Henan: Two Evangelists Detained as Criminals

On February 1^st, 2003, two evangelists were arrested in Xiayi County, Henan Province. They were detained as criminals for 12 days.

In that morning, Evangelist XUyao Wang (male, from Wangji Town) and Jianliang Xiao (male, from Liudianji Town) were on their way back from preaching. They were stopped by the police from Luoji Town Police Precinct led by the Precinct Chief Xiang Ji. The police confiscated their books, robbed away 480 RMB cash and a beeper, and then took them to the precinct. Chief Ji interrogated them for a whole day. Later, he put them into the county detention center under the charge of “believing in cult”. On February 13^th, Wang’s family spent 300 RMB on treating the police a meal, and paid 3000 RMB fine (no receipt given). Then both of them were released.