Local church authorities based in Zhejiang, China have reported that a prominent pastor is currently being investigated for claims of corruption. The pastor was recognized as Gu Yuese, the head of one of the largest state-sanctioned churches in China.
According to BBC, the pastor is currently facing charges of embezzling funds. Despite this, however, a group of Christians based in Hong Kong allege that the probe against the pastor could be a revenge on him by government agencies, especially since Pastor Gu has been openly known to oppose a government crackdown on the activities of Christianity. Officially, China is considered atheist. Despite this, they claim that religious freedom is permitted. Unfortunately, all churches need to be approved by both the state and authorities before they permit any activities. This way, their influence among its people can be contained.
Following his arrest, local chapters of Three-Self Patriotic Movement and China Christian Council (two state-backed church authorities) have posted somewhat similar statements for the media saying that the pastor's arrest had to do with "one individual's behavior."
Pastor Gu, also called as Joseph Gu, is known as the pastor of the Chongyi Church based in Zhejiang, and is known to have thousands of followers. TIME has reported that a US-based Christian rights group, China Aid, has claimed that the pastor was being held under "residential surveillance in a designated location" in Hangzhou city since Thursday. According to the group, this was an official term known commonly as "black jails." They believe that there was a strong sign that the charges on the pastor was because of his "disloyalty to the Chinese Communist Party's religious policy." The source, Bob Fu, said that in just the past couple of weeks, 18 crosses had been removed and destroyed; an act that the pastor had been strongly against ever since 2014. Overall, the campaign had already destroyed at least 1,800 crosses of churches.
An open letter to the media was publicized by a group consisting of about 40 Christians in Hong Kong and included other church leaders. The open letter shares their view on the pastor's arrest as political revenge. In the letter, they shared that when local churches started to object the government's decision to tear down crosses, officials had started investigating Chongyi Church as a way of "coooking up charges and suppress its suspected dissidents." A similar incident has happened in August last year, when another pastor, Bao Guohua, was detained in Zhejiang and accused of disrupting social order and embezzlement. Along with him, his wife and other church employees were also arrested.
Meanwhile, authorities justified their decision to tear down the crosses by saying that these were illegally constructed and broke some planning rules. They have also demolished some church buildings. Rights groups believe otherwise.
