RFA reported that police attacked the Changchun Sunshine Reformed church on Sunday, August 21st, during a ceremony. Police arrested three people, including the pastor of Jilin Province’s church.
According to Apollo News, police entered and interrupted the service, depriving people of their right to religious freedom. As a result, two female congregation members had a heart attack and lay on the ground waiting for an ambulance.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the power ruling China, adores atheism. According to RFA, the CCP always “exercises tight control over any form of religious practice among its citizens.”
Nominally, the CCP allows religious activities to take place but only under their control. As a result, many Catholic churches have chosen not to participate in CCP-administered religious organizations. Such churches are called “private churches.”
A member of the Sunshine Reformed church told Da Ji Yuan that most private churches do not have a fixed place to organize religious activities. They are under constant attack by the police and the CCP’s Bureau of Religious Affairs.
This religious persecution event took place while the CCP was in the final stages of preparation for its 20th Congress, which is considered the final battle between factions in the CCP to seize power for the next five-year term.
The church member added that the CCP’s 20th Congress is approaching, so organizations or individuals the CCP thinks can threaten their power in this sensitive time are suppressed. That is why the movements of democracy, human rights activists, petitioners, and religions are so repressed that there is “nowhere left to exist.”
In related developments, on August 20th, Linfen Church in Shanxi was attacked by local police, and many church members were arrested.
According to RFA’s report on August 15th, about 30 uniformed officers and plainclothes state security police raided a gathering of Early Rain Covenant Church members in Chengdu, Sichuan’s capital.
The gathering included 50 people accused of holding an “illegal gathering” at a teahouse.
