At around 10 am on Sunday 20 October police and religious affairs departments from Beijing’s Chaoyang, Fengtai and Shijingshan districts mobilised between twenty and thirty police officers and numerous vehicles and forced their way into multiple branches of Beijing Zion Church, including Guomao, Wangjing, Yizhuang and Shijingshan. They registered the identities of all present and forcibly took away twelve people, including pastoral staff and church members.

Most of the detained Christians were released from the police station by that evening but Elder Qin Guoliang from the Guomao branch (pictured during the raid) remained in custody. After he had been detained for over 24 hours his family inquired at the police station and was told that he had been put under 14 days of administrative detention for “organising illegal gatherings”.

Prayer requests

The day after the raids, senior pastor Jin Mingri and the pastoral team of Beijing Zion Church issued a prayer letter in which they stated that in 2024 the Chinese government’s control and suppression of Chinese house churches has become increasingly severe, and issued the following three prayer requests:

• For the Lord to comfort the questioned brothers and sisters and grant them peaceful hearts
• For the Lord to watch over Elder Qin Guoliang, that the Lord becomes his strength and companion in loneliness, and the Holy Spirit his constant help
• For the authorities to respect the dignity of the Constitution and citizens’ freedom of religious belief

Zion Church banned

Zion Church was Beijing’s largest house church until it was banned in 2018. The unregistered church and its senior pastor Jin Mingri had been under government surveillance for many years until 9 September 2018, when more than seventy government personnel raided the church and sealed and forcibly closed its venue. The Beijing Chaoyang District Civil Affairs Bureau announced the same day that Beijing Zion Church was “banned according to law”.

Since then church members have continued to gather, constantly changing venue to try to evade police. Despite this care, they suffer frequent detention and harassment, as examples from recent months illustrate:

5 July Pastor Jin Mingri, who had been under exit control for five years, was intercepted while trying to leave the country through Macau customs. The five-year border control he was under was due to end on 22 March 2024 and once it expired he planned to go abroad to reunite with his wife and children, who live in the United States.

7 July More than twenty police and law enforcement officers raided the Haidian branch and the preacher, a young woman named Zhou Sirui, was sentenced to 14 days of administrative detention at the Haidian Detention Centre for “conducting activities under the name of a deregistered social organisation”. This branch mainly serves university students, who were subsequently questioned by their educational institutions and at police stations.

22 September The Haidian branch was raided again and Zhou Sirui was detained for 15 days, while Elder Cai Jing and Wu Qiong were each detained for 14 days.

(China Aid, Bitter Winter)

Photo: Internet/China Aid