Chinese police have arrested eleven people – many of them elderly and infirm – during a house church gathering at a teahouse in Chengdu.
The incident on10 September follows years of targeted pressure on Early Rain Covenant, a prominent house church network in China. Those gathered at the teahouse for a small reading meeting are from the Enci Fellowship, an offshoot of the network. Police said there was an “investigation into a cult”.
According to Christian persecution watchdog China Aid, most of those detained are in their 60s and 70s and suffer with chronic health conditions. A church member managed to persuade police to allow some warm clothing to be delivered to them, given the cooler temperatures in Chengdu.
Nine of those detained have been released. However, Elder Wu Wuqing and Brother Shen Xiaoqing remain held having been sentenced to ten days’ administrative detention and fined for “illegally organising proselytising activities”.
Rev Dr Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, said this latest incident contributes to Chinese Communist Party’s “war against religious freedom”.
The Early Rain Covenant network has been targeted with raids, arrests and fines repeatedly since 2018, when there was a tightening of religious laws in China.
Earlier this year, in January, several of its members were charged with “inciting subversion of state power” and “organising illegal gatherings”. In June, 32 people were held after a mass police operation interrupted a meal gathering of more than 100 church members and children.
