A house church in Changsha city, Hunan Province was shut down and over 2,000 books, including copies of the Bible, were confiscated and burned by Chinese authorities.
On the morning of July 14, 2018, Wen Yu (pseudonym), the leader of a house church in Changsha, a preacher and eight other believers were at a meeting reading the Bible and singing hymns when they heard loud knocking on the door. After one of them opened it, three men claiming to be from the local Religious Affairs Bureau and more than ten police officers rushed in; they photographed the assembled as well as every room and took down their personal information. During the search, more than 2,000 religious books, including Bibles and hymn books, as well as a laptop computer and a projector worth over 10,000 RMB (about 1,200 USD) were seized.
The police announced that the meeting place would be shut down. Wen Yu and four other church co-workers were taken to a local police station. According to an insider source, the police burned all the books that have been seized from the gathering place.
Reported by Shen Xiang
Shen Xiang (uses pseudonyms for security reasons) was born in Hunan Province and is now 35 years old. She is an independent journalist. Ever since childhood, Shen Xiang has had a passion for writing. After graduating from high school, Shen Xiang started writing novels, and her works have been serialized in local literary journals and received critical acclaim. Shen Xiang began writing a commentary column in 2012. In 2017, affected by the Liu Xiaobo incident, She became dedicated to writing various news reports on human rights issues in China. In June 2018, Shen Xiang joined Bitter Winter and became a special correspondent of Bitter Winter covering Hunan Province and other regions in China.