Thursday, July 06, 2006

VOM: China - House Church Leaders Arrested

(China Aid Association)
May 27th and 28th, 2006

30 house-church leaders from Langzhong City, Sichuan Province were arrested and forced to pay fines. Eyewitnesses and family members of the victims reported that the arrests happened from 11 a.m. on May 27th until 9 a.m. on the 28th during a fellowship meeting. Fifteen members of the Public Security Bureau in six police vehicles raided the meeting. Eyewitnesses say that during the arrests and interrogations, Christians were abused inhumanely by constant heavy beatings. Though some of those arrested were released on the 28th, on morning of the 29th, 14 house church leaders received criminal detention notices. They are:

Li Ming
Wang Yuan
Li Jinbo
Li Chengxi
Shi Zhihe
Gou Yongcai
Jin Jiyun
Wang Shuhua
Gou Qingju
Ke Xiufang
Sun Changfen
Hu Yongju
Zhang Shulan

Liao Zhoulan Pastors Li Ming, Wang Yuan, Li Jinbo and Jin Jiyun are major leaders of the Chinese House Church Alliance which was established in 2004. It is made up of approximately 300,000 members from various house church movements scattered across 21 provinces. CAA also learned that in recent weeks a number of house churches from Beijing, Shangdong and Guangdong were forced by the local authorities to close. Polite letters of protest and concern may be sent to the Chinese Embassy.

Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong
Embassy of the People's Republic of China
2300 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington DC 20008
TEL: 202-7456743
Fax: 202- 588-0032; 202-7457473

Pray Jesus will draw close to the prisoners with His loving comfort.
Pray God will protect them from further beatings.
Pray their faithfulness to Jesus will inspire Christians everywhere to seek a closer walk with our Savior and Friend. (Compass Direct)

Chinese officials have expressed "strong dissatisfaction" with a resolution passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on June 12th condemning rising persecution of religious believers in China. The resolution came after U.S. President George W. Bush invited three members of China's house-church network to the White House on May 11th--author Yu Jie, law professor Wang Yi and legal scholar Li Baiguang. Yu, 33, attends Ark Church, an unregistered Protestant house church that has had to change locations six times to escape harassment.

When Yu was asked to visit the White House, secret police in Beijing immediately called his wife, Liu Min, at her office in downtown Beijing. "They bluntly asked me to stop attending Ark Church, assuming that if I stopped going, the others would also scatter," she said.

When she replied that she could not obey the order, the police said they would spread rumors to damage her husband's reputation. Police also advised her to divorce Yu.

Give thanks to God that information about the lack of religious freedom in China is being made public. Ask God to protect the house church representatives who were willing to suffer the consequences of reporting to President Bush. Pray all those who are threatened by the Chinese authorities will continue to stand up for Jesus.

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