{"id":29708,"date":"2023-01-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/csw-yeo.1wp.site\/press\/police-detain-more-ethnic-christians-in-rural-yunnan-5918\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T19:09:00","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T18:09:00","slug":"police-detain-more-ethnic-christians-in-rural-yunnan-5918","status":"publish","type":"press","link":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/press\/police-detain-more-ethnic-christians-in-rural-yunnan-5918\/","title":{"rendered":"Police detain more ethnic Christians in rural Yunnan"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Fugong police in China\u2019s Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan province, took four Christians into custody on 12 January for participating in a Bible study in August 2022.<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five Bible teachers who also attended the meeting have been detained since early August 2022. According to a source familiar with the situation, the teachers include three ethnic Nu men, Wang Shunping, Nu Sangdeng and San Luobo, and two women, Hua Xiuxia and Dong Mengru. All five have been formally charged with \u2018organising and sponsoring an illegal gathering\u2019, which in reality consisted of prayer and free Bible and music lessons for young people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Nu\u2019s younger brother Nu Sangkai, Mr San\u2019s girlfriend Liu Yanlan and two other Christians who participated in the same gathering were subsequently placed under administrative detention by police in Fugong county on 12 January. The grounds for their detention are as yet unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Villages in the Nujiang Grand\u202fCanyon have significant numbers of Protestant Christians, and the area is known as \u201cthe Gospel Valley\u201d due to its rich missionary legacy. The recent detentions are indicative of an increasing crackdown on churches in the area, some of which were established by Western missionaries in the early 20th century. One source told CSW that \u2018it seems that the authorities want to root out the Christian faith\u2019 from the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a document<\/a> dated February 2022, the Policy and Regulation Division of the Yunnan Provincial Ethnic and Religious Commission stated: \u2018Religious issues in Yunnan are intertwined with ethnic and border issues, and there are more hidden problems and emergencies in the religious field.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China\u2019s 2017 Regulations on Religious Affairs<\/a> prohibit preaching in schools but do not prohibit under-18s from entering religious sites. However, the authorities in many provinces, including Guizhou, Hubei<\/a>, Qinghai<\/a>, Shanxi<\/a>, Tibet<\/a> and Yunnan, have issued their own sets of religious regulations which proscribe \u2018organising, inducing or forcing minors to participate in religious activities.\u2019 This effectively renders any religious youth work illegal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The offence of \u2018organising and sponsoring an illegal gathering\u2019, which was added to China\u2019s Criminal Code in 2015, carries a custodial sentence of up to three years. In August 2022, Geng Zejun<\/a>, a preacher from the Rock Church in Shizuishan, Ningxia, was convicted and jailed for one year and three months on this charge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CSW\u2019s Founder President Mervyn Thomas said: \u2018It is alarming to see more people detained for participating in a private Christian gathering, just before the Chinese New Year festivities. CSW calls for the immediate release of all Christians in Yunnan and Ningxia who are currently deprived of their liberty arbitrarily and unjustly. Again, we urge the Chinese authorities to respect the right of all citizens, including children and young people, to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief. China must end the targeting of religious leaders who choose not to register with the government, those who work among ethnic minority communities and those who teach children and youth groups.\u2019<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note to Editors:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n\n
  1. China has been a state party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) since 1992. Article 14 of the UNCRC states that children and young people have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.<\/li>\n\n<\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Fugong police in Chinas Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan province, took four Christians into custody on 12 January for participating in a Bible study in August 2022.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":43844,"template":"","categories":[],"regions":[131,128],"class_list":["post-29708","press","type-press","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","regions-china","regions-east-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/29708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/29708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40292,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press\/29708\/revisions\/40292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29708"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.csw.org.uk\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=29708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}