Ten leaders and members of a church in northern China have been jailed for “fraud,” a charge widely used by authorities to repress independent religion.
The jailing is seen as part of the continued crackdown on the Golden Lampstand Church in Linfen in Shanxi province, which was destroyed with dynamite in 2018, sparking a global outcry.
Jail sentences ranging from 22 months to a maximum of over nine years were handed down on June 20, according to Bitter Winter, a magazine focused on religious liberty and human rights.
Brother Li Shuangping was sentenced to nine years and two months in prison and a fine of 100,000 Chinese yuan (some US$13,900), the report said.
The others jailed include four women and a man, each sentenced to around five years in jail and fined between 40,000 and 50,000 yuan.
Four other women were handed suspended prison terms of at least two years.
Verdicts were also announced in the separate case of the Covenant Home Church. Pastor Li Jie and Elder Han Xiaodong were sentenced to three years and eight months, exceeding the three years agreed upon during the trial, Bitter Winter reported.
Sentences for Pastor Wang Xiaoguang and Evangelist Yang Rongli, two prominent leaders of the Golden Lampstand Church, are reserved.
During the trial, the accused were forced to change their lawyers and shift to local attorneys more aligned with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), from their Christian lawyers who represented them earlier, Bitter Winter reported.
The sentence is viewed as part of a continuous crackdown on Christians in the officially atheist country, as the CCP enforces highly repressive new regulations on religious affairs.
Before it was demolished, the Golden Lampstand Church was a megachurch and one of the largest churches in China.
It was built at a cost of nearly US$2.6 million and was part of a Sola Fide (or “faith only” in Latin) network with over 50,000 members who refused to join state-controlled organizations.
Three years after the destruction of the Golden Lampstand Church, its members continued to gather and pray indoors and in public, inviting police wrath.
On August 7, 2021, numerous church leaders and co-workers were detained by the police in Yaodu District, Linfen City, on charges of alleged fraud.
Observers and rights groups say the repressive measures aim to dismantle Protestant and Evangelical churches that refuse to join the state-approved Three-Self Church.
The underground Catholic Church, which also refuses to join the official Church, has also faced renewed crackdowns.
A policy of Sinicizing religion has been implemented across the country as the CCP relies strongly on Chinese cultural identity to stay in power and limits whatever it perceives as a threat to its control of society, as per ground reports.
In its 2021 World Watch List, US-based Christian group Open Doors ranked China 17th among 50 countries where Christians face severe forms of persecution.