Chinese authorities have arrested a Protestant pastor on charges of “illegal business operations” weeks after he and several church members were detained amid the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdowns on unregistered Christian activity across the country.
Pastor Huang Yizi was informed of his formal arrest this week, more than a month after he and four others were taken into custody by Pingyang Public Security officials on June 26, the U.K.-based group Christian Solidarity Worldwide reported.
The group, comprising church members from Ningbo, Quzhou and Taizhou, all in Zhejiang Province, was placed under administrative detention the following day.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.
Two of the five were released on bail last Friday, while the remaining three, including Huang, remain in custody.
The charges against the other detainees have not been made public. A sixth church member was detained on July 17 and remains in custody.
Under China’s Criminal Procedure Law, public security officials are required to submit a request for formal arrest to the procuratorate within 30 days of detention.
Huang’s representative believed the case was transferred for review on July 25, the last permissible day for detention without formal charges. However, the representative discovered that Huang’s arrest had already been approved and posted on the Supreme People’s Procuratorate of China’s website on the same day.
The pastor was officially informed of the arrest on Wednesday and was told that the review had been completed on Monday and the arrest granted on Tuesday. His representative told CSW that the speed of the process raised concerns about the depth of the review and the lack of official documentation.
Huang had previously been detained in 2014 for protesting the demolition of church crosses in Wenzhou and served a one-year prison term. Less than a month after his release, he was detained again on Sept. 12, 2015, on charges of “endangering national security” and held for nearly five months in a designated residential surveillance location. Before the demolitions, his church had operated as a state-approved Three-Self Patriotic Movement church.
The Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Group accused authorities of using broad and ambiguous charges, such as “illegal business operations,” to detain religious figures. They said the act of recording and distributing sermons falls within constitutionally protected expressions of religious belief.
Separately, in April, nine Christians were convicted in Inner Mongolia for reselling legally published Bibles through an unregistered house church. Sentences ranged from one year to nearly five years, with fines reaching as high as 1 million yuan ($137,000), Bitter Winter reported.
All nine individuals were convicted on the same charge used against Pastor Huang.
Earlier this year, the Chinese Communist Party also announced new rules banning foreign missionaries from establishing religious organizations or preaching without authorization. The regulations, effective May 1, prohibit foreign nationals from founding religious schools, producing or selling religious material, or recruiting Chinese citizens as followers.
Mission News Network reported that foreign clergy may only preach if officially invited by state-recognized religious bodies, and their messages must be pre-approved by authorities.
