Two of four detained house church leaders in Wuhu, China have been released on bail.
Han Yanlei and Xie Zhifeng, two house church teachers from the Jordan River Learning Center in Wuhu located in the southeastern Anhui province in China have been released on bail. Two other house church teachers remain incarcerated.
China Aid reported that Han and Xie led a school that is affiliated with Mount Carmel Church. During their nine-month stint in jail at the Wuhu City First Detention Center, the two said they experienced the presence of God.
During a raid on May 27, 2021, six other teachers from the same school were captured by Chinese authorities but were released on bail in the summer, International Christian Concern reported. In June 2021, families of the teachers who were left in custody of Chinese authorities hired an attorney to handle their case. The four teachers were officially arrested by the Wuhu Municipal Bureau of Public Security two months later on the charge of ""illegal business operations."
Mount Carmel Church, with which the teachers were affiliated, was coercively shut down by Chinese authorities in July 2021 citing illegal gatherings. Wan Hongxia and Wang Minghai remain in police custody. Wang has two daughters aged 14 and three while Wan is a single mother to a 17 year old boy.
Christian persecution continues in China, where the communist government cracks down on religious minorities. Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, wrote in an op-ed for Foreign Policy that neighboring countries must pitch in to allow Christian refugees fleeing from China to seek help and asylum. Bandow specifically named South Korea, as according to him, "Seoul has been denying asylum to Chinese Christians, who face certain persecution if forced to return to China."
Bandow described South Korea's asylum process as "notoriously tough." He remarked that "the Chinese government's rising onslaught against religious freedom leaves no doubt that the Mayflower's members will suffer greatly if forced back to China." The Mayflower Church in South Korea is made up of Chinese Christian refugees who "don't speak Korean and have had difficulty finding work" and are in danger of being sent back to China.
In February, UCA News reported that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has reached out to up to 60 Christians who fled from China to avoid persecution and seek refuge in South Korea. However, they are in a risky situation after the court rejected their applications for asylum.
The report said that members of the Mayflower Church moved to the popular tourist spot called Jeju island in South Korea in 2019 to escape harassment in the hands of Chinese authorities in Shenzhen City. It was easy for them to migrate to Jeju as it offered visa-free access for Chinese citizens. However, the court rejected the asylum applications of 29 adults and 31 children in January.
Pastor Pan Yongguang who leads the Mayflower Church said that the UNHCR contacted him on February 7 and provided the information of a lawyer to assist in the asylum process. Despite little progress, the group continues to live in fear of repatriation.
