Late on a Sunday in Jiangyou, south‑western China, a team of armed officers stormed a church’s ballroom, mid‑service, and seized more than 30 members—including children—for interrogation. The Early Rain Covenant church, founded in 2008 in Chengdu, has long been on the Chinese Communist Party’s radar, as religion is tightly supervised in the region.
Stated by the church in a Telegram post, police officers attempted to make congregants sign an affidavit that was never disclosed; after refusal, most were released at 6:00 pm. Two senior pastors, Yan Hong and Wu Wuqing, were taken for the raid’s official cause – still unspecified – and removed to an unknown detention centre. These arrests follow former pastor Wang Yi’s 2018 detention, his nine‑year sentence for “inciting subversion of state power” and “illegal business operations”.
About fifty SWAT officers reportedly surrounded the ballroom, holding members in a hotel room while others, including elderly and children, were locked and subjected to identity checks. Video footage shows congregants singing hymns as a plain‑clothes officer repeatedly shouted for them to stop.
Following the seizure, the church reported that the detained pastors and leaders were taken away in several police vehicles and questioned at the Jiangyou detention centre. Those taken for interrogation were freed between 9:00 pm and 11:00 pm. Participants in the raid’s most recent episode—January’s “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” summons—echo heightened pressures from political authorities, who view unsanctioned worship as a threat to state control.
According to the Chinese government, there are 44 million Christians in the country, though it is unclear whether this figure includes followers of underground churches. The Communist Party’s insistence that citizens join only state‑approved churches has pushed many toward underground “house churches”. Yet with arrests becoming more common, groups such as ChinaAid monitor persecution closely.
In October last year, 30 leaders of Zion Church—another major underground group—were rounded up across seven cities, with founder Ezra Jin still detained. These events underscore a pattern of tightening surveillance and control over spiritual gatherings in China.
For more on the detention of the Early Rain Covenant leaders, see the related coverage: January raid.
