, the only Protestant church officially allowed to function in China.

However, ChinaAid said, Operation Deterrence is reminiscent of the previous era of hostilities and often brutal government persecution that had for decades driven unknown hundreds of thousands of believers “underground,” worshiping in secret and fearing for their lives and freedom.

The Politburo directive gave four reasons for labeling the house churches a “cult.” ChinaAid said the reasons were that house churches advocate and promote the Christianization of China; they seek the unity of all churches in China; they promote the unity of the Chinese church with churches worldwide and they want to have dialogue with the government.

ChinaAid said the reasons are specious, and demonstrate the Chinese government’s ignorance of religious issues, because none of the reasons conforms to the accepted definition of a cult.

A dictionary definition describes a cult as “a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.”

ChinaAid said labeling Chinese house churches as a cult could have serious implications, and represents a major step backwards in the thawing of relations in recent years between the Beijing regime and the house church network.

Once Chinese authorities have given a person or a group a negative label of any kind, it is almost impossible to do away with that designation.

ChinaAid commented that the Beijing regime seldom admits a mistake or reverses its decisions, and even on the rare occasions that it does, negative public sentiment lingers. It can impact an individual or group for years, detrimentally impacting a person’s ability to find or keep a job, for example.

In the case of the Chinese house churches, ChinaAid said , being labeled a cult could stop the progress that has been made in recent years toward winning official acknowledgment of their existence, the right to register and operate like any other citizens group in China, and an end to official religious persecution.

In the cyclical nature of China’s political life, hardliners who have been sidelined in the recent warmer climate could seize on the “cult” label to re-exert their authority.

ChinaAid said that could result in the more practical and immediate possibility that the same measures long used against practitioners of Falungong, which the Beijing regime labeled a cult in late 1999, can now be employed against house church Christians. The Chinese government’s brutal systematic campaign against Falungong since July 1999 has earned it worldwide censure.

According to international human rights observers and the U.S. State Department, Falungong practitioners are among the most harshly persecuted groups in China and they account for as many as half the prisoners in China’s vast re-education-through-labor camps in recent years.

They have also been given long prison sentences, ChinaAid said, and even the death penalty simply because of their religious practices. Reports of Falungong practitioners being beaten to death in prison or while in other forms of detention have been common. The specter of similar treatment now hangs over house church Christians as a result of the “cult” label.

Beijing authorities very effectively turned the tide of public opinion against the non-violent, meditating Falungong practitioners by using the same re-labeling tactic they are now adopting with the house church Christians.

ChinaAid said while originally regarded as an apolitical exercise group, Falungong was reclassified by the government as “an evil cult,” “a sect” and “superstition.” A subsequent government media campaign eroded any public opposition to the government’s crackdown on Falungong.

ChinaAid said while the Politburo’s reasoning in labeling Chinese house churches as a cult does not conform to the word’s definition, the Politburo’s reasons are accurate in describing the house churches’ desires and motivations.

The growth of Christianity in China, overwhelmingly in the house churches, has been so startling in recent years that even secular observers and the mainstream international media are predicting China could soon become the world’s largest Christian nation.

ChinaAid said while accurate figures are unavailable, estimates of the total number of Protestant Christian believers in China range from at least 40 million to as many as 130 million. That puts the number of Christians on par with or exceeding the number of Chinese Communist Party members, who total 60 million. The Chinese government’s internal figures from 2006 put the number of Protestant Christians at 35 million.

MIDLAND, TEXAS (ANS) — The Chinese-language website of ChinaAid Association, which monitors and reports on religious persecution and other human rights abuses in China, and a bilingual companion website have both collapsed under cyber attacks.

The assault began Tuesday evening, the group said in a news release on Wednesday.

ChinaAid’s Chinese-language website at www.chinaaid.net and its www.monitorchina.org website, which provide Chinese and English material about religious persecution and the rule of law, were both inaccessible as a result of the attacks.

ChinaAid said heavy malicious traffic had repeatedly caused the website’s server, located in the United States, to crash. Its technical staff was still working Wed. evening to restore the websites. ChinaAid’s mirror English-language site at www.chinaaid.org, hosted by a different server, has so far been unaffected.

ChinaAid said it is impossible to say definitively who was behind the attacks. However, ChinaAid has persistently reported on the increased official persecution directed at religious believers, particularly house church Christians.

That, the group said, that has been part of a wider government crackdown on dissent since the announcement in early Oct. that the recipient of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize was imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.

The organization posts almost daily updates on the human rights situation in China on all three of its websites.

ChinaAid said China is known to have a vast network of hackers who are regarded by international experts as a major threat to global internet security.

ChinaAid said the U.S. State Department documents released Sunday by Wikileaks included a U.S. Embassy cable that linked China’s Politburo to a 2009 attack on Google’s computer systems.

“The Google hacking was part of a coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government. They have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002, cables said,” ChinaAid said the New York Times reported Sunday.

Meanwhile, ChinaAid said, Wikileaks itself was under attack following its release of 250,000 State Department documents. A forceful Internet-based attack had rendered its website inaccessible to users in U.S. and Europe, and suspicion had fallen on China again.

ChinaAid was founded in 2002 to draw international attention to China’s human rights violations against house church Christians.

