Three leaders from the Linfen Covenant Home Church in China’s northern Shanxi Province received prison sentences on 20 June. Pastor Li Jie and Elder Han Xiaodong were each sentenced to three years and eight months in prison, and Elder Wang Qiang was sentenced to one year and 11 months, all on unfounded charges of ‘fraud.’
Li and Han were detained in August 2022 during a church summer retreat at a national park a two-hour drive from Linfen, while Wang was detained on 1 November 2022, reportedly because he refused to give false evidence against Li and Han.
Though the three were formally charged with forming a criminal ‘clique’ and obtaining ‘illegal income’ in June 2023, the trial did not begin until 8 May 2025 amid heavy security, phone warnings to church members, and the removal of Li Jie’s wife, mother, and two children by special officers from the court entrance. In April Han’s wife reported that she and Li’s wife were experiencing intimidation and harassment from the authorities.
The verdict was delivered on 20 June behind closed doors after the three defendants were reportedly seen being dragged into a vehicle outside Linfen’s Yaodu District Court where the sentencing was expected to take place. CSW sources report that the defendants’ lawyers had been promised that the sentences against Li and Han would not exceed three years on the condition that they agreed to enter the court without their personal laptops or phones and after security checks, however ultimately the sentences exceeded those expected.
Wang had previously been released into ‘Residential Surveillance in a Designated Location’ (RSDL, a type of incommunicado detention that has been recognised by the UN as a form of enforced disappearance) on 30 September 2024, and later released on bail on 28 March 2025. CSW sources confirmed that his sentence reflects the time already served and that he will not be returned to prison.
In response to the sentencing, the leaders’ church issued a statement condemning the verdict as unjust, asserting that their church is an unregistered ‘house church’ upholding the principle of the separation of church and state. The statement also emphasises that the collection of offerings is not fraudulent as it is a practice in accordance with established biblical principles. Their statement expressed similar position to that of an open statement published by a group of human rights lawyers and activists in December 2024, which challenged the criminalisation of offerings of house churches.
Also on 20 June, verdicts were issued to a group of defendants from another church in Linfen, Golden Lampstand Church. Members of the church had been subjected to multiple arrests since August 2021, and ten leaders were ultimately tried in April 2025 and sentenced to prison terms ranging up to nine years and two months, all on similar accusations of fraud related to tithes and offerings.
CSW’s Founder President Mervyn Thomas said: ‘The recent sentencing of members and leaders of Linfen Covenant Home Church and Golden Lampstand Church highlights once again how easily China’s complex judicial system and processes can be manipulated. Throughout both cases, trials were held behind closed doors, lawyers were barred from bringing essential devices into court, and hearings took place without proper legal representation, raising serious questions about the integrity of China’s judicial process. CSW condemns these unjust sentences and China’s criminalisation of freedom of religion or belief. We call on the Chinese authorities to immediately overturn the sentences and to ensure transparent, fair and open legal proceedings hence forth.’