Leaders of Early Rain church detained in Sichuan, church says

Leaders of the Early Rain Covenant Church were detained in Deyang, Sichuan, the church said, in what it described as part of a wider crackdown on unregistered Christian groups. On Tuesday, Li Yingqiang, the church’s leader, was taken by police from his home, the statement said. Li’s wife, Zhang Xinyue, and two other members, pastor Dai Zhichao and lay member Ye Fenghua, were also detained; at least four others were taken and later released and some members remain out of contact.

The detentions follow the arrest of 18 senior members of Zion Church in a nationwide sweep in October and reports that about 100 members of another unofficial church in Zhejiang were detained in December, according to Human Rights Watch. Yalkun Uluyol, the China researcher at the rights NGO, said the recent detentions “appear to be part of the Chinese government’s blatant attack on house churches in China.” One Early Rain member was summoned on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a catch-all offence, the church said.

Early Rain, one of China’s best-known house churches, was founded by Wang Yi, a legal scholar jailed for nine years in 2019 for inciting subversion of state power. The church and others moved to online sermons and private meetings after a 2018 crackdown; in September China introduced rules banning unlicensed religious groups from holding online sermons and President Xi urged the “sinicisation of religions”, the reporting said.

Key Topics

World, Li Yingqiang, Zhang Xinyue, Deyang, Sichuan, Zion Church