Source: Direct Reports from China
Date: June 28, 2018
The Shanghai police arrested five Christians from two house churches in April and May. All of them remain in custody.
On April 25, 2018, the police detained and arrested Chen Wenfang, a 58-year-old Christian with a house church. After her arrest, on May 4, two officers burst into her home to conduct a search, and one of the officers told her husband, “We’re sending her for intense indoctrination in a month. If she still believes when she gets out, she’ll be sentenced to three years.” Chen Wenfang is still being held by the police.
At about 8 p.m. on May 18, four Christians including Li Xin from Shanghai’s Fengxian District were in a gathering when eight plainclothes officers got into the house by scaling a courtyard wall. They arrested all four of them and took them to a local police station. On the morning of May 20, the police took Li Xin back to her home to conduct a search. To date, all of them are still in custody.
Bitter Winter reports on how religions are allowed, or not allowed, to operate in China and how some are severely persecuted after they are labeled as “xie jiao,” or heterodox teachings. We publish news difficult to find elsewhere, analyses, and debates.
Placed under the editorship of Massimo Introvigne, one of the most well-known scholars of religion internationally, “Bitter Winter” is a cooperative enterprise by scholars, human rights activists, and members of religious organizations persecuted in China (some of them have elected, for obvious reasons, to remain anonymous).
