He has been detained for more than three years without being sentenced. He suffers from liver cirrhosis and should be released immediately.
by Qi Junzao
“Bitter Winter” repeatedly reported on the persecution of Renai Reformed Church, a house church in Guiyang, a prefecture-level city with a population of 4.7 million and the capital of the south-western Guizhou province. The church’s elder, Zhang Chunlei, was detained on March 16, 2021. He had been one of the signatories of the document against the 2018 Regulations on Religious Affairs drafted by Pastor Wang Yi, of Chengdu’s Early Rain Covenant Church, who is also in jail.
He was formally arrested and committed to trial for the nebulous charges of “fraud and inciting subversion of state power,” frequently used against house churches. His case went to trial on November 29, 2022. Then “something” happened. Months passed and the verdict was never announced. His wife Yang Aiqing has repeatedly been turned down when she tried to obtain information.
She reports that on June 4 Zhang’s lawyer was finally allowed to inspect the case file, but some pieces are “mysteriously” missing. Sister Yang is now launching an appeal for her husband.
When he entered jail, Zhang was a healthy man. However, he developed cholecystitis while detained and had to be hospitalized in August 2023, receiving intravenous support for more than twenty days. He ended up being diagnosed with liver cirrhosis. Nonetheless, he was sent back to jail, where according to Sister Yang his very survival is endangered. He needs to be properly treated outside of prison.
Sister Yang, while asking human rights organizations to call for her husband’s immediate release, reports that he wants his co-religionists in the Renai Reformed Church “to be happy and not to be ashamed of his imprisonment, and to know that it is a great honor for a church elder to be imprisoned for the Lord.”
Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.
