In January, Pastor Yang Hua of Living Stone Church in Guiyang, Guizhou Province, was formally arrested, while, in an unrelated development, Senior Pastor Gu Yuese was dismissed from his post in Chongyi Church in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.
Pastor Yang Hua, also known as Li Guozhi, was formally arrested on 22 January on suspicion of ‘divulging state secrets’. In 2015, Yang had been placed in administrative detention for ‘obstructing justice’ and ‘gathering a crowd to disturb social order’.
Living Stone Church
Since mid-2015, Living Stone Church, an unregistered Protestant church with over 700 members, has experienced increasingly repressive measures by the authorities. A ‘Rectification Order’ received by the church on 18 November 2015 from the Nanming District City Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau stated that the church’s use of a commercial building was illegal and gave the church three days to respond or incur fines. An application by the church for a reconsideration of the penalty notice was rejected. Yang was detained shortly afterwards.
