At 3 a.m. (Beijing time) on Monday, during the 32nd night of a vigil of Christians guarding their church cross, about 400 police officers attempted to forcibly remove the cross of ShuiTou Salvation Church in Pingyang, Wenzhou City.
Police beat Christians with iron batons, severely injuring at least four. Bloody pictures and videos of riots from the incident are circulating on China’s social network. Local Christians reported that 1,000 Christians formed a human blockade and guarded the church and that even though the police retreated after a one-hour attack, the Christians remain ready for continuous attacks from the government.
The ongoing anti-church campaign in Zhejiang Province has seen more than 360 churches completely or partially demolished under the guise of "removing or modifying illegal constructions." In a news release International Christian Concern (ICC) reported, and later The New York Times corroborated, that religious buildings have been targeted at the exclusion of all others.
Since 9 p.m. on Sunday, police started to harass churches close to ShuiTou Salvation Church in Pingyang County, Wenzhou City. At 3 a.m. the next day, the police suddenly concentrated its force to attack ShuiTou Salvation Church itself. A local contact told ICC that while it was unclear how many Christians were injured, at least four were severely injured, two of whom were transferred to the First Provincial Wenzhou Hospital of Zhejiang.
"We will continue to guard our church cross to the end," said a local co-worker of Pingyang County. "We divide people into two groups and take turns to guard the church through the night."
ICC heard from local Christians that local government officials are even "competing" to be the champion of removing church crosses for the purpose of bolstering their own political careers.
"Guarding the church cross that is not against any law, Christians are publicly harassed by government officials," said a local Christian.
Faced with repeated injustice from the Chinese government’s massive anti-church campaign for months, three Christians, Zhan Yingsheng, Zhang Zhi, and Ye Wanjing, issued three public letters on July 16 with farewell notes, claiming that they are ready to die for their faith if necessary. Ye Wanjing wrote: "I am not going to die for the physical cross on my church and, to be honest, I rarely paid attention to the physical cross on the top of the building. However, faced with injustice, my conscience of being a Christian pressured me to do my responsibility. I hope to learn more about Jesus Christ’s calling of ‘die to myself.’"
"My heart is bleeding when I see hundreds of church crosses fall one by one in Zhejiang Province," Ye Wanjing wrote. "Facing the fierce attack, my co-workers and I do not have confidence that we are able to guard the church cross from being demolished; as an individual, I pray that the Lord gives me the will to be a martyr."
"I have packed clothes and toiletries, ready to go to prison anytime," Zhang Zhi wrote in the public letter. "I have told my wife and parents. Even though they are worried, they understand."
ICC’s Regional Manager for Southeast Asia, Sooyoung Kim, said, "Zhejiang provincial authorities have carefully planned and carried out their systematic attack against Christianity and churches. We call on the government of China in the strongest possible terms to immediately stop the anti-church campaign that hurts its own people’s heart. The world needs a peaceful China that respects human dignity and freedom of religions."
05/22/2014 Zhejiang Province, China (International Christian Concern) – On April 28th, Zhejiang province officials bulldozed the 4,000-seat Sanjiang Christian Church in Wenzhou City despite a weeks-long protest involving hundreds of Christian attendees who formed a human chain around the church. What appeared to be an isolated event, has on further investigation by International Christian Concern (ICC) been revealed to be a widespread and massive anti-church crackdown with 64 churches in Zhejiang Province alone having been destroyed and/or their crosses (or steeples) torn down. ChinaAid is reporting that authorities once tore down 50 crosses in one day in Wenzhou City. Another 85 house churches recently received government orders to stop gathering and may face closure by the government by the end of May.
The wave of church and cross demolitions occurred after Xia Baolong, the Communist Party secretary of Zhejiang Province, conducted an inspection tour of the province earlier this year and was disturbed by a forest of crosses in the skyline and the number of large church buildings that host thousands of worshippers. “He found the cross on top of BaiXi Christian Church too ‘conspicuous’,” according to an ICC contact.
The “anti-church” campaign has been carried out under the vague provisions of urban development and beautification laws. The stated intent of the campaign was to "aggressively demolish illegal buildings in accordance with the law." However, ICC’s investigation has revealed that even government-approved churches are facing demolition or cross removal such as the forcible removal of the cross on the steeple of BaiXi Christian Church in Wenzhou City on May 6, 2014.
Sooyoung Kim, ICC’s Regional Manager for East Asia, said, “Xia Baolong, the local provincial party secretary, is blatantly undermining China’s carefully crafted human rights image presented to the international community as he continues to implement his anti-church campaign to limit religious freedom and the gathering of Christians. He has ignored the desperate pleas of thousands of his own citizens, and the glare and condemnation of the international media spotlight.
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Government authorities in southeast China are continuing what local church leaders call a campaign against Christianity — knocking down crosses and razing sanctuaries at dozens of churches in the Zhejiang province.
Christianity has grown so rapidly, it’s viewed as a threat by the Communist government, according to Kellogg Faculty Fellow Lionel Jensen, associate professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Notre Dame.
According to Jensen, China is breaking its own laws.
Officials have questioned church members about their employment and their children’s schooling, implying that jobs and education might be at risk, and they are citing building code violations.
“These attempts to employ bizarre quasi-legal technicalities reflect very real concern by lower-level government operatives who see the expansive physical presence of Protestant and Catholic practitioners in cities like Wenzhou (called ‘China’s Jerusalem’) as a threat to order and stability,” Jensen says. “They act in violation of the constitution because they are well aware that the central government will not punish them.
“What is really interesting in this last year of stepped-up religious repression,” Jensen says, “is the persistent energetic reaction by the faithful and by civil rights lawyers to resist the persecution and call the government to task for its responsibility in denying the public a guaranteed right. The opposition is not anonymous; it is vociferous and energetically assertive — a development that does not bode well for social stability while ensuring the escalation of lawful protest and civil disobedience."