In addition to monitoring and reporting on religious freedom violations in China, the Midland, Texas-based organization also assists victims of religious persecution to assert their rights and works to promote the rule of law in China.

ANHUI, CHINA (ANS) – ChinaAid is reporting that at 7:00 a.m. on Friday, November 12, 2010, Bozhou Municipal Public Security Bureau in Anhui and Bozhou Bureau of Religion raided a house church on Qingming Street.

“More than 10 believers were taken away by the officials; five of them were detained and were not released until that afternoon. Without going through any paperwork, the government officials confiscated items belonging to the church,” said a ChinaAid spokesperson.

“In this process of persecution and growth, the Chinese church is encouraged to play well the role of Samaritans, abandon excuses of cowardice and their fears, and bravely face dark and violent forces of the government by adhering to the principles of Christian ethics and morality. They should unite and help each other, firmly refuse to make compromises and produce greater light and salt.”

ChinaAid says that it expresses “deep regret and puzzlement” at the “ultra-leftist policies” that the Chinese government and its local government are pursuing recently.

“ChinaAid firmly believes the church will grow increasingly mature in the storm of persecutions and it will eventually change the entire cultural and social fabrics of China and glorify the hallowed name of Jesus Christ,” added the spokesperson.

For more information, go to: www.chinaaid.org

BEIJING, CHINA (ANS) — Chinese authorities are stepping up their campaign of harassment and oppression in the wake of the Nobel Peace prize winner announcement and the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization.

ChinaAid (www.ChinaAid.org ) says the government’s oppression of Beijing Zhongfu Holy Mountain Institute has been steadily increasing. It says the “Holy Mountain” magazine department was raided by Beijing Public Security Bureau on October 27, 2010.

ChinaAid reports that the persecution of house churches and non-governmental organizations in Beijing was planned by authorities, after it was announced that a Chinese citizen had won the Nobel Peace Prize and the recent convocation of the Lausanne Congress in Cape Town, South Africa. A large delegation representing the Chinese church was stopped from attending the Congress.

“These attacks are purposely set up to frame Dr. Fan Yafeng, making it seem that he is conducting an illegal business,” said ChinaAid in a media release.

“ChinaAid solemnly warns the Chinese government that any form of persecution of Dr. Fan will bring nothing but rebuke from Chinese society and the international community; this is a futile fight. Cease the persecution of Dr.Fan and his contemporaries before it is too late,” the organization said in its news release.

Pastor Bob Fu, President of ChinaAid, is calling on Christians from China and all over the world to support Dr. Fan and others under persecution. “We will keep a close watch on this situation,” he said.

SHANDONG (ANS) — As a Chinese pastor arrived at his church along with some of his members for a routine morning Bible study, they were attacked and beaten.

The reported incident occurred on Oct. 26.

According to a news release from ChinaAid, Pastor Zhan Gang of Jiaozhou Church’s attackers were hired by the local Three-Self Patrotic Movement (TSPM) church.

ChinaAid said the alleged perpetrators were suspected of being plain-clothed agents. Pastor Zhan is also the general secretary of Chinese House Church Alliance.

ChinaAid said the Christians were forcibly removed from the building.

The attack was led by the TSPM director’s sons, namely Wang Zhanquan and Wang Zhanhua — both reportedly non-Christians. The director of the Bureau of Religion was directing this operation from behind the scenes. He said he would not allow Zhan Gang to enter the church because he is not a leader of a TSPM church.

As a result, ChinaAid said, nearly 1,000 Christians led by Pastor Zhan will no longer be able to conduct normal gatherings.

ChinaAid said the organization supports the members of Jiaozhou Church in their request for Christians all over China to closely monitor this situation, pray for them, and provide help.

The organization added, “We request that the TSPM officials in Shandong stop their attack on house church Christians.”

ChinaAid is a nonprofit Christian organization which tries to expose the truth about religious persecution in China, focusing especially on the unofficial church.

For more information about ChinaAid go to www.ChinaAid.org.

SICHUAN/HENAN, CHINA (ANS) — ChinaAid (www.ChinaAid.org) has told the ASSIST News Service that on Sunday, September 26, 2010, Youqing Church in Qu County, Da Prefecture, Sichuan province, China, was raided by the local police.

“Objects were smashed, books were confiscated and people were taken to the local police station,” said a ChinaAid spokesperson. “Their family members were requested to pay money to bail out the detainees.

“On September 29th at 5 p.m. local time, four of the church members attempted to negotiate with Sichuan police in hopes of having their confiscated belongings returned to them in accordance with law. Instead, they were arrested on the spot.”

ChinaAid is also reporting that a raid was conducted on Wednesday,September 22, 2010, at around 4 p.m on the Mid-Autumn Festival Day where a house church meeting in Wancheng District, Nanyang City, Henan province ,was invaded and all who were present, except for one elderly woman, were arrested.

“Two foreign pastors present at the meeting, one from the United States and one from Russia, were detained and so was their translator,” said the spokesperson. “During the arrests, one member of the church, Ma Hanzhong, was beaten. The whereabouts of the two foreign instructors are unknown. The officials of Henan province have threatened to sentence the detained believers to re-education through labor.”

In both of these critical cases, ChinaAid calls for worldwide attention and advocacy on behalf of those in need.

“We encourage Christians to stand with the persecuted and continue to pray for them,” added the ChinaAid spokesperson.