 |
| Shi Xinhong (top left) studies the Bible with a group of other Christians. (Photo: ChinaAid) |
ChinaAid
(Beijing—March 30, 2017) Two Christian women were administratively detained in Beijing earlier this month, after they had travelled to spread the Gospel and pray over the proceedings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. Both women were later criminally detained after being returned to their separate home provinces.
Shi Xinhong, a Christian from Bengbu, Anhui Province, travelled to the capital with her companion, Zhou Jinxia of Dalian, Liaoning. Zhou, who was not detained by police, told ChinaAid’s reporter that she and Shi entered The Great Hall of the People at approximately 10 a.m. on March 5. The two women were walking separately, and while Zhou made it through, police cut off Shi and took her away.
The next day, Shi received an eight-day administrative detention, charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” She was deported back to Anhui, where she served her administrative detention in the Guzhen County Police Station.
At the end of her administrative detention on March 14, however, rather than being released, she was criminally detained. Her family was not allowed to see her when they went to pick her up and were told that she had been transferred to a different detention center.
The family discovered she was in the Second Detention Center of Bengbu only after Shi was able to borrow a phone and call them from inside. Despite protocols, the detention center itself never issued any kind of notification regarding Shi’s arrival, though they did confirm that she was being held there when asked directly.
Zhou, Shi’s companion in Beijing, said she had heard of another Christian woman from the Jilin Province who was detained at The Great Hall of the People at around the same time as Shi. This Christian was later discovered to be Chang Shulan, a woman Zhou and Shi had met during their time in the nation’s capital.
Chang, much like Shi, was first administratively detained for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” then sent back to Jilin, where she was criminally detained on March 16 rather than being released.
ChinaAid reports on the wrongful detentions of Christians like Shi Xinhong and Chang Shulan in order to expose abuses by the Chinese government against its citizens.
ChinaAid Media Team
Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985
Email: [email protected]
For more information, click here