In January, Pastor Yang Hua of Living Stone Church in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, was formally arrested, while, in an unrelated development, Senior Pastor Gu Yuese was dismissed from his post in Chongyi Church in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.
Pastor Yang Hua, also known as Li Guozhi, was formally arrested on 22 January on suspicion of ‘divulging state secrets’. In 2015, Yang had been placed in administrative detention for ‘obstructing justice’ and ‘gathering a crowd to disturb social order’.
Living Stone Church
Since mid-2015, Living Stone Church, an unregistered Protestant church with over 700 members, has experienced increasingly repressive measures by the authorities. A ‘Rectification Order’ received by the church on 18 November 2015 from the Nanming District City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau stated that the church’s use of a commercial building was illegal and gave the church three days to respond or incur fines. An application by the church for a reconsideration of the penalty notice was rejected. Yang was detained shortly afterwards.
Church members see this as an attempt by the authorities to pressure the church into registering with the state-sanctioned religious associations or face closure. They note that the church has been instrumental in bringing together lawyers to defend smaller local churches from harassment and restrictions.
In addition, Pastor Gu Yuese of the state-sanctioned Chongyi Church was detained on 27 January and placed under ‘residential surveillance at a designated location’. Gu had been dismissed from his post earlier in January, according to a notice released by the Hangzhou Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TPSM) and the Hangzhou China Christian Council (CCC). Gu is also Chairman of the Zhejiang CCC provincial branch. The TPSM and CCC are state-sanctioned religious organisations that oversee the practices and organisation of registered churches in China.
His dismissal is believed to be linked to his public opposition to the removal by the authorities of hundreds of crosses from churches across Zhejiang since 2014.
