ICC Note:

A Protestant pastor has been detained in China for illegally crossing the border. The pastor is a part of the unofficial China Ministries International network and was doing missionary work and running a school in China. People are often allowed to pass from Myanmar to China and back unofficially. Recent fighting with ethnic groups in Myanmar, however, has led to a crackdown by the Chinese government on illegal border crossings. Although the pastor had been working for years in China unofficially, he was detained on March 4th and is being charged with “organizing illegal border crossings.”

4/5/2017 China (Radio Free Asia) – Authorities in the southwestern Chinese province of Yunnan on Tuesday criminally detained a pastor from an unofficial Protestant organization on illegal immigration charges.

Cao Sanqiang, of the “house church” network China Ministries International, was formally detained by police in Yunnan’s Menglian county on charges of “organizing the illegal crossing of a national border.”

He is currently being held in the Menglian Detention Center, according to a fellow pastor who carries out missionary work across the border in northern Myanmar’s Wa state.

“A colleague told me that he was initially charged with personally crossing a border illegally, but that now he is being charged with organizing illegal border crossings,” the pastor said.

“We will file a lawsuit about this; we have already hired a lawyer,” he said.

Cao had been engaged in missionary and poverty relief work across the border in northern Myanmar, until his work was disrupted by recent military conflict in the region, the pastor said.

…