Thread by @WilliamYang120

In recent years, #China has intensified crackdown on Christian family churches across the country, forcing members of some churches to leave and seek asylum abroad. Here's a story of a church's journey to seek religious freedom away from China. My latest:dw.com/zh/%E9%80%83%E…

Founded in 2012, this Christian church originated from Shenzhen has gone through countless rounds of forced eviction by local police as well as threats to be arrested for participating in religious activities.

After more than 100 members of a Christian church in Chengdu were arrested and its pastor sentenced to nine years in prison, the pastor and members of the church in Shenzhen decided to flee China right before the #COVID19 pandemic in 2019.

After spending nearly three years in South Korea, they once again embarked on a journey of seeking refugee status from the United Nations in Thailand.

"A lot of things happened before we decided to leave in 2019. The whole world knows that the Chinese authorities have been cracking down on family churches for many years, and for our church, we crossed the authorities' bottom line since our founding,...

... which is interaction with churches abroad," said Pastor Pan Yongguang.

Since the church started operating, local police in Shenzhen began to call him in for questioning while closely surveilling church members' activities. "During one of our training in 2014, police raided our church and took me away for interrogation," he told me.

"They also confiscated our computers and bibles, as well as banned us from continuing to use the original venue for religious activities. After the government rolled out the new regulations to oversee religious affairs, the crackdown intensified."

Pan said at the time, he and hundreds of pastors across #China signed a public statement denouncing the new regulations, but afterwards, all churches experienced certain degrees of retribution. "Police began to threaten me and pressured my landlord to evict me.

I was forced to keep moving. When I tried to head to Thailand for a seminar in August 2019, they warned me not to go prior to my departure and sent someone to block the door of my house on the day of my flight. After I missed my flight, that person left my house," he added.

The arrest of more than 100 members of the Christian church in Chengdu in 2018 was a huge shock to the church in Shenzhen. "At the time, we knew 'winter' has arrived and the space for religious freedom will become much smaller," he told me.

"We know the crackdown will intensify so we decided to leave #China in 2019," he added.

Members of the church left China for South Korea between October and December 2019, right before #China shut down its border following the #COVID19 pandemic. However, they still kept feeling the threat from #Beijing in South Korea.

"The Chinese consulate refused to issue passports for our church members' newborn babies. That was clearly oppression, as those kids were deprived of their right to citizenship. We knew we may not be able to go anywhere if we kept staying in South Korea.

For more than two years, we tried to obtain refugee status in South Korea, but our lawyers said the chance of us getting that status is very low. So we wanted to apply for the UN refugee status in Thailand," he told me.

They arrived in Thailand last month, but immediately after they arrived, they started to be followed by unknown people who kept photographing and filming them wherever they went. "They filmed us when we were having breakfast and they followed us ...

... as we submitted our materials to the UN office. When I was interviewed by a journalist at a local restaurant, an unknown person photographed me from 10 meters away. We stopped him and asked him to delete the photo, but he had already sent it out,' Pan told me.

Another member of the church surnamed Chen said they had to change hotel every other day since arriving in Bangkok. "They followed us everywhere," she told me.

Pastor Pan said while they were prepared for harassment, the degree of the threat still exceeded their expectation. "Now I'm concerned about whether I should leave the hotel or not, and while some of our adult members will occasionally go out to buy stuff, ...

... the children are all afraid of going out. We are indeed facing threats in Thailand and it is also a huge obstruction to our lives here," he added.

Pastor Pan told me that the crackdown against Christian churches in #China intensified five years ago, when the Chinese government started to removed religious books and bibles from major online platforms. Additionally, the government also banned underage people go to churches.

He said while there used to be hundreds of Christian schools across #China, authorities began to force these schools to shut down in 2018 by arresting teachers or charging them with "illegal operation." "Not many Christian schools can still function these days," he told me.

@patrickpoon said nowadays, running Christian churches in #China can easily make members become targets of a government crackdown.

Since there have been several cases of Chinese refugees being abducted back to #China while they tried to seek asylum in Thailand, Poon said the UN needs to do more to ensure the safety of these refugees ...

... by asking special permission from the Thai government to provide shelters for refugees and also more protective measures.

"What the UN has done is far from enough. If they want to show people can seek refuge in Thailand, the UN needs to do more to ensure their protection.

From cases we have heard so far, the risks are pretty high as people are still being targeted by agents from countries like China," he told me.