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MISSIONARY
CHURCH DEPRIVED OF ITS RIGHT TO
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Shanghai (China): It has
been reported that a church conference was desrupted by
the police and forced to stop the service in Wanbang
Missionary Church.
Pastor Liu Tongsu, an eyewitness to these events, says:
"On the morning of February 10, 2009, six Chinese police
officers an d officials from the State Administration of
Religious Affairs (SARA) visited the chief pastor Cui Quan of Wanbang Missionary Church of Shanghai and
ordered him to cancel the 4th Seminar of Chinese Urban
House Church Pastors Fellowship. Pastor Cui Quan argued
and claimed that the church has its rights. He also
pointed out that as the authorities tried to ban the
conference at the last moment when most attendants to
the seminar had already arrived and checked into hotels,
it was really impossible to cancel the conference by
that time. The visiting officials persisted in their
original order and threatened that if the conference was
not canceled, the government would terminate the
conference with coercive measures. The next morning, two
police officers again came to the church and again
ordered that the conference be stopped. Pastor Cui Quan
came up with various flexible plans in an attempt to
comply with the order, all to no avail. He then had to
announce that the conference be held as originally
planned. Again, the visiting police officers threatened
that they would use harsh and coercive measures to stop
the conference.
During the lunch, the delegates to the conference
decided that though they had the right to get together,
they did not want to make things difficult for the local
police or bring unnecessary troubles to Wanbang
Missionary Church. Therefore, they decided to move the
conference to another location. On the afternoon of
February 12, when the conference ended at another place,
Wanbang Missionary Church found that the police had
ordered the landlord of Wanbang Church to terminate the
rental agreement within 30 days. At this time, the
congregation of 1,200 of Wanbang Missionary Church faces
losing their site of gathering that they have legally
rented. Therefore, they are deprived of their right to
Sunday worship.
This act of the Chinese government is a serious
violation of the people’s basic rights and it is
committed in a very unreasonable manner.
(1) In using coercive measures to end a small-scale
academic seminar, the authorities will obviously deprive
the people of their right to assemble.
(2) While Wanbang Missionary Church changed the site of
the conference out of their understa-nding of the
difficult situation the police found themselves in, it
is very unnatural and is against human nature for the
police to take revenge on the church for trying to
cooperate.
(3) Terminating a civil agreement that is completely in
line with the legal process, through the use of a state
compulsory organ (police) is already a violation of more
than one law. We urge people from all walks of life to
appeal to Shanghai government to stop its persecution of
Wanbang Missionary Church and we also ask Shanghai
government to end out of their own accord all improper
and unconstitutional acts.”
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This page
is updated on March 15, 2009 |
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PRAISE THE ALMIGHTY
10 YEARS CELEBRATION
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