On 18 November the Beihai Municipal People’s Procuratorate in Guangxi province approved the formal arrest of 18 pastors and church staff who had been detained in coordinated raids on the Zion Church network on 9 and 10 October. The charge against them of “illegally using information networks” means that they could face up to three years in prison. The 18 Christians are being held in two detention centres in Beihai: nine women in Detention Centre No.1 and nine men in Detention Centre No. 2. The formal arrest of a criminal suspect in China means that the case has entered the criminal investigation and prosecution process, leading eventually to trial – in complex cases, this process can take over a year.
China Aid explains, “Under Chinese law, after criminally detaining a suspect, the police typically have a maximum of 37 days to submit the case to the procuratorate for review and approval of arrest, thus converting detention into criminal arrest. If not released, the procuratorate must issue a formal arrest warrant. This timeframe is often referred to in human rights circles as the 37-day golden rescue period.”
Zion Church, led by senior pastor and church founder Jin Mingri (pictured), is one of the largest networks of unregistered churches in China, with five thousand members meeting in at least one hundred venues in over forty cities, and an estimated ten thousand Christians attending online.
Pastor Jin’s wife Chunli Liu lives in the US with their three adult children, who have US citizenship, and the Zion Church case has received widespread attention in the US and internationally. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called on Beijing to release Pastor Jin and the other detainees, and the US Senate unanimously passed a resolution demanding that China release them. Over five hundred pastors from 45 countries have signed a joint statement calling on the Chinese authorities to release the detained pastors and church staff, and tens of thousands of Christians worldwide have followed the case by participating in online prayer meetings.
Nearly forty Christian lawyers are defending the detainees and Zion’s Acting Senior Pastor Long Jiang’en has stated that the legal team is facing considerable pressure and that the church is striving to maintain the cohesion of the pastoral team. He has pointed out that this case marks the first time that that China has prosecuted pastors on the charge of “illegally using information networks” since the publication in September of the Regulations on the Online Behaviour of Religious Clergy 2025. He said the homes of many pastors have been sealed, their personal property confiscated and their bank accounts frozen.
The authorities have increasingly focused their attention on the Zion Church network this year, with police disrupting Sunday services in dozens of cities and summoning more than 150 leaders and church members to police stations for interrogation. They were reportedly subjected to harassment and threats and eleven were briefly detained. China Aid reports that police further investigated Zion Church by examining other church networks and some state-owned enterprises and institutions began internal checks to see if their employees had downloaded the Zion Church app.
Several pastors and church members who were detained in the crackdown have been released, but those who remain in detention include three Christians who featured in the recent Church in Chains news article “Trauma and ongoing struggles for Zion detainees’ families,” namely Pastor Sun Cong, Preacher Zhan Ge and Pastor Wang Lin.
Pastor Wang Lin (pictured) was the first to be detained in the crackdown when he was taken away by police at Shenzhen Bao’an Airport on 9 October, the start of 48 hours of coordinated police operations across the country. Wang Lin’s wife Su Ziming was later detained too, but is no longer in detention.
Reaction
In a statement issued on 19 November, China Aid said it “strongly condemns the formal arrests carried out by the Chinese government against 18 pastors and coworkers of Beijing Zion Church. These 18 individuals have been held under criminal detention since October 9, 2025, when the Chinese Communist Party launched a nationwide crackdown. This coordinated operation targeting one of the most influential urban house churches in China marks a major escalation in the CCP’s intensifying repression of religious freedom.
“According to family members and attorneys, after weeks of solitary confinement, secret interrogations, and sustained pressure on their families, all 18 church leaders have now been placed under formal arrest on politically motivated charges. These pastors and coworkers are being treated as criminals simply because they faithfully shepherd a large, unregistered Christian church that refuses to accept state surveillance and control.
“These mass formal arrests come after years of systematic pressure on Zion Church, including surveillance, harassment, property seizures, forced closures of worship sites, and repeated detentions. The October 2025 operation spanned multiple provinces and cities and involved highly coordinated arrests of pastors, elders, and church workers.”
Dr Bob Fu, Founder and President of China Aid, issued the following statement: “The formal arrest of these 18 faithful pastors and coworkers of Zion Church is a shocking milestone in the CCP’s full-scale war against Christianity in China. Their only so-called crime is preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, caring for God’s flock, and refusing to turn Christ’s church into a propaganda tool of the Communist Party. By turning pastors into political prisoners, the CCP is not only persecuting these individuals and their families. It is also sending a warning to independent churches across China: submit to Party control or be crushed. We urge the Chinese government to immediately and unconditionally release all 18 Zion Church leaders, drop all false charges, and stop treating peaceful believers as enemies of the state.”
(China Aid)
Photos: Zion Church