The police in Henan arrested six house church Christians and posted information about one of them online, blatantly violating her right to privacy.
On August 15, six police officers from a police station in Luoyang city raided the home of a house church Christian Wang Shiye (pseudonym) and arrested her on the grounds that “believing in God is anti-governmental.” Five other believers from the same church were also arrested the same day.
Wang Shiye was escorted to a police station for interrogation, which proved fruitless. She was summoned back on August 22 and threatened to divulge information about her church. Since Ms. Wang refused to provide such information, she was detained for five days on suspicion of participating in a xie jiao organization (heterodox teachings), which is punishable by imprisonment according to the Criminal Code.
The police exposed the details of Wang Shiye’s arrest on social network WeChat the next day. On paper, Chinese legislature guarantees the right to privacy: article 80 of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Penalties for Administration of Public Security stipulates that “When public security organs and the people’s police deal with cases of public security, which involve State secret, commercial secret or individual privacy, they shall keep the secret.” However, in this particular case, authorities disclosed private information about Ms. Wang and, thus, violated her rights and ignored the law.
On August 27, Wang Shiye was released. Because the information about her arrest has been publicized, she was reproached and slandered by her friends, relatives, and neighbors upon returning home; and her reputation has been damaged.
Reported by Jiang Tao
