Chinese police detained the leader of an unregistered Shanghai church for seven days after more than 30 officials swept into a Sunday service, adding to a string of actions by authorities against Christian congregations. Officers entered Jie’en Church’s meeting site, on the seventh floor in Hongkou District, around 8 a.m. on Aug. 30, reports Gao Zhensai of the United States-based watchdog ChinaAid.
The team, made up of local police, district religious-affairs staff, neighborhood offices and security personnel, logged identification for those inside before clearing the building. Congregation leader Hu Yile was placed under administrative detention for seven days, a police-ordered custody without a court hearing. She is married to Xu Guoxing, a well-known name among Shanghai’s unregistered congregations who came from three generations of a Christian family and was born in 1955.
Xu held a factory job, studied in the United States during the 1980s, then returned home to spend decades planting house churches, work that brought prison terms totaling around nine years. He died at 70 in June 2025. Last month, Shanghai police held Pastor David Tang and six fellow believers after a raid that crossed provincial lines, without saying where the group had gone.
The city’s Catholic parishes have faced new curbs too, including limits on religious texts and building access. Beijing requires churches and clergy to register, and scrutiny of unregistered congregations has grown in recent years. Officials in Hongkou District have made no public statement about the raid or Hu’s confinement.
The Shanghai case adds to pressure that has continued despite the July release of house-church leader Pastor Ezra Jin, imprisoned for more than 266 days for his faith. President Donald Trump had raised Jin’s case with Xi Jinping, China’s leader, weeks earlier.