Chinese Persecution of Christian Churches Rampant

VOM News, (Bartlesville) A top-secret document recently obtained by The Voice of the Martyrs proves the Chinese government has an ongoing, systematic campaign to expose and destroy unregistered Protestant churches in Hebei Province. The directive‹the first one of its kind ever seen by the public‹is a work plan order from the Public Security Bureau of Baoding to PSB sub-bureaus in all counties, cities and districts of Hebei Province. It instructs the bureaus to terminate ³illegal Protestant activities.² The document describes the work plan as an effort to³embrace e and create a sound and secure social environment in a concerted citywide action of the Communist Party Committee and the government in advance of the Communist Party¹s 16th National Party Congress which was held last November. The plan was to crack down against illegal Protestant activities from August 20th to October 20th, 2002.

 The directive‹dated August 20th, 2002‹details the effort to ³establish a secret force² to infiltrate unregistered church groups to gather in-depth intelligence against illegal Protestant church activities. Bureaus were directed to ³set up full files; recognize influential people and illegal meeting places.² They received further instructions to clearly identify legal and illegal church activities in order to take action against those ³which are organized by freelance missionaries, which are overseas infiltration; and prepare to terminate them.² One section of the work plan details the establishment of a government task force created to send supervisors to Public Security Bureaus in all counties, cities and districts to assure the implementation of compulsory measures against the Christians such as ³subpoena penalty, ordered confessions² and ³detention.² Bureaus are instructed to confiscate ³illegal publicizing² materials used for evangelism and are told that ³stubborn members,² believers refusing to ³voluntarily obey regulations of the government² should be ³severely punished.²

²This directive is a smoking gun,² said VOM spokesman Gary Lane.² It proves the Public Security Bureau is working on the provincial level to destroy unregistered churches and severely punish their leaders.² The top-secret document also directs all grassroots police stations to strengthen their daily management of Christian affairs to assure targeted unregistered churches would be prevented from spreading and staging a comeback. The document also informs the bureaus that awards would be granted to them ³on the basis of performance and achievement.²

³We urge Christians everywhere to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters in China who are suffering extreme measures against them by their government,² said Lane. ³We also ask Americans to contact their representatives in Congress and the Chinese government to lodge formal complaints against this systematic targeting of believers.²