A Chinese house-church member was sentenced to two years in the country’s infamous labor-camp system after authorities charged him with subversion, apparently because he wrote prayers in a personal journal asking God to destroy the country’s atheistic system.
Zhang Yi-nan, a house-church writer and historian, faces “re-education through labor” after the Re-education Through Labor Commission of Ping Ding Shan County in Henan Province convicted him of “subverting the Chinese government and socialist order,” according to Voice of the Martyrs, an Oklahoma-based advocacy group for persecuted Christians worldwide.
As WorldNetDaily reported Zhang was arrested along with Christian leader Xiao Bi-guang Sept. 26. Xiao was released last week and returned to his family in Beijing.
At that time, a source inside the Beijing Public Security Bureau, the agency involved in many arrests of Christians, told VOM sources, “Zhang doesn’t have a criminal problem. He has a mind problem. He is too superstitious.”
VOM said authorities apparently used Zhang’s personal prayer journal against him, quoting sections such as, “We ask the Lord to destroy the strongholds in China.”
He also wrote out prayers asking God to destroy atheistic organizations in China.
Those words, according to local police official Li Hai Tao, constituted “anti-party, anti-socialist” writings.
“The Chinese government thinks that anyone who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ isn’t thinking clearly,” said VOM spokesman Todd Nettleton.
The materials were confiscated during a Sept. 28 search of Zhang’s house on the day his wife also was arrested. She later was released.
Zhang was allowed to see his wife yesterday morning at the gate of the Lu Shan County Detention Center, VOM said. He then was escorted to a police car and driven away to an undisclosed labor camp.
Zhang’s sentence runs through Sept. 25, 2005. China’s laws allow people to be sentenced up to three years in labor camp without a formal trial. The sentencing papers, however, give Zhang the unusual opportunity to appeal to the commission within 60 days and to request a trial in the People’s Court within 90 days.
VOM said Zhang’s writing and research enabled him to meet with countless Christians who have been arrested and imprisoned by Chinese authorities.
“The Lord has prepared him in unique ways to face this persecution,” said Nettleton.
Nettleton said he encourages calls, faxes and letters to the Chinese embassy on Zhang’s behalf. Contact information can be found on VOM’s website.
The man arrested with Zhang, Xiao, attributes his release to worldwide publicity that came to the attention of Chinese authorities.
A policeman reportedly asked him: “How did you get your story on the Internet?”
China’s communist government requires Protestants to belong to the state’s Three-Self Patriotic Movement, which restricts the churches’ mission and teachings. The vast majority of Christians belong to unsanctioned house churches. Similarly Catholics are confined to the state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which does not recognize the authority of the pope.
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