CHINA

PHILIP XU GUOXING

PHILIP XU HAS BEEN RELEASED!

Philip Xu Guoxing is a 43-year-old traveling evangelical preacher and Bible teacher. On June 16, 1997, Mr. Xu was arrested for a third time while preaching to a small group of people in a private residence in Bao Shan District near Shanghai. Authorities, without a trial, sentenced Mr. Xu to three years of labor camp in Da Fung Laojiao Farm (labor camp) in northern Jiangsu Province. He is forced into hard labor during the day and solitary confinement at night. On October 22, 1997, his wife, after traveling 20 hours by bus to see him, was turned away. Towards the end of 1997, authorities allowed family members to visit him and in May of 1998, authorities allowed him to send one letter out of the prison.

On March 14, 1989, authorities arrested Mr. Xu for "thorough investigation," but as they found that he had no "political motivation, no intention of collecting money, and no sexual misconduct," the Chinese officials released him on June 16, three months later. Government authorities again arrested Mr. Xu on November 6, 1989 during his teaching of a Bible study. With no attention to due process, officials sent him to labor camp for three years of "reform through labor." After completing three years of hard labor and confinement, Mr. Xu was released and he continued on with his itinerant preaching activities.

Mr. Xu Guoxing was born in Shanghai, China, on March 16, 1955. In 1980, he studied in the United States and two years later returned to China to be an itinerant preacher. He is married to Jireh and has one two-year-old daughter, En-Yi.

Unregistered churches and itinerant preachers are forced to meet clandestinely in fear of government harassment and incarceration, and are commonly referred to as house churches. These underground or illegal religious movements constitute a majority of practicing Protestants in China, who function outside the pale of the government sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Association. Such house church and evangelist movements have chosen to remain unregistered on principle, in order to freely practice their faith without government control and censorship. They pay a high price for this conviction, suffering a range of religious freedom abuses including incarceration and are typically forced to meet clandestinely in homes to avoid detection by government officials.

Source:  Information supplied by Freedom House and Mr. Xu's relatives.

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