(China – November 8, 2024) Recently, China’s national security agents have been acting like Gestapo officers, infiltrating and monitoring every detail of Chinese citizens’ lives.
Police Intrusion and Ongoing Harassment against House Churches
On October 30, 2024, at around 8:30 AM, while a brother from the Linfen Holy Covenant Church was reading the Bible and praying with his family, a group of police suddenly knocked on the door urgently. When asked to show their police credentials, an officer went downstairs to retrieve one, claiming that the person named Li Hui on the ID was their supervisor. This inconsistency between the person and the ID constitutes illegal law enforcement – police credentials should be carried personally, how can one use someone else’s credentials to enforce the law? None of the officers present matched the photo on the ID, and it was unclear who the person on the ID actually was or whether the ID was expired. Without a search warrant, police from Linfen Public Security, carrying only law enforcement recording equipment, forcibly entered the brother’s home and recorded the family members’ ID numbers. These police brought tremendous fear to the family, especially traumatizing the children, causing them to develop a fear of Chinese police from an early age.
The Linfen Holy Covenant Church in Shanxi has been continuously harassed by police. Two church ministers, brothers Li Jie and Han Xiaodong, have been detained at the Yaodu District Detention Center for over 800 days, with the court neither proceeding with trial nor releasing them.
China’s Constitution and Hypocrisy on Religious Freedom
This severely violates the Constitution and laws of the People’s Republic of China. There are time limits for detaining suspects; suspects cannot be detained indefinitely. After 800+ days, the court’s failure to proceed with trial can only indicate one thing – the police simply cannot gather valid evidence. The judges fear losing face if prosecutors cannot present convincing evidence during trial. Therefore, they can only continue to detain Li Jie and Han Xiaodong indefinitely and shamelessly. In fact, there is a good and simple legal solution to handle this case – at minimum, release them on bail pending trial. This would both protect Li Jie and Han Xiaodong’s rights and health while reducing the state’s burden.
China’s Constitution explicitly guarantees citizens’ freedom of religious belief. However, police and courts constantly add restrictive clauses to this freedom. Christians’ faith is free, and Christians reading the Bible, praying, and worshiping God in their own homes is legal and a personal matter – why should the government arbitrarily interfere with citizens’ private lives? Therefore, the Linfen police’s intrusion into believers’ homes is already a serious violation of law and religious persecution against Christians.
The Escalating Issue of Arbitrary Police Raids
Chinese police arbitrarily entering citizens’ homes is becoming increasingly common. Recently, a family in Guangdong was raided by over ten police officers in the middle of the night simply for having an Israeli flag hanging on their wall. These officers were not in uniform and showed no search warrant when they directly broke into the home. When asked why they entered, the plainclothes officers provided no explanation, only saying someone had reported them and they were conducting a search. How is it the state’s business if a citizen hangs another country’s flag in their home? This family had just traveled to Israel and bought an Israeli flag as a souvenir – what law does that violate? These Gestapo-like officers even pushed the female homeowner to the ground, behaving very brutally.
The Continuous Surveillance and Harassment of Pastors
Pastor Chang Hao was administratively detained for 12 days simply for gathering with forty elderly people on October 15. Upon release, he could not immediately return home but was forcibly taken for “talks” and threats by the national security agents and staff of the Religious Affairs Bureau. When he returned home, he found surveillance equipment installed on three utility poles outside his home, monitoring him and his family from all angles.
According to Pastor John Cao, after his release in March this year, he discovered surveillance equipment had been installed at both his home and his mother’s home to monitor him. Although he has served seven years of wrongful imprisonment, the government continues to persecute him. It took him nearly seven months and two lawyers to obtain his ID card, while ordinary people can get one in seven days. Now he can only live and move around in his hometown of Changsha. If he wants to travel, he must report to public security organs, and police officers must accompany him to monitor his journey before he can proceed.
Today’s Chinese police are like roaming lions, and citizens have no right to privacy.
