International pressure mounts on China after pastor arrests

Twenty-two pastors and church workers from China’s Zion Church remain in detention one week after Chinese authorities launched a coordinated set of arrests across the country. As China tightens the reins on its many underground Christian churches, human rights and Christian advocacy groups have called for the release of the pastors affiliated with Zion, an unregistered church with branches in dozens of cities.

Last Friday evening, more than 10 police officers entered the home of pastor Jin Mingri, also known as Ezra Jin, in the Chinese city of Beihai, according to ChinaAid. They carted him off in handcuffs after searching his home. Authorities detained roughly 30 people from about six other cities.

Pastor Jin’s daughter Grace Jin, who lives in Maryland, said officials are holding the detainees, including 13 women and nine men, in two facilities in Beihai. Some additional church members who were detained have already been released, she told me.

On Tuesday, Grace said that the international attention on the case has aided her 56-year-old diabetic father. Chinese officials finally allowed him and nine other detainees to meet with their lawyers, she said.

“They’ve been rather gentle on my dad’s treatment,” Grace said, adding that the legal access is a “sign that advocacy is working.”

Many of the detained Zion Church members face accusations of illegal dissemination of materials online, charges that fall under an online code of conduct for religious professionals that authorities unveiled last month. The code prohibits religious workers from using the internet to share any religious content that opposes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or is deemed extremist.

China has long targeted unregistered churches, which generally operate outside of government control. Ezra Jin founded Zion Church in 2007. In September 2018, authorities in Beijing shut down the church’s space on charges of “illegal gatherings.” Even before then, Communist officials had instituted other repressive measures, including placing a facial recognition camera outside the church to track members and canceling its WeChat social media accounts.

To cope with the restrictions, the church began recording sermons and sharing them with members on MP3 files. Ezra called it “walking worship,” where one or two people would meet in a park to listen to the sermon while walking.

“No one would know if you are worshipping or just listening to something else, and at the end of it, the church congregants would come together and fellowship,” Grace said.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, the church continued offering Zoom church sessions. That helped the church’s membership grow into the thousands across 40 cities, with members meeting in apartments and restaurants.

Months before last week’s arrest, police officers began taking in some church members for questioning, Grace said, adding that some congregants said local officers stopped them in their cities to ask about the church and Pastor Jin. Officers also stopped the pastor as he traveled for a U.S. visa interview in Beijing. Another time, officers in Shanghai appeared in his hotel room and asked him to leave the city.

“Police knew exactly where he was staying and told him he can’t stay there, and then also told him to leave,” Jin said.

The crackdown on Zion follows a similar trend among Chinese authorities. Back in 2018, Chinese officials detained more than 100 members of Chengdu’s Early Rain Covenant Church, another prominent house church. This year in May, authorities detained the pastor of Light of Zion Church. In June, authorities handed down prison sentences for several members of the Golden Lampstand Church in north-central China.

In a Sunday statement, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for the release of Zion Church members, condemning the Communist Party’s “hostility towards Christians who reject party interference in their faith.”

The advocacy group Human Rights Watch also called on foreign governments to pressure China for their release.

“The Chinese government’s crackdown on religious practice is tied to its efforts to tighten ideological control, both at home and abroad,” Human Rights Watch researcher Yalkun Uluyol said in a news release. “Governments should ensure the Chinese government is held accountable for such violations and press for religious freedom in China.”

Grace still hopes Chinese officials will release her father and other church members. In the meantime, she said the global attention and support from Christians has encouraged her, since members of the underground church community often feel isolated.

“It really means so much that we are not forgotten,” she said, “and that we are still all the body of Christ together.”