Church in Chains, 31 August 2022 (excerpts)

On Sunday 14 August, at least twenty Chengdu police officers raided a gathering of between fifty and sixty members of Early Rain Covenant Church (ERCC) at a tea house in Chengdu’s Wuhou district and arrested Christian writer and translator Xing Hongwei, also known as A Xin.

ERCC is one of the most prominent unregistered house churches in China and has been heavily persecuted since a crackdown in 2018 when police detained over 150 members and closed down the church premises.  Its pastor, former law professor Wang Yi, is serving a nine-year prison sentence.

Police announced that the church gathering at the tea house was illegal and locked the doors, refusing to let anyone leave until they registered their ID – a demand that was without legal basis.  Xing Hongwei resisted and the situation escalated into what China Aid described as “a physical altercation”.

A Christian named Li told Radio Free Asia, “Xing Hongwei was slapped by police.  Police then pressed Xing Hongwei onto the ground and forcibly took him away… Later, we learned that he was criminally detained on the charge of ‘assaulting a police officer’”.

On 26 August, Xing Hongwei was released on bail pending trial, following 12 days in criminal detention.  His wife and other members of Early Rain met him at the Police Station and had a celebratory dinner together after his release.

Church in Chains, 04 August 2022 (excerpts)

On 13 July, Jumla High Court sentenced Pastor Keshav Raj Acharya of Pokhara city’s Abundant Harvest Church to one year in prison and a fine for proselytising.

The pastor was first detained in March 2020, released on bail the following month, but re-arrested the same day and charged with “outraging religious feelings” and “attempting to convert” under Nepal’s anti-conversion laws.

He was bailed in May 2020 but arrested a third time and released on bail in June of that year.  In November 2021, he was found guilty of proselytising (the first person convicted for proselytising under the anti-conversion laws of August 2018) and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and a fine.  He was imprisoned until bail was granted in December.

In June 2022, Pokhara District Court in Kaski dropped all charges against Pastor Keshav, meaning that the High Court’s decision last month to sentence him to one year in prison came as a shock to his family.  

Joseph Jansen of Voice for Justice, said: “It is illegal and unethical to compel someone to change their faith by threat or coercion; however, Pastor Keshav Acharya did not resort to coercion to convert anyone to Christianity.  He only exercised his right to freedom of religion and did not commit any offence.  It is regrettable that Nepal’s anti-conversion laws are so worded and enforced that they may be applied as anti-blasphemy measures.”

Pastor Keshav’s lawyer is applying for bail and is appealing the verdict at the Supreme Court, citing Nepal’s constitution and international law commitments.

Open Doors, 10 August 2022 (excerpts)

North Korea has long been recognised as one of the hardest places in the world to follow Jesus, where Christians face almost unimaginable suffering if their faith is discovered.  A new report confirms this.

An inquiry by The International Bar Association and The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea found that ‘crimes against humanity have been, and continue to be, committed on a massive scale’ in North Korea’s detention centres.  And Christians are particularly targeted, and exposed to torture, in North Korean prisons.’

Prisons in North Korea are an extension of a political structure that aims to eliminate any threat to the country’s leadership and state ideology.  Believing in a higher power than the Kim family is considered such a threat, so anyone who follows Jesus, or even owns a Bible, is vulnerable to indefinite imprisonment in appalling conditions.

“One detainee estimated that between 50-60% of their fellow detainees had attended some form of Christian service in China.”

Christians who have escaped to China, or became Christians after fleeing North Korea, may be targeted by secret police and returned to North Korean prisons.  Witnesses have reported that ‘identified Christians are interrogated for longer periods, usually under torture’.

“The State considers the spread of Christianity a particularly serious threat, ideologically challenging the official personality cult and providing a platform for social and political organisation outside the realm of the State,” a 2014 UN report on human rights in North Korea said.

Forum 18, 05 August 2022 (excerpts)

Without facilities at Gomel’s Living Faith Church, Pastor Dmitry Podlobko held river baptisms in late 2021 without state permission.  He was fined 2 days’ average wage and his Church warned.  So he held baptisms in July 2022 in his garden.  A court fined him 2 weeks’ average wage. Asked whether Podlobko would have been punished had he and his friends been swimming, Police Chief Vasili Kravtsov responded: “They weren’t swimming in the pool. This was a religious ritual.  They are completely different.”

Kravtsov insisted that he had violated the law. “Before conducting any religious rituals you need to ask permission from the local Executive Committee.”  Such permission is often refused for events the authorities do not like.

Living Faith Church says it cannot afford such high costs. So after being punished for holding baptisms in 2021 in a river, Pastor Podlobko decided to hold baptisms in 2022 on private property but was fined anyway.

If a religious community repeats a “violation” within a year, the regime’s senior religious affairs official can apply to court for the community to be stripped of its right to exist.  Many such decisions cannot be legally challenged.

On 1 August 2022, Minsk City Executive Committee officially warned New Life Church that it had broken the law by holding Sunday services in the church car park on 26 June and 24 July without official permission.

Morning Star News, 25 July 2022 (excerpts)

Severe persecution of Hmong Christians is underway in the central Vietnam province of Nghe An where officials, vying with each other to create “Christian-free zones”, operate “with no conscience or humanity”. 

Authorities pressure animist relatives to drive Christians from their homes.  In the worst cases, villagers are pressured into seizing all the Christians’ property and driving them out of their community.  Officials say these outrages are purely family matters. 

Most Christians steadfastly refuse to give up their new-found faith, which they testify has freed them from the demonic oppression of their ancestral religion. 

Church leaders’ attempts to visit the persecuted have been blocked, and they have received no response from any government agency.

Such suffering, quietly going on for years, has hit mainly members of the not-yet-legally recognized Vietnam Good News Mission Church and the officially recognized Evangelical Church of Vietnam-North.

 Nghe An Province is the birthplace of Ho Chi Minh and thus proudly considered the cradle of the communist revolution.  Officials compete for the honour of calling their jurisdiction “a Christian-free zone.”

The refusal of any Vietnamese authority to intervene is inexcusable and argues for embarrassing exposure and international accountability.