Chinese police arrest pastors
Chinese police arrested 270 pastors in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong in December for taking part in an ‘illegal religious gathering’. About 120 of them were eventually released after paying 300 yuan (£20) as an ‘interrogation tax’. It is assumed that this raid is part of a secret nationwide campaign to ‘normalise’ underground Protestant churches. These churches are given the choice to either join the official, state-controlled Chinese church or to be suppressed, reports Barnabas Fund.
