Chinese police detain Christians as dispute spills into Easter

Apr 24, 2011, Malaysian Insider

BEIJING, April 24 — Chinese police detained

dozens of Christians today who were trying to converge at the site

of a banned Easter service.

While Easter services for tens of millions of Christians across China

mostly went ahead unhindered, police led away people trying to

gather in northwest Beijing, where the Shouwang Church had called

for outdoor services after it was evicted from its rented premises

during a clampdown on dissent.

Leaders of the Shouwang Church have said they have no political

agenda and want only to find a permanent place to worship for its

1,000 or so members, who refuse to accept official demands that

churches come under the direct oversight of Communist Party

authorities.

The contention over religious rights that began early this month

continued when police officers shunted dozens of people, many of

them young adults, onto buses as they turned up near the walkway

where the church had said it would pray todays.

A dozen or so people herded onto one bus appeared to be singing

hymns. Police and plain clothes guards patrolling the area in Beijing’s

 Zhongguancun district prevented reporters from approaching the

detainees, who mostly did not appear to resist detention.

In past years, the Chinese government has relaxed some restrictions

on “house” churches that refuse Party oversight, and many members

of these churches are watching the Shouwang dispute to see if it marks

a fresh tightening, said Wang Yi, a leader of one such church in southwest

China.

“The Shouwang Church has gone further than most in wanting to emerge

from being a house church to being a fully open church with its own

premises, so in that sense it stands out from smaller churches, but it is

also a test of what may come,” Wang said in a telephone interview.

“The Shouwang Church represents a trend that many house churches

will faces as they grow, so what happens to it could have an impact on

churches in many areas, and it’s being watched closely.”

Wang said that his house church in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan

province, was able to worship unhindered on Easter, a major

celebration in the Christian calendar when scripture says Jesus rose

from the dead.

A member of the Shouwang Church, who asked not to be identified

for fear of recrimination, said a dozen or so of its leaders were under

house arrest or had been detained, and many ordinary members had

chosen to pray privately or in small groups. Shouwang means “watch

 tower”.

Dissidents detained

Yesterday, Chinese police also detained Zhang Mingxuan, a Beijing

pastor who is president of the Chinese House Church Alliance, said

Bob Fu of the China Aid Association, a Texas-based group critical of

China’s controls on religion.

Chinese officials blocked planned Easter services by two large “house”

 churches in the southern city of Guangzhou, Fu also said in a telephone

interview.

The church dispute has come while the Chinese government seeks

to ward off any attempts by would-be protesters to take up calls for a

“Jasmine Revolution” inspired by anti-authoritarian uprisings across the

 Arab world.

Alarmed by such calls, Chinese authorities detained many dozens, if

not hundreds, of dissidents, human rights activists and persistent

protesters. Many remain in custody, including the well-known artist

Ai Weiwei, who officials have said is suspected of “economic crimes”,

 a charge his family rejects.

On Thursday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told

reporters that the Shouwang Church was “an organisation with no legal

basis”.

The eviction is the latest chapter in a series of disputes over the church,

 which started out in a rented apartment in 1993. It had been worshipping

todays in a rented restaurant until the landlord ended the agreement,

which church members blamed on official pressure.

Estimates of how many Chinese people are Christian vary widely,

especially because many of them are members of Protestant or Catholic

congregations that shun Party oversight.

Surveys in recent years have concluded that, in all, there could be about 40

million Protests and 14 million Catholics.

The Catholic church in China is divided between a government-recognised

side that curtails the Pope’s authority to ordain bishops and manage church

affairs, and an “underground” side that refuses to accept government controls.

Pope Benedict has been encouraging reconciliation between the two sides

of the Chinese church and exploring establishing formal ties with Beijing.

But this month, the Vatican said bishops installed in China without papal

blessing were a “grave wound” on the entire church. — Reuters