The Chinese leadership’s repression of Christians who refuse to join
religious organisations controlled and run by the Communist Party shows
no sign of stopping. This is despite the promises of greater freedom announced by the new leadership at the end of the Party’s Congress, to be examined in the coming months.
Meanwhile, repression, which becomes more severe and widespread the further one gets from the big cities and areas with a strong media presence, continues.
Recently there was a story in the news about nine Christians living in Inner Mongolia, who offered medical help to countrymen living in rural areas.
They were arrested by the police, their medical equipment was confiscated and after a hurried trial two of them were sentenced to a period of hard labour in a labour camp.
Last July, six Christian Evangelicals left the city of Tongliao in Inner Mongolia and headed for rural areas of the autonomous region, stopping off in a number of small towns: Jarud Banner, Tuquan County in Hinggan League, and in the village of Shumugou, in Alide Sumu, in Horqin Right Front Banner. They provided free healthcare services in all these areas and carried out evangelisation work among those who were being treated.
On 1 August, they were in the village of Zhongxinbu, Shumogou, treating the sick. In the afternoon a local resident came to warn them that the police may be paying a visit and advised them to leave immediately, which they did. But on their way back home, they were stopped by Public Security office agents who arrested them and confiscated their truck, the medical equipment, including an EKG machine, and a laptop.
Some but not all of the families of the arrested parties were informed that the latter were being accused of “illegal evangelisation”. Authorities said they were particularly concerned that worship activities were being used as a means to interfere with the law.
Those arrested included two men from Tongliao, Chen Hong and Yinhua; a woman from Ulanhot, Sun Yuefen; a woman from the province of Heilongjiang, Ren Zhimin; Liu Di, a member of the Herbal Medical College and Pan Wenwen, a member of the Changchun Medical School.
On 1 September this year, the Re-education through labour Committee handed down its sentence, condemning the two women, Sun and Ren to two years of re-education in a labour camp. Straight after the sentence was announced, authorities carried out a raid, rounding up a number of individuals accused of being linked to the evangelisation effort.
The case came to the attention of China Aid - an organisation that deals with Christians in China - which is asking China’s new leadership to respect people’s legal right to freedom of religious worship and to abandon the previous regime’s system which showed not respect for human rights or religious freedom.
Zhang Wei, a distinguished Christian lawyer in Beijing, along with various other local lawyers are following the case and have asked for a review of the charges brought against six of the raid’s main victims.