Former prisoner John Cao (64) was baptising 13 new Christians on 15 October when police raided the gathering. It had been organised by popular Yunnan preacher Chang Hao, who previously spent over a year in prison for his unregistered Christian activities and was released in May 2024.
Chang Hao is a preacher but not an ordained pastor, so out of respect for Chinese church tradition he invited Pastor John to travel from Changsha in Hunan province to Zhenxiong county in Yunnan province to perform the baptisms. Thirty church members attended the service, which was held on a Tuesday morning and was therefore attended mostly by retired people, with an average age of over 70.
Just as Chang Hao announced the end of the service, over twenty police officers burst in, shouting: “Don’t move! Hand over your phones!” They searched everyone’s pockets and shouted at some elderly people who were slow to respond. They also yelled at an 89-year-old woman when she told them, “We are Christians having a peaceful gathering. We haven’t broken any laws.”
Officers took everyone present to the Zhenxiong County Public Security Bureau for questioning; as each Christian walked towards the police vehicles (over ten cars and several vans) they were flanked by officers to prevent communication between them. At the police station they were left in a corner from morning until night and only after repeated requests were they provided with a cup of water and a piece of bread.
Around midnight, after completing their statements, they were released one by one. The main focus of the questioning was on two points: who had informed the Christians about the gathering; and who preached and performed the baptisms. Pastor John was released at midnight after completing his statement and police from Changsha Public Security Bureau escorted him back to Changsha, but Chang Hao was notified that he would remain in administrative detention for twelve days for illegal religious gathering. Meanwhile, police destroyed the meeting place, smashing the projector and confiscating Bibles and equipment.
Pastor John previously served a seven-year prison sentence in Kunming, Yunnan province for “organising illegal border crossings” between China and Myanmar. A resident of North Carolina, he made many trips to his native China to establish schools and work among the poor before expanding his humanitarian work into Myanmar. He was detained in March 2017 while returning to China from Myanmar and was sentenced to seven years in prison. He was released in March 2024 after finishing his sentence.
Pastor John’s wife Jamie is waiting for him in the US but the authorities have not given him an ID card or passport since his release, making it impossible to leave China. After his release local police told him that they plan to supervise and “educate” him for five years.
The pastor has been staying with his mother in Changsha since his release and in June 2024 police set up surveillance cameras facing the front door and outside the apartment complex.
Chang Hao and the Bible masks
Chang Hao has previously had over twenty administrative detentions, each time for “illegal evangelism”. During the Covid pandemic he became popular by distributing masks inscribed with Bible verses, an initiative that online news source Bitter Winter said “mightily disturbed the authorities”.
Police raided his small rural church in Zhenxiong county in April 2023 and confiscated Bibles, Christian books and the famous anti-Covid masks with Bible verses. Officers took him away and later arrested him on a charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a charge often used against unregistered religious leaders. The Zhenxiong Court sentenced him to one year and one month in prison. He was released in May 2024, but was kept under surveillance.
He is registered disabled due to his hands having been severely burned in a factory fire, leaving him unable to hold objects.
Read John Cao’s Prisoner Profile.
(Bitter Winter, China Aid)
Photo Credit: China Aid