Pastor Joseph Arrested in Zhejiang, China, on Suspicion of Embezzlement

A pastor identified as Joseph, described in the report as a prominent Christian pastor from Zhejiang, was arrested by authorities on suspicion of “embezzlement of money.” The report does not state that any charge has been filed, entered, or tried, and no conviction has been reported.

After the arrest, the head of a Central church body launched an online petition expressing concern for Joseph. The report says the director of a government religious affairs department had arranged a meeting with him the previous day. The report does not give further detail about the meeting’s outcome.

Shen Yi, who wrote on a blog after the arrest, said she had promised to convey the views of the public to the competent ministry. She expressed hope that people would have confidence in the country and that religious figures would wait for the results of a specific investigation. The report says that, according to personal Facebook posts and online sources, the matter involved several local religious figures, including people connected to another online group. Those names were listed in the report, but the report’s account of the associated documents is unclear.

Shen also wrote about the state of religious policy in China. She questioned whether religious conditions had progressed or declined over almost two decades, and she said that, in her view, Zhejiang appeared to be the only one of China’s thirty-one provinces where crosses had been removed. She attributed the situation to local administrators and said she had communicated this view to the State Religious Affairs Bureau earlier. She also said a national religious conference would be convened within the year to review a decade of religious work in China. Fairness before judgment matters here, since the suspicion against Joseph has not yet been tested through a completed investigation (Proverbs 18:17).

In a separate blog post, Xin Fook-jin described the Shenzhen response as courteous and said its reply could be quoted. He called it an “official response,” however, and argued that it treated problems that had developed across China as a local matter. He wrote that this approach avoided addressing the issues directly, and he expressed concern that authorities would avoid questions such as forced removals in the days ahead.

Source: Read the original report (translated from Mandarin Chinese)