Chinese Pastor Is ‘Grateful’ to Be In Jail as Communist Party Continues Anti-Church Campaign

Huang Yizi was detained in early August and formally arrested at the end of that month for allegedly “gathering crowds to disturb social order”

A Chinese pastor who is facing seven years in prison after falling foul of a Communist Party crackdown on the country’s rapidly growing Christian community has told his lawyer he is “grateful that God has given him the chance” to go to jail.

Huang Yizi, a 40-year-old preacher who had spoken out against a demolition campaign being waged against Chinese churches, is currently awaiting trial in a detention centre in Wenzhou, a city in the eastern province of Zhejiang.

He was detained in early August and formally arrested at the end of that month for allegedly “gathering crowds to disturb social order” – a charge often used to silence government critics and which carries a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.

Activists believe Pastor Huang is being punished for daring to criticise an ongoing “anti-church” campaign that has seen scores of places of worship in Zhejiang face partial or complete destruction this year.

China is also in the midst of a major nationwide crackdown on dissent that has seen dozens of government critics, including human rights lawyers, academics, activists and religious leaders, detained or jailed.

Zhang Kai, a Beijing-based rights lawyer who is defending the pastor, met his client on Monday morning but said it was not clear when the trial would be held.

“He seems well. He is grateful that God has given him the chance to serve time in the detention centre,” the lawyer said.

A recent photograph of Pastor Huang – obtained separately by The Telegraph – shows him wearing handcuffs and a yellow prison uniform emblazoned with the words “Pingyang County Detention Centre”.

Mr Zhang declined to provide details of his conversation with Pastor Huang but said the church leader believed he was innocent.

“As a defence lawyer and judging from the evidence so far I don’t think Huang’s actions constituted any crime. Personally, I believe Huang’s arrest is directly related to the general crackdown on churches in Zhejiang.”

Pastor Huang, who has been a preacher since the age of 28, was taken from the home he shares with his wife and two children on August 2. Just weeks earlier he had predicted that his public stance against the Communist Party’s crackdown would land him in prison.

“I know I will be put in jail one day,” he told Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post.

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SOURCE: The Telegraph
Tom Phillips