Authorities, which already held tight restrictions on the freedoms of Christians, have prevented Christians further from even accessing live-streamed church services.
‘Our first and only online gathering was blocked by the government soon after it started,’ said a pastor of an unofficial house church in the south-eastern province of Jiangxi. The church had suffered police harassment before the coronavirus outbreak, and was forced to change venue at least five times.
In the eastern province of Shandong, a pastor’s online service was stopped less than 20 minutes after it started. A few days later, he unsuccessfully attempted another online platform.
Authorities in Shandong province underlined their actions by issuing a notice demanding that all churches stop live-streaming services immediately.
The United Front Work Department of the Nanhu district in Jiaxing, a prefecturelevel city in the eastern province of Zhejiang, ordered all live streaming to be stopped and an ‘immediate halt’ to WeChat audio broadcasts.
Online activities by individual Christians are also heavily monitored. The day after the Covid-19 lockdown in Wuhan was imposed, members of a state-registered Three-Self Church in Shangqui city, Henan province, received a notice via their pastor to cease all WeChat groups.
A pastor said: ‘The Public Security Bureau has information on all members of every WeChat group, and network inspections are carried out, [and are] especially strict during the pandemic.’
The authorities are deploying ‘Measures for the Management of Religious Information on the Internet’ to prevent churches live streaming, which included a ban on uploading videos to the Internet that violate ‘national religious policies’ introduced in January 2019.
