NEWS FLASH: House Church in Yili, Xinjiang Shut Down by Police & Religious Affairs Bureau

China Aid Association

(Yili, Xinjiang–March 30, 2013) A house church in the far western region of Xinjiang that has been meeting for 13 years has been shut down by local police and the religious affairs bureau, ChinaAid has learned.

The public security bureau and the religious affairs bureau of Yili Autonomous Prefecture, Xinyuan County, sealed up the house church’s simple and crude meeting site on March 10.  They also told the village chief that there was a deadline by which the meeting place had to be demolished.  However, the village chief explained that he did not have the authority to do so.

The religious affairs bureau told the women believers Yang Aixia, Li Ruimin, Dai Shujun and others who attended this house church that, if they had any objections, they could file for an administrative reconsideration or file a lawsuit.

This house church in Xinyuan County has a wonderful history.  Beginning in the first half of 1990, this house church started to evangelize the whole of Yili.  A large group of young Christian women threw themselves into the ministry of evangelizing across regional boundaries.

ChinaAid expresses its condemnation of the forced closure of this church and urges the local government to stop persecuting this church and to protect according to the law the legitimate right to religious freedom of Han Chinese citizens.  ChinaAid will continue to monitor the developments in this case.

Click to enlarge photos of the officially sealed church:

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Rachel Ritchie, English Media Director
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