In brief
In Jiangyou, southwestern China, armed police surrounded an underground Protestant church, detaining two leaders – Yan Hong and Wu Wuqing – and over 30 congregants mid‑Sunday service. The raid involved at least 50 officers, including SWAT, who questioned detainees at a local detention centre and later released most of them after refusing to sign an affidavit. The church, founded in 2008 and closely monitored by the Communist Party, has seen its leaders repeatedly detained, echoing wider crackdowns on underground house churches across China. The incident underscores the Party’s view of peaceful worship as a threat to state control, a claim echoed by human‑rights groups monitoring religious persecution.
In Jiangyou, a southwestern city in China, armed police officers stormed the Early Rain Covenant Church Bible study room during a Sunday service, detaining two of its senior leaders—Yan Hong and Wu Wuqing—while taking over 30 congregants, including children, to a local detention centre for interrogation.
The raid began at about 11:00 local time, when police—estimated at 50 SWAT personnel—filed into the room. They took the leaders and members “forcibly” in several vehicles, subjecting them to questioning at the Jiangyou detention centre. According to the church’s Telegram statement, the detained were forced to sing hymns and pray during the process, yet some congregants were prevented from speaking out by officers shouting “stop” at them.
The church later said the police attempted to get the seated congregants to sign an affidavit promising cooperation, but members refused, and most were released later on Sunday between 21:00 and 23:00 after the authorities stopped the interrogation.
While the church has not released the contents of the affidavit, its statement clarifies that the grounds for detaining Yan Hong and Wu Wuqing remain unclear, and Chinese authorities have yet to comment on the raid. The two leaders have a history of repeated detentions—Yan Hong was arrested in December 2018 on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” and “illegal business operations,” while Wu Wuqing was previously detained in January of this year on grounds of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
Early Rain Covenant, founded in 2008 as a house church in Chengdu, grew to a notable size, drawing attention from the Communist Party. The Party’s policies require Christians to join state-sanctioned churches overseen by government‑approved pastors, pushing many believers toward underground “house churches.” According to the Party, there were 44 million Christians in China in 2018, though exact figures for underground participants are uncertain.
"[Sunday’s] raid is another stark reminder that the Chinese Communist Party continues to treat peaceful Christian worship as a threat to state control," warned Bob Fu, founder of ChinaAid, an organization monitoring religious persecution. The latest crackdown coincides with a broader pattern of arrests across China’s underground churches, such as the 30 leaders of the Zion Church in July last year, whose founder Ezra Jin remains in custody.
