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Hundreds of Chinese Christians face Christmas behind bars as the CCP launches mass church raids, arrests believers, and intensifies a long-running campaign to crush faith under state control.

Hundreds of Christians in China will likely spend Christmas in jail this year, according to a recent report. Starting on 13 December, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) mobilised “more than a thousand police officers, SWAT units, anti-riot forces, and firefighters” in Zhejiang Province’s Yayang Town in Wenzhou City, raiding churches and conducting mass arrests of Christians, ChinaAid reported Friday.

“Belongings of relevant individuals were illegally confiscated, roads leading to the church were completely blocked by police, and Christians in Yayang Town were unable to enter the Yayang church. The operation lasted nearly five days, yet no public statement was issued by officials,” the outlet noted. “Within just the first two days, several hundreds of people were taken away for questioning. On December 16 and 17, at least four more individuals were detained.”

Two local Christians, 58-year-old Lin Enzhao and 54-year-old Lin Enci, were labelled “principal suspects of a criminal organisation” by the CCP, with locally-posted wanted posters charging the two with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” which ChinaAid noted is a “commonly used charge” by the CCP against religious and political dissidents.

Over the past several years, CCP officials in Yayang Town have attempted to forcibly destroy church property, including symbols such as crosses, and install CCP propaganda and imagery, such as the five-star Red Flag and the CCP’s constitution. Enzhao and Enci were key figures in opposing the CCP’s efforts.

Chen Yixin, director of China’s Ministry of State Security, is a native of the province and has led efforts to demoralise the Christian community there, including by initiating a program to destroy crosses in 2014 and install the national flag, the Constitution, laws, and socialist core values in Christian spaces and promote the “localisation” and “politicisation” of religious activities. However, the Christians of Yayang Town have resisted the CCP’s efforts for over a decade, hosting rallies and demonstrations and even confronting state police when necessary.

CCP Brands Church Leaders ‘Criminal Suspects’ Amid Crackdown

Following the mass arrests this month, the CCP hosted an “Elimination of Six Evils” demonstration, with SWAT officers and riot police deployed en masse “to demonstrate force, intimidate local Christians, and create an atmosphere of fear, framing the earlier law enforcement actions as ‘results of the anti-organised crime campaign’,” by which the government means the crackdown on Christians.

According to ChinaAid, police have stationed vehicles at the homes of known Christians, “disrupted” communications among Christians in the area, and have even gone “door-to-door” questioning church members and asking them to denounce Enzhao and Enci.

“Government-driven public opinion campaigns are spreading defamatory rumours portraying Christians as ‘unpatriotic’ or belonging to a ‘cult’,” ChinaAid reported. “This approach aligns with China’s recent trend of criminalising certain religious activities. On 29 September, China’s leader reiterated in a speech the need to ‘systematically advance the Sinicisation of religion.’ Earlier, mass arrests at Beijing Zion Church saw pastors and church members detained on fabricated charges of ‘fraud’.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, ChinaAid founder and Senior Fellow for International Religious Liberty at Family Research Council Bob Fu said,

“The massive pre-Christmas assault on churches in Wenzhou is a chilling reminder that the Chinese Communist Party fears the light of Christ most when it shines brightest. To raid churches days before Christmas is not only an attack on Christians — it is an assault on human dignity, conscience, and the hope that faith brings to a wounded world.”

He continued, “History teaches us that no regime has ever succeeded in extinguishing faith through force. These pre-Christmas attacks will only strengthen the resolve of China’s house churches and further expose the moral bankruptcy of state-sponsored persecution.”

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and other religious liberty watchdogs have repeatedly warned that China’s totalitarian regime is enacting human rights abuses against religious groups within the nation’s border. A USCIRF report late last year detailed mass arrests and the destruction or removal of church property, part of CCP President Xi Jinping’s “sinicisation of religion” policy.

Religious groups and leaders who do not register with the official government-approved religious organisations are often arrested, imprisoned, and forced into “anti-cult” programs to “de-program” Christians. Earlier this year, USCIRF called on President Donald Trump to designate China as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) due to the CCP’s brutal oppression of Christians and other religious dissidents.

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Republished with thanks to The Washington Stand. Image courtesy of Adobe.