House Church Alliance’s No. 2 Sentenced to Labor Camp

SUQIAN CITY, Jiangsu, -- In a further sign of the intensifying crackdown on China's unregistered house churches, the deputy chairman of the Chinese House Church Alliance has been given a two-year labor camp sentence, ChinaAid has learned. Pastor Shi Enhao (photo) has been sentenced to two years of "re-education through labor," an extra-judicial punishment that is handed out by police and requires no trial or conviction of a crime. It is often used for those who have committed minor criminal offenses or for dissidents and adherents of religious groups, such as house church Christians and Falun Gong practitioners. The charge on the sentencing papers is "illegal meetings and illegal organizing of venues for religious meetings." This charge stems from the fact that Pastor Shi's large house church of several thousand members meets in various different sites around the city.