China sentences 5 church leaders to labor camp

[Pastor Dale Morgan]

*Faith Under Fire........

China sentences 5 church leaders to labor camp*

The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 2, 2009; 2:06 AM

BEIJING -- Five members of an unregistered Chinese Protestant
congregation have been sentenced to two years in a labor camp following
a police raid on their church, a monitoring group said Wednesday.

The report comes less than a week after five leaders of the same church
in the northern province of Shanxi were sentenced to prison terms of up
to seven years on charges including illegal assembly, the toughest
punishments against unofficial church leaders in more than three years.

Hundreds of police and security guards reportedly raided sunrise
services held at a rented dormitory building by the 50,000-member Linfen
Fushan Church on Sept. 13. The five sentenced to a labor camp were
detained for organizing a protest the next day attended by 1,000 people,
the U.S.-based China Aid Association said.

China's Communist government requires all Protestants to worship in the
non-denominational Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Unregistered
congregations known as "house churches" suffer varying degrees of
harassment from authorities.
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Despite that, the house church movement is booming, a response both to
the limited resources of the official church and opposition to
government restrictions on worship.

Chinese law allows police to sentence people to up to three years in
"education through labor" camps without any trial. The measure - much
criticized for its lack of due process and susceptibility to abuse - is
frequently used to punish drug abusers, prostitutes, minor criminals and
political or religious dissidents.