Source: Direct Reports from China
Date: June 18, 2018
Ten house church members were arrested on March 2, in Shandong Province’s Qihe County, the city of Dezhou, and are still kept in detention for more than three months after their arrest.The day of the arrest was China’s Lantern Festival holiday – the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrated on the fifteenth of the first month in the lunar calendar. Among the arrested was Wang Qinglian (pseudonym), a 46-year-old house church member who was in a gathering with other Christians, when the county’s National Security Brigade officers burst into the room. Without allowing anyone to say a word, the officers arrested ten Christians and took them to the Dezhou detention facilities.
Wang Qinglian’s family informed Bitter Winter that since her arrest, her already sick husband’s condition has aggravated, almost incapacitating him. The heavy burden of caring for the home has fallen upon Wang Qinglian’s 80-year-old mother. Wang Qinglian’s two young daughters tried to meet their mother at the detention center, but the police refused, so the girls returned home in tears.
It has been over three months since the police arrested Wang Qinglian, and her family has not received any information about her condition or has been able to visit her. They have only been notified that after the arrest, Wang Qinglian’s international permit has been revoked since she had previously gone to Taiwan for a religious meeting.
