He received a comparatively mild sentence (one year and seven months) but the authorities’s strategy is to keep arresting him (he was arrested more than 100 times).
by Mo Yuan
“Bitter Winter” readers are familiar with street preacher Chen Wensheng, a former drug addict who converted to Christianity and started traveling throughout China and Vietnam carrying a cross and bringing to cities and villages a powerful Christian testimony.
His cross bears slogans such as “Glory to the Savior” and “Repent and Believe to Be Saved.” He tells to whomever would listen the story of how he was saved from drug addiction through the power of the Gospel. Born on April 30, 1969, in Shigu District, Hengyang City, Hunan Province, he took his message as far away as Tibet.
Chen was detained more than one hundred times, and last time we reported about him in “Bitter Winter” he had been arrested again in Hengyang City, Hunan, on October 25, 2023.
On June 20, 2024, Chen has been sentenced to one year and seven months in prison. He is detained in Hengdong County Detention Center, Hengyang City.
The decision many seem comparatively mild, but the authorities continue to play a cat-and-mouse game with Brother Chen. He is continuously detained, sentenced to “mild” penalties, then detained again when he continues preaching in the streets. Brother Chen may well be the national record holder in China for number of arrests.
Source: BITTER WINTER
