• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • TESTIMONIES
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
  • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / News China

Sola Fide Meeting Venue Forced to Dissolve

06/18/2019Ye Ling |

Pressuring to join the state-approved church, authorities installed surveillance cameras and stationed police officers to intimidate the pastor and believers.

Ye Ling

Sola Fide (justification by faith) house churches are increasingly persecuted in China, numerous places of worship being raided and closed down, forcing the members of this conservative Protestant community to flee the country.

A college teacher from Xiamen, a port city in southeastern Fujian Province, is also a Sola Fide pastor who resides in an apartment on the premises of one of the church’s meeting venues. At the end of last year, the police installed two high-definition surveillance cameras in the corridor outside her residence: one aimed at the stairwell of the floor on which she resides and the other directly facing the door to her home.

The gathering venue is monitored by four HD surveillance cameras
HD surveillance cameras were installed to monitor the gathering venue of Sola Fide church.

While under surveillance, members of the congregation had to work their way around the cameras by changing their meeting time and place.

On May 7, the local police installed two more cameras outside the pastor’s residence to enhance the monitoring. One camera was installed around the corner of the stairs on the floor where she lives and the other – on the terrace upstairs. The forcible installation of the cameras not only hindered regular religious activities but also violated the basic privacy of the people.

The pastor posted a comment online: “Let me show the high-level security at my home. The four HD surveillance cameras were installed for free. I’m merely a teacher, yet enjoy such high-level protection. Where is the law?”

Four days later, more than ten police officers set up checkpoints at all doors on the first floor of the building where the meeting venue is located and in the underground garage to inspect ID cards and register the information of every person who enters or exits, using portable devices to verify data accuracy. Afterward, every weekend, the police came to the meeting venue to monitor the movement of people. According to an inside source, every believer whose information was registered received harassing calls from government officials.

Police officers set up checkpoints downstairs to register the ID information
Police officers set up checkpoints downstairs to register the ID information of every person who enters or exists.

Under surveillance and pressure from the police, the believers were forced to disband.

On May 19, the pastor and her husband were at home playing the piano and singing hymns praising the Lord when more than ten officials from the Religious Affairs Bureau and the Public Security Bureau entered their home from the terrace on the top floor and pressured the couple to join the government-controlled Three-Self Church. Despite repeated pressure from the government, the pastor has not compromised to date.

On March 31 this year, Zion Church, a Sola Fide church located in Yongxiu county under the jurisdiction of Jiujiang city in the southeastern province of Jiangxi, was threatened by the Religious Affairs Bureau for refusing to join the Three-Self Church. Officials said that if the church continued to organize gatherings, force would be used to deal with believers. As a result, more than 300 believers were forced to disperse.

Zion Church in Yongxiu county of Jiujiang city
Zion Church in Yongxiu county of Jiujiang city.

In January 2018, authorities used explosives to demolish Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen city in the northern province of Shanxi.

Tagged With: Sola Fide, Surveillance

bw-profile
Ye Ling

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • Xinjiang’s Disability Rights Activist Mistreated in Jail

    Xinjiang’s Disability Rights Activist Mistreated in Jail

  • Falun Gong: Share an App with Friends, Go to Jail for 3 and a Half Years

    Falun Gong: Share an App with Friends, Go to Jail for 3 and a Half Years

  • Chinese LGBT Social Media App Ban Users from Posting Religious Content

    Chinese LGBT Social Media App Ban Users from Posting Religious Content

  • @Pro-CCP: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

    @Pro-CCP: False Pro-China Accounts Invade Twitter in the UK

Keep Reading

  • Tibet: No Religion Allowed in Social Media Short Videos and Webcasts
    Tibet: No Religion Allowed in Social Media Short Videos and Webcasts

    New more restrictive regulations came into force this month.

  • Sola Fide Golden Lampstand Church Leaders Arrested Again in Shanxi
    Sola Fide Golden Lampstand Church Leaders Arrested Again in Shanxi

    They were jailed in 2009 and their church was dynamited in 2018. Their persecution continues.

  • Qianjia Village, Longmenfan Township: Inside the Orwellian World of a “Model Village” in China
    Qianjia Village, Longmenfan Township: Inside the Orwellian World of a “Model Village” in China

    The Jiangxi village won several national awards for having perfectly implemented the total-surveillance grid system—and eradicated “illegal” religion.

  • Kazakhstan: Mass Arrests and Surveillance—With Some Help from China
    Kazakhstan: Mass Arrests and Surveillance—With Some Help from China

    Chinese high-tech equipment plays a significant part in the repression, which also targets those who protested against atrocities in Xinjiang.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

Most Read

  • France Joins China and Russia by Introducing Special Police Techniques Against “Cults” by Massimo Introvigne
  • “Socialist Spiritual Civilization”: The Great Comeback of an Old CCP Concept by Hu Zimo
  • The Fate of Tibet After the Inevitable: A Tibetan Opinion by Ugyen Gyalpo
  • Ngaba Prefecture, Sichuan: Massive Re-Education to Prevent Tibetan Self-Immolations by Lopsang Gurung
  • Wang Hai: Miao Christian Pastor Still Harassed and Investigated by Mo Yuan
  • L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology, and the Visual Arts. 7. The Scientologist as Artist by Massimo Introvigne
  • Mark Fino: No Asylum in Japan for Evangelist Threatened in Bangladesh by Tom Eskildsen

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY