August 22 1999

Over thirty Protestant House Church leaders were arrested by the local Public Security Bureau during the afternoon of Monday 23rd August as they met in a believer's home west of Tanghe, a county seat in Southwestern Henan Province, to receive teaching on prayer.

This incident is seen as particularly serious as National Security officers were also involved in the arrests and interrogation.

According to local believers, the government regards the house church leaders as leaders of cults.

Thus the arrests were carried out in pursuit of the clampdown on "illegal religious cults" following the campaign against the Falun Gong group.

The tight security in the run up to the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic of China on 1st October is also increasing pressure within the country.

The believers had travelled from various churches.

The names and churches of those who were present which are known are as follows: Seven believers were from the Fangcheng church, in Henan: ZHANG Rongliang, GAO Guofu, GANG Jinliang, WANG Guiqing, YANG Yuhuan, DING Shuying, ZHANG Shuhong and WANG Yanze.

Seven were from the Tanghe church in Henan: SHEN Yiping, ZHANG Shuqian, FENG Jianguo, WANG Changsheng, XIU

Yongqi, LIU Hua and LIU Yu; Four believers had come from Lixin Church in Anhui Province: ZHAO Chunshun, SUN Zheguo, JIANG Wenxiang, LIU Wanlin.

Three were from other parts of Anhui Province: ZHAN He, CHEN Yaofu, XU Changhua and two were from the Lushan Church in Henan: WANG Xincai and his wife.

One of those arrested, Wang Xincai, had been released from Labour Reform Camp only four days prior to this arrest after serving two and a half years in detention since his arrest on 16th March 1997.

He and his wife had travelled to attend this meeting in order to renew fellowship with other church leaders after his release.

He had previously been arrested along with a number of other key house church leaders, including Peter Xu Yongze, China's most prominent underground Protestant leader, who is still serving a sentence in Labour Reform Camp.

In addition to the thirty leaders, a woman driver was detained, but it is reported that her release can be secured upon payment of 10,000 RMB.

However, there is no suggestion that there is any possibility of securing the release of the other detainees through similar payments.

Families and friends of those detained are appealing to Christian churches worldwide to pray for the detainees and to appeal to the Chinese authorities for their early release.

The incident demonstrates the restrictions facing religious believers in China. Although it is estimated that there are around 50-80 million house church believers, in contrast to the 10 million in the official Protestant church, the government continues to refuse to acknowledge the validity of the house churches and to classify them as cults rather than mainstream Christians.

This is in spite of the fact that its atheist stance clearly disqualifies it from making theological judgement of correct doctrine.

CSW's International Advocacy Consultant stated: "These arrests are very worrying as we see a renewed effort by the Chinese authorities to target religious believers. House Church Christians generally have a commitment to high morals and honesty but have no interest in politics.

Yet the government continues to pursue them as if they were violent criminals.

It is time that the authorities finally recognise the legitimacy of the House Church, respect the members' internationally recognised right to practice their belief and cease arresting, detaining and mistreating believers for peacefully following their religion." For further information, please contact the CSW Geneva Office on 0041 76 383 6611