Yunnan Provincial Security Officials Detain House Church Leaders

Public security officials in Kunming city, Yunnan province, raided a meeting of Protestant house church leaders and briefly detained about 80 Chinese participants on March 23, according to an April 19 report by the China Aid Association (CAA), a U.S. NGO that monitors religious freedom in China. Five American participants, and two from Taiwan, were also detained in the same raid. Local officials interrogated the participants for approximately five hours before releasing them. The interrogators accused the American and Taiwan participants of being "foreign religious infiltrators." As of April 19, some of the Americans had returned to the United States, while others remained in China.

The Chinese government seeks to control contacts between Chinese religious believers and their co-religionists in other countries. The government permits the leadership of the officially sanctioned Three Self Patriotic Movement to maintain extensive relations abroad, but the government controls religious exchanges and religious cooperation with foreigners. Many unregistered Protestant house churches in China are organized into networks that receive some overseas support and training, as author David Aikman documented in his 2003 book Jesus in Beijing. The Chinese government, however, generally does not permit house church leaders to meet with foreign religious leaders, and many detentions of house church leaders have resulted from contacts with foreigners.

For more information on Protestants in China, see the CECC 2005 Annual Report, Section III(d).