Three members of Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu, China, have been detained, and many families have been subject to forced evictions, according to a statement published by the church on 26 March.
Elder Hu Shigen, a veteran human rights defender and house church leader, was released from prison in Tianjin, China on 26 March after completing his prison sentence.
The wife of Chinese human rights lawyer Chang Weiping accepted the 2021 Franco-German Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. on 23 March. Lawyer Chang was a 2021 laureate of the prize, but has not been able to accept due to his continued detention.
The US-based Christian organization China Aid has reported that Uyghur house church pastor Alimujiang Yimiti was released from prison upon completion of a 15-year sentence in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
Xi’an Church of Abundance (‘Fengsheng’) released a statement on 22 February with details of the torture and mistreatment that three detained leaders of the church were subjected to in custody. Senior Pastor Lian Changnian, 69, his son, Pastor Lian Xuliang, 41, and preacher Fu Juan, 38, had been held under ‘Residential Surveillance in a Designated …
House church pastors describe torture in secret detention READ MORE
A Chinese human rights lawyer was expelled from a law court in Huixian, Henan Province, while defending a Falun Gong practitioner on 17 February. He was then reported to local police who interrogated him at a police station.
Fugong police in China’s Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan province, took four Christians into custody on 12 January for participating in a Bible study in August 2022.
Xi’an Church of Abundance has expressed concerns for the wellbeing of its three leaders, who have been held in secret detention over fraud allegations since August 2022.
An elder of Early Rain Church in Chengdu, China, was released from prison after completing a four-year prison sentence on 9 December.
CSW and a coalition of 48 human rights NGOs urge the Chinese government to respect human rights, especially in the context of the current protests against the regime’s zero-Covid policy.
