China frees American pastor who spent nearly 20 years in prison

David Lin arrived in San Antonio on Sunday after spending nearly two decades behind bars, his daughter Alice Lin told Politico. Lin, 68, is a California resident and had been in jail in China since 2006 when officials detained him on charges of contract fraud. Chinese authorities often use the crime to persecute Christians who raise funds to support house churches, according to U.S.-based human rights group Dui Hua.

Lin reportedly entered China in 2006 to help an underground house church build a place to worship. He had visited China regularly in the 1990s and began preaching the Gospel there in 1999, according to ChinaAid. A court in Beijing in 2009 sentenced Lin to life in prison but the government had reduced his sentence three times and he was due to be released in 2029.

Why was he released? Though Chinese authorities have not commented on the situation, Lin’s release comes nearly three weeks after U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan visited Beijing. While there, Sullivan raised the issue of American citizens who are wrongfully detained in China. The U.S. State Department has long said that Lin and two other American men are unjustly imprisoned in China. Last year, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged President Joe Biden to call for their release. Meanwhile, Congress is due to hold a hearing Wednesday on the issue of arbitrarily detained U.S. citizens in China.

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