Chinese authorities expel church member from Beijing

BEIJING — Chinese authorities detained a member of one of Beijing’s largest unregistered churches June 27 and sent him to his hometown in Shandong province, sources said.

Three officers from Beijing’s Dongsheng Police Station detained the Shouwang church member at about 5 p.m. while he was at a market to get a mobile phone fixed, they said. He was the second member of the church to be expelled from the city since authorities allegedly compelled the owners of the church’s rented facility to stop leasing to the congregation in April, forcing them to meet outdoors the past three months.

The Shouwang member expelled June 27 notified the church June 28 that his identity card was confiscated, and he was warned not to return to Beijing before July 1, the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. The first church member detained was arrested May 8; he had already been forced to quit his job as an instructor at an international school for children under 3 years old, and since he had lived at the school office, he also lost his lodging. In a press statement, Shouwang church leaders said, “The forced expatriation by Dongsheng Police Station and Haidian Public Security Bureau has constituted a complete contempt for and a flagrant violation of the law, in effect depriving a citizen of any guarantee of the most basic of foundational existential rights.”