Early Rain Covenant Church (ERCC), a highly oppressed house church in southwestern China's Sichuan province, has had a preacher jailed for "allegedly disturbing public order" by officiating a member's funeral.
Per the ERCC's prayer request picked by the U.S.-based persecution monitor International Christian Concern, Preacher Wu Wuqing was detained by officers from Damian Police Station in Chengdu city's Longquanyi District on Friday afternoon, hours after the funeral service.
Wu, who had already been persecuted, was released late at night.
ICC reports further that authorities have repeatedly shut off services at his house, and Chengdu police have vowed to escalate their crackdown and surveillance of his movements if he chooses to work at ERCC.
Authorities locked down the 5,000-member congregation, tore down the doors of church members and leaders' houses, and jailed more than 100 individuals more than two years ago.
According to a report from the U.S.-based group ChinaAid, police are incessant in their threats and monitoring of ERCC representatives.
Gina Goh, ICC's regional manager for Southeast Asia, said: "House churches across China are seeing an increased harassment from church raid, crackdown on their activities, to the detention of their leaders."
"Beijing seeks to intimidate the leaders in hopes that the churches will dissolve due to fear. Their plot will not succeed, thanks to the resiliency of the Chinese house church. They survived the Cultural Revolution, and they will survive Xi's era as well," she added.
Elder Zhang Chunlei of the Guiyang Ren'ai Reformed Church, preacher Zhang Peihong of Shanghai Lancun Zhongyue Church, and preachers Qie Jiafu and Huang Chunzi of Beijing's Zion Church were among those assaulted and criminalized by authorities in April. They've both been caught up in the new crackdown.
Last month, the Public Security Bureau detained many members of the ERCC for engaging in an "online Easter worship service on Zoom" and told them to stop all religious practice.
According to a Christian who did not want her name mentioned, police called in ERCC officials in control of church events and internet programs over the weekend and insisted that they suspend all activities.
"Since 8:30 a.m., some security officials have entered these Christian families' homes and pretended to be chatting with them casually," an ERCC supporter wrote on Twitter.
"At 9:30 a.m., the worship began, and they were also invited to participate. Once they realized that the sermon was from ERCC's imprisoned pastor Wang Yi, they immediately shut it down," the supported added.
After its closure in 2018, ERCC, headed by pastor Wang Yi, has been unable to meet in person, and its pastor and other representatives have been jailed. Pastor Wang was then convicted of subversion of authority and unlawful business practices and sentenced to nine years in jail.
As new increasingly stringent regulatory measures on religious workers went into force last week, authorities in China continued their attack on Christianity by banning Bible Apps and Christian WeChat public accounts.
Father Francis Liu of the Chinese Christian Fellowship of Righteousness tweeted that some Christian WeChat pages, including "Gospel League" and "Life Quarterly," were no longer accessible online.
According to the recently published report by ChinaAid, religious oppression in China increased in 2020, with thousands of Christians impacted by church closures and other human rights violations.
