China officially arrests 18 underground Zion Church leaders
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Chinese authorities were officially arrested 18 leaders of a large underground church, paving the way for prosecution and prison sentences of up to three years.
According to Reuters, which reported the arrests on Wednesday citing a Christian NGO advocate, nearly 30 pastors and staff members belonging to Zion Church were arrested by police in mid-October in the biggest crackdown on Chinese Christians in seven years.
ChinaAid, a Christian non-profit human rights organization, said in a statement that the leaders were arrested on “politically motivated charges.”
“These pastors and colleagues are being treated like criminals simply because they faithfully led a large, legally unregistered church that refused to submit to the CCP’s control and surveillance,” the statement read in part.
CHINA PROVINCE FORCES PEOPLE OF FAITH TO REGISTER ON “SMART RELIGION” APP FOR WORSHIP
Christians attend a religious service at Zion Church in Beijing, China, April 6, 2008. (Jos+¼ M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Chinese pastor of underground church, father of US citizens, detained by authorities, family says
Dr. Bob Fu, the organization’s founder and president, called the arrests of the pastors and staff members “a chilling milestone in the CCP’s all-out war against Christianity in China.”
“Their only ‘crime’ is preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, shepherding God’s flock and refusing to make the Church of Christ a propaganda tool of the Communist Party,” he added. “By turning pastors into political prisoners, the CCP is not only persecuting these individuals and their families: it is sending a warning to all independent churches in China: submit to Party control or risk destruction.
Jin Mingri, senior pastor of Zion Church, poses in Beijing on September 12, 2018, days after authorities closed one of China’s largest underground Protestant churches. (Fred Dufour/AFP via Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Secretary of State Marco Rubio denounced the detentions members of the Zion Church in October and called on the Chinese government to release them.
Open Doors, an international organization that supports persecuted believers, estimates there are more than 96 million Christians in China.
