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Arrested after Sunday services, an influential congregation had refused orders to install government surveillance cameras.
Image: Saint Charles Institute
Beijing authorities threatened to close the Zion Church last month after the 1,500-member congregation, one of the largest churches in the Chinese capital, refused to install surveillance cameras in its sanctuary.
After Sunday's services, officials announced their threat to the unofficial Protestant congregation, which is meeting in a refurbished room in North Beijing. Sion is now banned and his equipment confiscated, reports Reuters.
"On Sunday, the Chaoyang District Civil Affairs Bureau in Beijing said that by organizing events without registering, the church violated the rules banning mass gatherings and was now legally prohibited and its promotional material illegal, citing images of the notice and confirmation by the faithful.
"I'm afraid there is no way to solve this problem with the authorities," Zion's pastor Jin "Ezra" Mingri told Reuters.
ChinaAid reports that Zion, the bigger The house church in Beijing "decided not to be swayed by the ban and keep the services out." The strategy echoes the reaction of another Peking church, Shouwang, in 2011.
"The churches will continue to grow. Blocking sites will only intensify conflicts, "Jin told The Associated Press. (Agence France-Presse also reports the closure.)
Sion had received a letter from the city authorities in April, asking the church to install 24 CCTV cameras in the building for "security reasons," previously reported Reuters. "The church decided that it was not appropriate," Jin told the agency. "… Our services are a sacred moment."
Following the church's refusal, state security officials and the police started harassing the faithful, even reaching out to their workplaces and asking them not to go to church.
The church was being evicted from the building it occupies, despite the owner's assurances that she could rent the building until 2023.
Image: Ng Han Guan / AP
Pastor Ezra Jin of Zion Church in Beijing, during an interview with the Associated Press in August 2018.
The St. Charles Institute recently analyzed the dispute between Zion's owners for [are] to be used as a new weapon to suppress Chinese house churches. "
The pressure is exerted "by opaque questions on the measures of protection against the fires, by questioning the legality of the printed materials used by the church, by severe and unfair applications of the commercial licenses, etc. "The common feature of these legal tactics is the effort to close places of worship for" non-religious reasons "and, in so doing, evade the charge of suppressing religious freedom."
Image: Saint Charles Institute
Security cameras with facial recognition technology, in the lobby of the Beijing building where the Church of Sion rents premises.
Meanwhile, more than 250 Chinese church leaders have signed a joint open letter to protest the erosion of their religious freedoms.
Wang Yu, a prominent human rights lawyer who has defended Christians and was recently baptized in Zion, said he feared the situation would worsen, Reuters said. In one of his statements, Zion also said that the authorities had described the church as worship.
"Being called a cult, that's how it all started for Falun Gong in 1999," Wang told the agency, referring to the spiritual movement banned by the Communist Party this year.
Image: Saint Charles Institute
Church of Sion in Beijing
Under President Xi Jinping, the Chinese government sought to strengthen control over religious affairs.
In February, the revised regulations came into force for religious groups; When they were implemented, the churches began to face increased pressure to "sinify" – to be "Chinese" in orientation – culturally and to submit to the authority of the Communist Party.
This involves burning crosses and replacing them with the Chinese flag; showing slogans praising the Communist Party and the values of socialism in religious buildings; and remove sacred images considered "too Western", according to an AsiaNews report, referring to incidents in several provinces.
In Shangrao, a city in Jiangxi Province, at least 40 churches were forced to post banners forbidding foreigners to preach and anyone under the age of 18, the Catholic press website reported.
He added that in Shenyang in Liaoning Province and Xuzhou in Jiangsu Province, "dozens of national churches were closed … forcing communities to join the movement of the three self-taught, Protestant community. official. "
On August 26, the Communist Party issued revised regulations for its own members, including a clause for religious.
"Party members who have a religious belief should have strengthened education to thinking. According to Reuters, if they still do not change after the help and education of the party organization, they should be encouraged to leave the party.
The rules also warn that those who participate in "activities that use religion to incite violence" face deportation.
CT had already pointed to the rise of red tape that Chinese churches were facing, as well as the way in which another prominent house church in Beijing used worship.
CT's Jeremy Weber contributed to this report.
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