Progressive Activists in USA Inspired by Sweeping Action as China Tears Down Thousands of Crucifixes in Campaign to ‘Regulate Excessive Religious Sites’

China’s leadership launched the crusade to eradicate Christianity almost two years ago. 

Lizzie Stromme reports: More than two thousand crosses have now been forcefully removed from churches as part of a government campaign to regulate “excessive religious sites”.The nation’s leadership launched the crusade to eradicate Christianity in the coastal province of Zhejiang almost two years ago.

“Christian charity China Aid confirmed just before Easter that more than 2000 crosses had now been demolished by the government as part of their ‘Three Rectifications and One Demolition” campaign.'”

Several members of the public have since been arrested for attempting to halt the government’s crude attempt to suppress the Christian faith.

In this photo taken July 15, 2014, Pastor Tao Chongyin, left, speaks with church member Fan Liang’an in front of the Wuxi Christian Church with the words “Church of Jesus” in red, in Longwan, Wenzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province. Across Zhejiang province, which hugs China’s rocky southeastern coast, authorities have toppled, or threatened to topple, crosses at more than 130 churches. “I won’t let them take down the cross even if it means they would shoot me dead,” said Fan Liang’an, 73, whose grandfather helped build the church in 1924. (AP Photo/Didi Tang)

“It also claimed that since the beginnning of 2016 to early March, 49 Churches had been destroyed in the rampage to abolish Christianity.”

Among the arrested was prominent human rights lawyer Zhang Kai, who was detained after he mounted a legal campaign to challenge the removal of the crosses.

Mr Kai was detained for six months before he was “forced” to appear on the State channel to “confess” his
crimes against the Chinese governement by supporting the anti-establishment protest of the demolition of crucifixes.

Local Christian leaders condemned the forced confession from the lawyer, who also represented a group Christians who were detained for suspected financial crimes last year after they protested at the demolation of crosses, in a public letter.

“There are concerns that this campain to curtail the visable Christian precens in the province could gather momentum.”

— Chief executive of Release international, Paul Robinson

Christian charity China Aid confirmed just before Easter that more than 2000 crosses had now been demolished by the government as part of their “Three Rectifications and One Demolition” campaign. Read the rest of this entry »