“A China without religious freedom is a China we cannot accept,” Pastor Ezra Jin told a small group gathered on Capitol Hill shortly after he was freed from a Chinese prison. President Donald Trump had raised Jins case with Chinese President Xi Jinping at their May summit. Weeks later, Jin was free.
But why was he in jail in the first place?
He pastored the Zion Church in Beijing, an independent Christian house church outside the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
PASTOR FREED FROM CHINESE PRISON AFTER TRUMP RAISED HIS CASE WITH XI JINPING
Any and all religious groups in must come under the control of the CCP or be subject to harassment, arrest, closure or worse. Forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners has been well documented. Falun Gong is a Chinese spiritual movement that the CCP particularly singles out for harsh treatment.
Ten Chinese Catholic bishops â 10 â are currently in some form of detention in China for refusing to toe the CCP line. Cardinal Joseph Zen of Hong Kong was recently convicted of failing to properly register a charity fund. He is 94 years old and has been a respected leader in Hong Kong for decades, but not anymore in Xis China. Zen does not support the secret deal between the Chinese government and the Vatican over the appointment of Catholic bishops in China.
THE CCPS NEW UNITY LAW TURNS CHINAS REPRESSION INTO A GLOBAL THREAT
The Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the second-highest spiritual authority in Tibetan Buddhism, was abducted by the Chinese government 31 years ago. His current location is still unknown.
Details differ, but the underlying pattern is the same. Religious leaders and communities not controlled by Beijing face intimidation, detention, disappearance or worse.
BISHOP ROBERT BARRON: THE WAR ON CHRISTIANS IS REAL AND THE WORLD CAN NO LONGER STAY SILENT
This system of religious control by the state is completely counter to the and our own belief that the soul of every individual on the planet is entitled to be free to determine its own eternal destiny. A system that controls the most sacred right of the person is not a system we can support with our economic activity.
Beijings oppression doesnt stop at its own borders.
The CCP is increasingly waging a campaign of harassment, disinformation and lawfare â called transnational repression â against religious and political dissidents in the United States. Falun Gong practitioners alone have suffered nearly 300 bomb and death threats . Not to mention the persecution of them still raging within China itself, where more than 5,000 confirmed deaths of Falun Gong practitioners have been recorded since the crackdown began in 1999.
Just days ago, Anthropic reported disrupting China-based intelligence operations using its Claude AI platform to build surveillance dossiers on overseas dissidents and Tibetan Buddhist, Falun Gong, Christian and Uyghur communities, including the U.S. Beijing has a proven pattern of exploiting American institutions and technology to harass and oppress dissidents who had thought they had reached the safety of America.
<a href="https://foxnews.com/us/bronx-man-convicted-running-secret-chinese-police-sta
