AFP, BEIJING
China has released the founder of an underground church who has been detained since October last year, his church and family said yesterday, after US President Donald Trump raised his case with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Jin Mingri (金明日) is the founder of Zion Church, one of China’s unregistered churches that some Christians choose to worship at instead of state-sanctioned ones regulated by the Chinese government. Jin was detained along with other church members on Oct. 10 last year on “suspicion of the illegal use of information networks.”
Pastor Jin Mingri speaks during an interview in Beijing on Aug. 1, 2018.
Trump raised his case when he visited Xi in May, and had said the Chinese president would “strongly consider” releasing him. On Saturday, rights group ChinaAid said in a statement that Jin had arrived in Los Angeles after being released from detention in China.
The pastor was told by Chinese officials that his release “resulted from discussions between US President Donald J Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and was presented as a goodwill gesture coinciding with America’s Independence Day,” the statement said. “We thank God for this tremendous miracle,” Jin’s daughter, Grace Jin Drexel (金婷雅), said in a statement. “We hope this is a signal of a positive turn for people of faith in China and relations between our two nations.” Her statement thanked Trump and his administration “for their tremendous leadership.” The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was contacted for comment. The Chinese Communist Party has historically regarded organized religion with suspicion, and under Xi, has tightened scrutiny of unofficial groups. Authorities have been cracking down on unregistered churches in the past few months. Last month, an Early Rain Covenant Church service in southwestern Sichuan Province was raided, and two leaders detained. That followed the detention in January of several other leading members of Early Rain. The same week, Yayang church in eastern Zhejiang Province was scaffolded and had its cross removed. Eight of the Zion Church members detained in October last year are still being held, the church said. Zion Church was founded in 2007 in Beijing. It grew to 1,500 members before shuttering in 2018 under pressure from Chinese authorities. The church maintained an online presence that flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a following across 40 Chinese cities. Jin’s family relocated abroad after 2018, but he returned to China to be with the church, afterward facing a travel ban. He has not seen most of his family, including two young sons, for more than seven years, his daughter said last year.
