The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues using high-resolution security cameras to monitor, follow, and arrest Christians, illegally detains, and harshly sentences them. In December 2019, three Christians from The Church of Almighty God (CAG) were sentenced to imprisonment as long as seven to eight years.
On the morning of November 15, 2018, over ten police officers burst into the home of CAG Christian Ma Guihua and her husband. After putting Christian Zhao Qing (female, 27 years old) and Zhang Xin (female, 22 years old) under control, they ransacked the house, found 3,500 RMB (about 506 USD) cash and items including 716 faith-related books, four computers, seven players, 14 portable hard drives, and 38 memory cards, and confiscated them all. Then they forcibly took the four Christians to a local police station. According to insiders, before conducting the arrest, local police had monitored and followed Christians Zhao Qing and others with high-resolution cameras for more than half a year.
On November 16, Zhao Qing and Zhang Xin was administratively detained by Gaoqing County Public Security Bureau for 15 days on charge of organizing others to engage in xie jiao activities (The CCP listed religious groups beyond its control as xie jiao to justify their repression and crackdown on them). CAG Christian Lin Hua (female, 40 years old) was criminally detained the same day.
On December 21, Zhao Qing, Zhang Xin, and Lin Hua were detained at Zibo Detention Center.
On December 20, 2019, Zhangdian District People’s Court of Zibo City severely sentenced Zhao Qing, Zhang Xin, and Lin Hua on charge of organizing and using a xie jiao organization to undermine the enforcement of the law, holding that they are the key persons in charge of the churches in the local area who instructed several other Christians (also arrested and sentenced) on editing videos, etc.
Zhao Qing and Zhang Xin were both sentenced to 8 years imprisonment (The prison term ends on Nov. 28, 2026) and fined 20,000 RMB (about 2,830 USD); Lin Hua was sentenced to 7 years imprisonment (The prison term ends on Nov. 15, 2025) and fined 18,000 RMB (about 2,601 USD).
Three Christians including Zhao Qing are still serving their sentence at unknown places as of now.
It’s known that in 2019 alone, the CCP has conducted at least 13 unified massive arrest campaigns against The Church of Almighty God in Shandong Province with Hi-tech surveillance and tracking, which has led to the arrests of 645 CAG Christians. This accounts for 47% of the total arrests of its members in this area in 2019. Many of them had been followed and monitored for months or a year before their arrest.
(All names above are alias.)
