Dalian house church pastor Kan Xiaoyong sentenced to 14 years in jail

INTERNATIONAL DESK: House church pastors in China are getting increasingly heavy prison sentences, as a result of Xi Jinping’s instructions to compel all Protestant churches to join the government-controlled Three-Self Church, cracking down on those that refuse.

On January 12 , 2024, Dalian’s Pastor Kan Xiaoyong was sentenced by the Ganjingzi District People’s Court to fourteen years in prison. His wife Wang Fengying was sentenced to four years, and co-worker Chu Xinyu to ten years. Other three defendants received three-year verdicts.

These were heavy penalties, which the prosecutor obtained by adding to the charge of “illegal business practices” the “use of a xie jiao to undermine the implementation of law.” The latter charge was surprising, as Kan’s organization does not correspond to the profile of a “xie jiao,” or “heterodox teaching,” a label used to stigmatize groups the authorities call in English-language documents “cults.” On the contrary, it is a typical Protestant house church organization.

The six-lawyer defense team at least managed to have the defendants declared not guilty of the charge of fraud, which would have carried even heavier penalties.

Kan, a native of Wuhan, was a successful businessman and the scion of a CCP-connected family. In 2018, at the age of 60, he left his secular career and established the Discipleship Home Network with his wife, two years younger than him, as a combination of online and offline evangelism. His wife Wang Fengying had won national awards as a model schoolteacher and had also performed as a ballet dancer. They went to Dalian to establish a church there. Their ministry was successful and became nationally famous in the house church circuit.

On October 20, 2021, their Dalian house was raided and Pastor Kan and his wife were arrested. Four co-workers were also detained. Both Kan and his wife were tortured for several days in the vain attempt to obtain their confession. Evidence of the torture was presented by their lawyers at trial but was dismissed by the judge.

The defendants were tried by Dalian’s Ganjingzi District Court in subsequent hearings between May and October 2023. Their lawyers plan to appeal the severe verdict. (BW)