Nearly 50 Shouwang House Church Members Detained on New Year’s Day in Beijing

China Aid Association

(Beijing—Jan. 1, 2012) On the first Sunday of 2012, nearly 50 members of Shouwang Church in Beijing were detained following the church’s decision to continue its outdoor worship services that began in April, ChinaAid has learned.

(File photo: Shouwang senior pastor Jin Tianming preaching at an outdoor worship service on Nov. 1, 2009 during a snowstorm.)

As of 10 p.m. in Beijing, 48 church members were known to have been taken into police custody, of which 30 had been released. The remainder would probably be held overnight. In addition to those who were detained at various police stations across the city, many other church members were kept under house arrest beginning on Friday.

When Shouwang’s leadership made the controversial decision to start worshipping outdoors in early April 2011, they prepared their 1,000 members with weekly service order sheets through the Christmas Day service. During the 38 weeks of outdoor worship services, a total of more than 1000 church members were taken into police custody for periods of hours or several days.

Hoping to end the outdoor worship services as planned, church leaders this week made three attempts to rent indoor facilities, but met with failure due to the interference of Beijing authorities, who ordered landlords not to rent to Shouwang. Shouwang was forced in April 2011 to move its services outdoors when it was evicted from its rented meeting place after authorities prevented the church from taking possession of a floor of an office building it had purchased.

“By arbitrarily detaining peaceful religious believers in the capital city on the first day of 2012, Beijing authorities show that they are determined to continue their crackdown on independent religious groups in the coming year,” said ChinaAid founder and president Bob Fu, a former Beijing house pastor who was imprisoned for his beliefs in Beijing. “In defiance of universal values and in violation of its own laws and Constitution, which guarantees religious freedom, China’s Communist leaders are walking further down the road of the wrong side of history.”

This is a detailed list of the detainees provided by Shouwang Church:

By 10 p.m. today, at least 48 people had been taken away [by police]. Currently, other than those being held at Dajie police station and the two police stations in Haidian district, which are holding larger numbers of people, and also the three police stations in Changping district, all the [detainees held at] other police stations have already been released home. At the police stations [where members are being held], there are brothers and sisters waiting and keeping them company.、艳霞

1. Zhongguancun Street Police Station, Haidian: Ma Rui, Zhong Lin, hg, Auntie Song Fengyun, Dan Yi, Li Ping, Li Ying, PY, gl, lp, NM’s 11 brothers and sisters, Qiang Fu, Yan Xia

2. Haidian Town Police Station, Haidian: Xu Sen, ew’s two brothers and sisters, Zheng Feng, Wang Yihan

3. Baishan Police Station, Changping: Guo Pengcheng

4. Huoying Police Station, Changping: Liu Yao, Liu Xuhua

5. Dongxiaokou Police Station, Changping: Yue Peng, He Guilan, and Qiu Ping and Lin Zhuowen (married)

The following have been released home: Zhang Hui, Liang Xinyu, Shao Renai and Zhang Zhanqun (married), Wang Zhiying, Fang Huimin, Mu Hongyan, Lu Hua, Zhang Qingchun, Wang Yan, Hu Jian, Liu Guibin, Ding Zupan, Wang Liang, Ji Fengyu , Wei Na, Tan Wei, Chen Xiaoyan, Song Ailan, Guo Haiying, Auntie Zhang Junyun, Song Ailan, Zheng Jing, Ye Yandan, Zhang Pengcheng, Brother Zhang, Jin Sheng, Shi Jian, Zeng Le, , Shen Zhiqin (Luu Cen), Hui Su.


China Aid Contacts
Rachel Ritchie, English Media Director
Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.chinaaid.org

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Nearly 50 Shouwang House Church Members Detained on New Year’s Day in Beijing

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