Source: ChinaAid
Date: June 1, 2018
Armed police officers forcibly ended a church service on Sunday at Huoshui Church in China’s northern Gansu Province, accusing congregants of illegal religious activities, reports ChinaAid.
Over forty officers together with officials from the local department of religious affairs and the neighborhood committee burst into the church, disrupted the service and took away Pastor Qian Rou, along with three other preachers and three church directors, to the police station for questioning. The disruptors also took the offering box, podium, and numerous works of calligraphy.
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).
