China's Religious Crackdown Continues: Hefei Ganquan Church Elders Sentenced for "Fraud" for Accepting Tithes

Crackdowns on unregistered “house churches” in China have recently ramped up as part of the government’s efforts to prevent free exercise of religion and restrict religious activities to state sanctioned and controlled spaces. While targeting independent religious practitioners is nothing new, the scale and method of repression has shifted: last month, two elders at Hefei Ganquan church were sentenced for “fraud” for accepting church donations, the latest escalation in a series of high-profile cases of religious repression since late 2025.

This past October, the senior pastor of Beijing Zion Church, Jin Mingri, along with more than twenty pastors, preachers, and core staff members, were simultaneously detained by police in various cities before being taken to Beihai, Guangxi for detention. In December, more than 100 members of the Yayang House Church were arrested over the course of two days in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province. House church leaders Lin Enzhao and Lin Enci were then placed on a wanted list, with bounties offered for their capture. In January, the Early Rain Covenant Reformed Presbyterian Church in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, had to organize an evacuation of its teachers and students after police arrived at its children’s education program. Its church members were also harassed and detained without explanation.

On top of these systematic acts of repression, a major legal shift is occurring in how Chinese authorities approach governing house churches. Rather than condemning them through administrative measures such as “illegal business operations” or “disrupting social order,” authorities have systematically redefined internal religious giving, otherwise known as tithes or offerings, to be an economic “pocket crime.”

This criminalization is accomplished via a three step process. First, there is an organizational characterization where only officially registered churches are considered legitimate religious venues. Thus, any unregistered churches, often called “house churches,” are regarded as illegal organizations. Second, there is a requirement that religious leaders hold an official “Religious Clergy Certificate” issued by the government. Therefore, because house church pastors are usually ordained internally, judicial authorities will deem them to be “impersonating” religious clergy. Finally, because of these church and church leaders’ “illegality,” whenever a house church pastor receives offerings, these would be interpreted as “fraudulent property.”

These bad faith laws were recently put to the test in the Hefei Ganquan Church case. It all began on November 30, 2023, when CCP officials raided the homes of 16 church members before arresting Pastor Zhou Songlin and Elder Ding Zhongfu. It was alleged that they “defrauded” church members through voluntary tithings with the “purpose of illegal possession.” After numerous delays where the two men were held in detention for more than two years, the court finally gave its judgment on February 13, 2026. Pastor Zhou Songlin was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months imprisonment, with a fine of 30,000 yuan, and Elder Ding Zhongfu was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment, with a fine of 28,000 yuan. It was also ordered that their “illegal gains,” of 366,000 yuan be confiscated, with any shortfall repaired from their real estate, bank accounts, and other assets.

While the Hefei Ganquan Church case is the latest in these types of convictions, there are many that came before.

The first severe sentence in this redefined illegality was given to Pastor Hao Zhiwei. Hao was arrested in 2019 after all the donations from his 18-year ministry were deemed “fraud proceeds” because he refused to register his church. He was then sentenced to eight years in prison in February 2022.

In the Guiyang Ren’ai Reformed Church Case, despite testimony from multiple believers stating that their offerings were voluntary and that they had not been deceived, the court still accepted the prosecution’s view that Elder Zhang Chunlei’s unregistered religious status constituted the basis for fraud. He was arrested in March 2021 and sentenced to five years in prison in July 2024.

In the Golden Lampstand Church Case, mass arrests in August 2021 led to ten members being accused of fraud and given extremely heavy sentences. Pastor Wang Xiaoguang and his wife, Preacher Yang Rongli, were among these members, with Wang eventually sentenced to seven years imprisonment.

In the Qingcaodi Church Case, Elder Hao Ming and Elder Wu Jiannan had both previously served as coworkers at Early Rain Covenant Church. They were arrested in November 2021 and, during their trial, there were reports of law enforcement pressuring believers to accuse the pastors of “fraud,” drawing widespread attention. In 2023, both were sentenced to three years in prison with five years of probation.

In the Fengsheng Church Case, Pastor Lian Changnian and Pastor Lian Xuliang were accused of taking in “illegal gains” in the amount of approximately 390,000 RMB from decades of church offerings. They were arrested in August 2022 and are currently undergoing long-term detention and “Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location” (RSDL).

This phenomenon is not restricted to Christianity. There has simultaneously been an ongoing intensive crackdown on Muslim and Buddhist communities throughout China, most dramatically in Xinjiang and Tibet. In Xinjiang, mosques have been removed and people disappeared for having the quran. In Tibet, monks have been detained, sometimes for acts as simple as distributing texts related to the Dalai Lama.

All of these actions clearly violate the international right to freedom of religion defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 36 of the Chinese Constitution. Human Rights in China calls on the international community to pay attention to this new development in the Chinese government’s suppression of house churches, along with the greater suppression of the freedom of religion. We urge for the release of all individuals on these manipulated bases.

Hefei Ganquan Church’s Pastor Zhou Songlin and Elder Ding Zhongfu

Letter from Hefei Ganquan Church

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