China Releases Megachurch Pastor After 7 Years in Custody

Brynne Lawrence/China Aid : Oct 25, 2016
Charisma News

Yang was forced to serve the entirety of her sentence, despite her insistence that the charge was falsified.

[Charisma News] After seven years in official custody, the pastor of a megachurch in China's northern Shanxi province was released on Oct. 10. (Photo: China Aid/via Charisma News)

On the morning of Sept. 13, 2009, the local government dispatched more than 500 police officers and casually dressed personnel, who broke into churches and a Christian shoe factory. They beat approximately 100 Christians, and many were injured or fell unconscious. 10 days later, authorities dispatched bulldozers and excavators to destroy multiple buildings, while government employees smashed televisions, refrigerators, cars, kitchenware and other church property.
 
Afterward, Pastor Yang Rongli and her husband, Wang Xiaoguang, were arrested while traveling to Taiyuan, the provincial capital, to protest the demolition of a house church in Linfen, their hometown. 
 
On Nov. 25, 2009, they were convicted of "gathering a mob to disturb public order" for holding a prayer rally on...
 
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