ICC Note:
China Aid has released a report detailing the persecution carried out against Christians by Beijing in 2016. The report notes a “seismic shift” in China’s approach to Christianity which it expects to “lead to further persecution.” One of the keys tenets of this shift is a policy called “Sinicization,” which attempts to bring religious movements under the control of the government. Local governments are tasked to “identify unregistered house churches and coerce them to join the government-monitored Three-Self-Patriotic-Movement by threatening them with forced closure.” The report cites an increase in persecution based on data, with persecution cases increasing 20.2%, detainments increasing 147.6%, arrests increasing 11%, people sentenced increasing 42.6%, and people abused increasing 69.5%. The full report can be found at the following site.
3/6/2017 China (China Aid) – Persecution broke out in China’s northwestern Xinjiang in the days surrounding the Lunar New Year as authorities arrested more than 80 Christians for attending house church meetings and detained six others, China Aid recently learned.
Public security bureaus invaded a network of house churches known as Fangcheng Fellowship in Urumqi, Shawan County, and Kuytun, accused at least 80 Christians of “engaging in religious activities at non-religious sites” in the days leading up to and after the Lunar New Year. They were arrested for refusing to join the state-run Three-Self Church.
Similarly, on Jan. 20, police officers in Wusu, Xinjiang, disturbed a group of Christians at prayer in their church, after they were previously urged to join the Three-Self Church. The officers labeled their gathering illegal and took 10 of them away. Of those imprisoned, the authorities released the elderly, the sick, and those who had previously been arrested. Six women, including Chen Xiangyan and Zhu Xiaohua, were detained for 15 days, beginning on Jan. 25, and fined 1,000 Yuan ($145 USD) for “gathering and praying under the name of Christianity.”
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