Christian

A Life in Jail: Shouters Co-worker Repeatedly Detained

Numerous Christians who are locked up in Chinese prisons were arrested and sentenced due to their beliefs only. Among them, Christians belonging to denominations blacklisted by the CCP as xie jiao have received the harshest sentences. The Christian group known as the Shouters, which has a long and complicated history, was banned as a xie jiao in 1983, long before the CCP’s list of the xie jiao was established in 1995. ...

No Christian Couplets for Spring Festival

In China, the New Year has brought nothing new: The Chinese Communist Party is still enforcing political propaganda on believers, even going so far as to insist that Party-worshiping couplets are hung in their private residences. Chinese couplets – a form of Chinese poetry – is a tradition spanning generations when people write their wishes, often on red paper, and hang them on the gates of their homes. Spring Festival couplets are the most common and traditional form to celebrate the Chinese New Year. ...

All Out Effort to Hide China’s Persecution of Religion

On January 30, 2019, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China released their annual report on the working conditions for foreign reporters living in China. The report showed that the journalism environment had worsened in 2018. Reporters stationed in China to gather news had been obstructed, followed, and forced to delete data. Their communication devices had been monitored and wiretapped, and the e-mail passwords of some had been hacked. Some reporters were even deported. Of the foreign reporters in China who were surveyed, more than 40% believed that the reporting environment in China had worsened, compared to 29% in 2016. ...

Persecution of Christians on the rise in Asia

One in every three Christians in Asia are suffering from a “high level” of persecution according to a new report by the UK-based Christian advocacy group Open Doors. Its 2019 Watch List Report ranks North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India among the top 10 where persecution of Christians is “most extreme”. China is on the list at number 27. Some church leaders in China say persecution is at its worst level since the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and 70s. The South China Morning Post speaks to Ron Boyd-Macmillian, director of resarch at Open Doors International. ...