A church in Zhejiang Province was torn down in 2014 and multiple people were injured while protesting it.
The cross of a church in Zhejiang Province was torn down in 2014 and multiple people were injured while protesting it.
On July 21, 2014, the cross of the Salvation Church in Zhejiang Province’s Wenzhou city was demolished by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government. Multiple members of the church were injured in the beatings that accompanied. Two were almost killed, one of who was Zhang Zhongsu. He passed away in June this year, but Bitter Winter now has access to chilling details from the 2014 demolition and protests.
Located in the Shuitou town of Pinyang County, the church was raided upon in the dead of night at 3 am, as is custom with the demolitions sanctioned by the government. Armed special police officers, management of the Wenzhou city, local police, fire department officials and other thugs employed by the Chinese Communist Party made up a 600 strong contingent to demolish the cross of the church.
When local Christians got the whiff of what was happening, around a thousand rushed toward the Salvation Church, and the CCP police violently beat the unarmed and defenseless Christians. Nearly 200 used all of their strength to push on the iron gate and keep the police out to protect the church and protest the demolition.
Zhang Zhongsu, then 78-year-old, rushed to the scene when his wife didn’t return from the protests. He happened upon a group of police violently beating the Christians, he then hastened to dissuade the police. Unfortunately, he was severely beaten by the police over the head. His head immediately split, and a mixture of his brains and blood began to drip onto the ground. He fell unconscious and was later taken to the local hospital for treatment. The government sought to seal the matter by giving him 13,000 RMB in food allowance.
Mr. Zhang passed away in June 2018 at the age of 82. However, people close to him emphasize that he was in good health prior to the beating he received in 2014.
As per local reports, as of 2015, the cross of the Salvation Church is just one of the thousands that have been demolished in the Zhejiang Province alone. These assaults are part of “Five Entries and Five Assimilations” policy of the Chinese Communist Party’s ultimate goal of “sinicization of Christianity”. The government seeks to establish a form of Chinese Christianity where socialist values take precedence over religious belief.
At a United Front Work Departments of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (UFWD) meeting, President Xi Jinping said, “Using socialist core values to direct religion is a project of ‘soul-casting,’ and a way to prevent the infiltration of western ideology.”
This is undeniable and chilling evidence of the Chinese Communist Party government’s systematic persecution of Christians and their belief.
Reported by Lin Yijiang
Lin Yijiang (uses pseudonyms for security reasons), whose ancestral hometown is Hangzhou, Zhejiang, lived in Spain with his family at a young age. His father is a human rights activist. Under his father’s influence, Lin Yijiang also began actively following human rights conditions in countries around the world, especially China’s harsh persecution of human rights. In 2016, in order to gain a deeper understanding of the persecuted groups in China, Lin returned to his hometown and became a freelance journalist, giving a voice to persecuted groups. He joined Bitter Winter in 2018 and became a special correspondent covering Zhejiang Province, Jiangxi Province, and some other regions.