During a virtual hearing, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) called for the release of Chinese pastor Ezra Jin Mingri and condemned what it described as the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign of transnational religious persecution.
USCIRF noted that the hearing—titled “State Controlled Religion in China”—followed an Oct. 12 statement by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging China to free Jin and other detainees, as reported by Baptist Press.
At its Oct. 16 session, USCIRF heard testimony from a range of advocates and lawmakers, including U.S. Sen. James Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; U.S. Rep. James McGovern, a member of both the Congressional-Executive Commission on China and the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission; Rushan Abbas, founder and executive director of the Campaign for Uyghurs and chairwoman of the Executive Committee of the World Uyghur Congress; and Norgay Tenzin, a research analyst with the International Campaign for Tibet.
Opening the proceedings, USCIRF Chair Vicky Hartzler declared, “I condemn these arrests and I call for the release of Ezra Jin and of all those who have been detained by the CCP for exercising their right to practice their faith. China’s treatment of religious groups blatantly contradicts international human rights standards.”
Pastor Jin Mingri, also known as Ezra Jin, was taken into custody at his residence in Beihai, Guangxi Province. He is 56 years old, founded Zion Church, which is a non-denominational Evangelical community that began in 2007.
Reports indicated that around 30 other individuals associated with Zion Church had either been detained or went missing across several Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, according to The New York Times.
Corey Jackson, a close friend of Jin and founder and president of The Luke Alliance, described the scope of control imposed by authorities: “The CCP intends to control every area of your life including your heart, your mind, your soul and your emotions. They want to control your gathering in public, in private, online, even gathering with your own children to teach them about your faith,” he stated.
“Our concern should go beyond prisoners of conscience to the 99 percent of other Christians who do not make the headlines. There are between 80 (million) and 100 million Protestants in China, maybe 10 million Catholics, potentially more. Xi (Chinese President Xi Jinping) brands Christians as disruptors, and in reality, they are a cohesive force for good in society.”
“And I have to say that in the course of those four years, I’ve seen things only get worse and worse in regards to China. Sinicization is continuing apace. The genocide of the Uyghurs and the cultural genocide of the Tibetans is continuing apace,” USCIRF Commissioner Stephen Schneck noted.
Annie Wilcox Boyajian, president of Freedom House stated Freedom House’s China Dissent Monitor to document dissent from religious communities.
“We have seen,” Boyajian said, “more than 400 instances over the last three years where people see religious restrictions and choose to worship anyway, or where they’re even actually protesting. This comes back to, from our perspective, the deep and utter importance of raising individual cases because we do hear that it makes a difference.”
“And when USCIRF encourages the State Department to designate China as a Country of Particular Concern, it matters,” she urged.
