China: Authorities Deny Fair Trial Rights in Religious Prosecutions

July 1, 2026 Comments Off

Defense lawyers obstructed; detainees allege abusive conditions, extralegal confinement

(Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders—July 1, 2026) Chinese authorities’ ongoing prosecution of individuals based on their religious belief is marred by multiple violations of fair trial rights. A lawyer representing a detained member of a house church—an unregistered Christian congregation—has been denied access to case files; other lawyers have complained about procedural violations and conditions during clients’ detention. A pastor from another house church is being held in violation of the law following his release from prison.

Authorities’ arbitrary prosecutions of Wang Lin, Wu Qiuyu, and Yin Huibin are part of a broader crackdown launched against Beijing’s Zion Church beginning on October 9, 2025, led by Beihai authorities in Guangxi Province. Of the 18 people formally arrested, nine were released on bail on June 18; Wang, Wu, and Yin remain detained and face prosecution.

Wang, a pastor of Zion Church, has been held since October 9, 2025, at Beihai City No. 2 Detention Center. According to Chinese-language site Rights Defense Network (RDN), Wang’s current lawyer applied on June 23 to the Yinhai District Procuratorate in Beihai city to review the case files, but the procuratorate has stalled the request, demanding more paperwork from the law firm of Wang’s previous lawyer. This appears to violate Article 49 of the Procuratorate Rules of Criminal Procedure, which requires the review of case files to be arranged within three days.

Lawyers representing church member Wu Qiuyu and pastor Yin Huibin filed complaints on June 29 with the public security bureaus and procuratorates in both Beihai City and the city’s Yinhai District. The complaints cite lack of access to medical care, poor detention center conditions such as unhygienic food, overcrowding inside cells where 30 people share a room of 60 square meters, and restrictions on the frequency and length of correspondence. Wu and Yin have been detained since October 10, 2025, at Beihai City No. 1 and No. 2 Detention Centers, respectively.

Separately, Hubei authorities have arbitrarily detained pastor Gong Shengliang in an extralegal facility in Zaoyang City since his release from prison in October 2024, according to RDN. The facility is heavily guarded, family visits are barred, and an unreliable food supply and poor building conditions risk further compromising his health, already weakened by more than two decades of imprisonment. There is no publicly available evidence substantiating a legal basis for his ongoing detention.

Gong is the founder of South China Church, a house church that came under government pressure in the early 2000s. In December 2001, the Hubei High Court sentenced him to death on four charges, including “using a cult to undermine implementation of the law.” Following an appeal, his sentence was reduced to life imprisonment in 2002. In April 2004, UN human rights experts raised his case with the Chinese government in an urgent appeal over concerns about his health in prison.

These detentions and prosecutions based on belief violate the right to religious freedom, and violate guarantees in international human rights treaties Beijing has signed, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), and customary international law. Domestic law tries to limit worship to “normal” religious activity in state-approved congregations, leaving religious activity outside those groups vulnerable to official sanction.

Chinese authorities should immediately and unconditionally drop charges against and release all individuals for exercising their right to belief. Authorities should also swiftly revise laws and regulations that restrict freedom of worship to bring them into line with international law, and uphold fair trial rights.

For more information, please contact:

Sophie Richardson, Co-Executive Director, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, sophierichardson[at]nchrd.org, +1 917 721 7473

Shane Yi, Researcher, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, shaneyi[at]nchrd.org