China Aid Association Reports Arrests of Christian Leaders

The Chinese government supposedly has a commitment to religious freedom. But, the recent arrests of house church pastors at Shandong and Jiangsu Provinces seem to contradict their sincerity.

CAA says that one pastor from South Korea was expelled by the Chinese security agency and a prominent Chinese legal scholar and rights defender was forbidden to go abroad.

The Chinese legal scholar, Dr. Fan Yafeng, researcher at the China Academy of Social Sciences, was to attend a meeting with President Bush. He was detained at the airport and forbidden to go abroad.

That meeting, held last Thursday,

was the first time that a sitting US President met a group of Chinese House Church intellectuals at his private residence in the White House. US President George W. Bush, along with Vice-President Dick Cheney, Mr. Bush's National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Mr. Josh Bolton, the White House Chief of Staff and the President's senior Advisor Mr. Michael Gerson as well as the White House press secretary Tony Snow were informed about the situation in China and the latest development of religious freedom in China in the meeting.

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