China releases jailed Christian human rights lawyer

Chinese Christian human rights lawyer Zhang Kai finally returned home after nearly seven months of detention for defending Wenzhou churches that had their crosses demolished.

While the conditions of his release remain uncertain, Zhang posted on Chinese social media Wednesday: “I have already safely arrived home in Inner Mongolia. I am thankful for all my friends who were concerned about me during this time and who looked after and comforted my family, and for the Wenzhou police who took care of me during this time.”

Texas-based China Aid confirmed Zhang’s release with his relatives, and said he was freed on bail pending trial. Zhang was detained Aug. 25, the day before a planned meeting with U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom David Saperstein, and spent six months in secretive detention before appearing on state-run television to “confess” his crimes. Authorities then criminally detained him on charges of “endangering state secrets” and “gathering a crowd to disturb the public.”

“As a close friend of Zhang Kai, I am very pleased to hear this good news, although further details about the conditions of his release are still unknown,” said Bob Fu, founder of China Aid. “Zhang Kai is a bold human rights lawyer and a defender of the rule of law and religious freedom, and is completely innocent.”

Fu also appealed to the Chinese authorities to release other religious leaders and human rights lawyers who remain “arbitrarily imprisoned,” including Wang Yu and Li Heping, two lawyers who have been missing since July when Chinese authorities cracked down on the growing community of human rights lawyers. Around the same time, authorities detained Hu Shigen, a house church leader and democracy activist formerly imprisoned for 16 years for attempting to create an opposition political party.

Pastor Li Guozhi of Living Rock, a house church in the southwest city of Guiyang, was arrested in January on suspicion of “divulging state secrets.” Authorities even targeted pastors of government-sanctioned churches if they spoke out against the cross removals—Wenzhou Pastor Bao Guohua was detained and accused of “embezzlement” and “disrupting social order” in August, while Pastor Gu Yuese, the leader of a Hangzhou megachurch, was detained in February also on suspicion of embezzling funds.

The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China issued a statement praising Zhang’s release while urging President Xi Jinping to respect religious freedom.

“We welcome the release granted Zhang Kai, but remain gravely concerned by the ongoing and heavy-handed efforts to destroy property and arrest religious leaders in Zhejiang province,” said Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., the commission’s chairman. “Expanded restrictions and efforts to control religious practice will only further alienate China’s fast-growing religious communities and remind even non-believers of the Communist Party’s arbitrary power.”