ICC Note:
A pastor has been given 2.5 years in prison for “divulging state secrets.” Pastor Yang Hua tried to prevent authorities from taking his computer and hard drive during a raid on their house church. He has been detained since December 2015. Pastors and human rights lawyers are often tortured or coerced into “confessing” to invented charges to get them out of the public sphere. It is reported that Pastor Yang was also tortured while in prison by the prosecution. Bob Fu of China Aid said, “This is nothing but purely barbaric religious persecution.”
1/6/2017 China (China Aid) – Yang Hua, a house church pastor who has been detained since Dec. 9, 2015, was sentenced to two years and six months in prison by a court in China’s central Guizhou province today.
Yang Hua, the common pseudonym of Li Guozhi, was accused of “divulging state secrets.” He was originally detained during a raid on his church, Huoshi Church, when he tried to stop police from confiscating a hard drive. The prosecution appointed by the government reportedly tortured him in prison, but were not removed from his case, despite Yang’s lawyers filing a lawsuit against them.
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