China Sentences House Church Leaders to Prison

Bypassing the court system, China arbitrarily sentenced five more leaders of the
Fushan Church in Linfen City, Shanxi Province, on Monday, this time to
re-education labor camps for two years, according to China Aid Association
(CAA).

A Chinese court last week sentenced five house
church leaders to three to seven years in prison after they were arrested en
route to Beijing to file a complaint about an attack on their church, according
to the advocacy organization. The five leaders sentenced to labor camps this
week were accused of “gathering people to disturb the public order” after they
organized a prayer rally of 1,000 people the day after military police and
others attacked their church members and building on Sept. 13.

Pastors Yang Rongli (left) and Wang
Xiaoguang, shown In this
image released by China Aid Association, were among 10 house church leaders sentenced to prison or hard labor in recent weeks.  

In what CAA
termed “an arbitrary administrative sentence by the Public Security Bureau
enacted so the leaders would not be ‘required’ to go through the court and
prosecution system,” China delivered the verdicts to church leaders Li
Shuangping, Yang Hongzhen, Yang Caizhen (wife of Pastor Yang Xuan, who was
sentenced to three years of prison on Nov. 25), Gao Qin (also known as Gao
Fuqin), and Zhao Guoai.

“Yang Caizhen was seen
being beaten severely during an interrogation,” CAA said in a press statement.
“Having had one of her front teeth knocked out during a beating, and fasting and
praying during her detention, Ms. Yang is reported to look very
fragile.”

The church leaders, the
latter four women, were arrested on Nov. 11. They had helped to organize a
prayer rally after the Sept. 13 attack on the Fushan Church branch congregation
in Linfen, when some 400 uniformed police and civilians
bearing shovels, batons, bricks, iron hooks and other weapons had beaten members
of the church who were sleeping at the nearly finished factory building used as
a worship site.

With several Fushan County
officials involved in the attack, more than 30 Christians were seriously injured
among the 100 Christians who were hurt, CAA reported. According to
the Epoch
Times, a church member’s
relative obtained a license to build the shoe factory and was allowing the group
to meet there, as the church was growing too large to meet in homes and the
building could hold up to 400 people.

As Chinese authorities
had kept the families of Gao Qin and Zhao Guoai under tight surveillance, CAA
relied on church sources to confirm their sentences to labor camp. The
organization said family members had confirmed the sentences of the other
three.

“Linfen house church
Christians continue to be monitored by Chinese military police, including
neighboring Golden Lampstand Church (Jin Dongtai) in Linfen City,” CAA
stated.

The organization said
authorities violated Chinese law by refusing to provide family members of the
prisoners with copies of documents notifying them of the sentences.

All 10 of the Fushan
Church leaders plan to appeal their sentences, according to
CAA.

“To arbitrarily send
five innocent citizens to labor camps is in direct violation against the
international human rights covenants and norms the Chinese government has signed
and even ratified,” said CAA President Bob Fu.

The
five pastors previously sentenced were
arrested on Sept. 25 without a warrant, according to CAA. Yang Rongli was sent
to prison for seven years for “illegally occupying farming land” and “disturbing
transportation order by gathering masses.”

She and four other
pastors were sentenced on Nov. 25 at the People’s Court of Raodu
district, Linfen City, Shanxi Province. Yang’s husband, Wang Xiaoguang, was handed a sentence of
three years on the charge of “illegally occupying farming
land.” Cui Jiaxing was sentenced to four and
half years, and Yang Xuan to three and half years, on the same charge; Zhang
Huamei received four years of prison for “disturbing transportation order by
gathering masses.”

The pastors were arrested by
Shanxi Province officers of the Public Security Bureau
(PSB). Fu characterized their trial as a farce,
saying the case demonstrated a deteriorating state of religious freedom in
China.

Yang Rongli and Wang
Xiaoguang had led the Fushan Church, part of a
50,000-strong house church network in Linfen and the surrounding villages, for
more than 30 years.

The Beijing PSB has misrepresented the demolition
and attack on the Linfen branch church as a response to a “violent uprising,” Fu
said.