Beijing, more raids against Protestant Christian communities
Beijing ( AsiaNews) - The Beijing police raided at least three Protestant prayer meetings celebrated in private homes in recent days, accusing the Christians of " having gathered in an illegally". The agents, described by some present from the communities. According to the police, "there were no safety requirements to allow those people to gather in closed areas".
Some Christians confirmed the raid to ChinaAid , a group that monitors the situation of religious freedom in China. On the morning of Sunday, November 24 , about 20 officers of the police station Gaoliying disrupted the meeting celebrated by the faithful of the "Harvest Church," a Protestant congregation in Beijing. The officials stopped the sermon delivered by the pastor, cleared all those present and searched the rooms for "religious objects".
One of those present, He, tells: "As soon as they arrived they removed computers, projectors and other objects in the room. Their leader said that ' we are not welcome ' and took all of our books, including Bibles and hymn bboks. Now we are trying to negotiate to get our things back". Ms. Xi , who was also present at the raid , described as the agents " violent and blasphemous like bandits, even grabbing the Bibles we were holding in our own hands. And, when we tried to make a video recording of them with our cell phones, they grabbed the phones and deleted everything."
According to ChinaAid sources , similar cases have also occurred in other parts
of the capital. In
addition , the Chenguang bookshop - which sells religious literature and has
long been in the authorities' sights - has suffered a new series of raids by
various government officials.
The
government allows freedom of worship only to Protestants enrolled in the
Three-Self Movement , the "official" Church built by Mao Zedong in
the early years of his government. In
fact, only registered religious groups are allowed in China. But
there are more unofficial Protestant Christians (about 80 million) than members
of the Three-Self Movement (about 20 million). Fearing
that the situation slip from Party control, for almost five years there has
been a campaign to eliminate the underground communities or merge them into the
official community .
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