A Christian bookshop owner has been arrested in China for printing copies of the Bible.

Police seized Shi Weihan the owner of Holy Spirit Trading Company. He is accused of conducting "illegal operations" and remains in custody, more than a month after his arrest.

The police confiscated almost all of the Christian literature and Bibles stored in the home he shares with his wife, Zhang Jing, and seized all the books in his bookshop.

Ms Zhang said that, while the books in their shop were legally printed and sold in China, her husband privately published many Christian books and Bibles without authorisation and distributed them among local home churches: this was the reason for his arrest: He was worried about publishing these unauthorised books. But the church needed these books and so he felt it was a risk worth taking."

China Aid Organisation (CAA) says the country has launched a crackdown on unauthorised religious groups ahead of the Olympic Games. Shi's bookshop, in an upmarket office block, is less than two miles from the main Olympics venue.

With eight months to go before the Olympics, the government is taking great pains to paint itself to the international community as a country of religious tolerance. It says local Christian groups will be encouraged to hand out Bibles to athletes and spectators during the event.

The CAA says Shi is being held in an unheated cell and is subjected to sleep deprivation. Ms Zhang says she has been denied visitor rights to see her husband and so is "not clear" about his condition.

China detains thousands of members of religious groups every year; some 70 members of a Protestant home church in eastern Shandong province are still being held after their arrest in early December for taking part in an "illegal religious gathering," according to the CAA.

China Aid Association (CAA) has learned that Christian bookstore owner, Shi Weihan has been released on bail.

Chinese officials have decided against a formal trial for Shi, and criminal charges against him have been dropped.

Eyewitnesses told CAA that Shi was in good spirits and relatively stable physical condition. Shi's family members asked CAA to thank the international community for their "tireless efforts" in seeking his release.

Shi, and some of his colleagues, were detained for 37 days under charges of illegal printing and distribution of Christian literature.

Sources state that the Beijing Haidian District prosecution office assigned to Shi's case determined that they were unable to proceed with formal charges due to "insufficient evidence".

Regardless of the reason for Shi's unconditional release, it is evident that international attention and pressure on the case were instrumental in influencing the court's decision, said CAA.

A bookstore owner in Beijing has been re-arrested for publishing Bibles and Christian literature after he had been released in January due to “insufficient evidence.”

Shi Weihan was re-arrested on March 19 and has been held without any family visits allowed, according to his wife Zhang Jing. Shi was first arrested on November 28, 2007, and held until January 4.

His wife said she had received no word on her husband's condition, and she has been prohibited from bringing him any food or change of clothing since his re-arrest.

Operating a bookstore located near the Olympic Village, Shi had never had any problems with authorities before his arrest last November, according to a long-time friend. His bookstore operated legally, and it sold only books for which he had obtained government permission.

The arrest of Shi appears to be part of a crackdown on religious groups that the government fears could raise dissident voices during Olympic Games set to begin in August.

An advocacy organization reported this week that Chinese authorities now accuse a Beijing businessman of being a dangerous religious element – which a long-time friend dismissed as contrary to Christian bookstore owner Shi Weihan'
s gentle, patriotic nature.

Authorities have been slow to reveal charges against Shi, who after his original arrest for illegal business practices on November 28, 2007 was released on January 4 due to insufficient evidence. He was re-arrested on March 19, according to his wife Zhang Jing, for printing Bibles and Christian literature.

Until last week he had been denied a visit by his attorney. Following that visit, China Aid Association reported that authorities were holding Shi at the Beijing Municipal Detention Center as a dangerous religious element.

During the meeting with his attorney, Shi'
s talk was interrupted by the guards on several occasions and he received a warning, according to a statement by CAA. Interrogation of Shi, the lawyer told CAA, has centered on his relationship with foreigners, especially those from the United States.

Long-time friend Ray Sharpe said that Shi'
s many foreign relationships as a travel agent may have raised undue suspicions by Chinese authorities.

Update: Still Being Held

23rd June 2008

Despite having held Shi beyond the time legally allowed, absent formal charges or a court hearing, the Public Security Bureau still refuses to allow his family or attorney to see him,” said a source close to Shi'
s lawyer. Claiming an ongoing investigation in what they are calling ‘a complex case,'
 they have managed to hold the owner of a legally registered Christian bookstore in an undisclosed location without giving any assurances that he is receiving his needed diabetic medicine.

The Public Security Bureau has stated that it will delay action on the case indefinitely, raising questions about Shi'
s health and safety.

Update: Denied Medication

9th September 2008

Shi Weihan is awaiting the outcome of an August 19 court appearance and may be back in court within 10 days, according to Compass sources.

Denied proper medication and diet for his diabetes, Shi is almost “unrecognizable” due to severe weight loss, according to family members.

Four American Christians who arrived in China with more than 300 Bibles in their suitcases have refused to leave the airport after the books were confiscated by customs officials.

Pat Klein, the leader of the group and founder of the Christian outreach programme, Vision Beyond Borders, said the group had spent the night in the customs area of Kunming Airport, in China's southwestern Yunnan province, and would not leave until the Bibles were returned to them.

They said it's illegal to bring more than one Bible per person into China, but they can't show us the law that says that, he told The Times today in a telephone interview from the airport. They keep telling us they would like us to leave the customs area, but we came here with over 300 Bibles and we know that if we leave we will never get them back.

Klein and his colleagues planned to distribute the Bibles to Chinese Christians in the city: We're hearing the propaganda that China is printing 800,000 Bibles every month. But they're not getting to the people. The people are saying to us, 'Please get us Bibles’.

He said the Bibles they had brought in were printed in Chinese and insisted that they were Union Bibles, which is the only version allowed in China and is the version printed legally at the country’s government-approved plant, Amity Printing.

Update: Bibles Returned

23rd August from bangkokpost.com

A group of American Christians who had more than 300 Bibles confiscated by Chinese customs officials said they got them back when they returned to the airport Wednesday to leave the country.

Members of Vision Beyond Borders had refused to leave the airport in the southwestern city of Kunming for 26 hours after arriving on Sunday, but finally left after realizing that the communist authorities would not relent.

Officials gave back the group's 315 Bibles when they returned to Kunming airport Wednesday, then escorted them to immigration, group representative Pat Klein told The Associated Press by telephone from the airport.

A Beijing court has found Christian bookstore owner Shi Weihan guilty of illegal business operation and sentenced him to three years in prison and a 150,000 yuan (US$21,975) fine.

Sources said Shi's store operated legally and sold only books for which he had obtained government permission, and that his Holy Spirit Trading Co. printed Bibles and Christian literature without authorization but only for free distribution to local house churches.

Others in a printing company who stood trial with Shi appeared to have received similar sentences. A written judgment is expected within 15 days to allow time for an appeal to be filed, said Ray Sharpe, a friend of Shi.

Chinese officials claim that the Nanjing Amity Printing Co. (Amity Press), the only government-approved Bible publisher, produces enough Bibles to meet the needs of the Chinese church, which various religious freedom organizations dispute. The groups complain that Amity prints a large share of its Bibles for export, and those sold domestically are not available to many Christians.

Li Dunyong, one of several lawyers involved in the defense of Uyghur house church Christian Alimjan Yimit was effectively disbarred at the end of May when Chinese authorities turned down an annual application to renew his law license.

Zhang Kai, another Beijing lawyer who had defended Alimjan, suffered the same fate.

Authorities failed to renew licenses for at least 15 other lawyers who had defended civil rights cases, religious and ethnic minorities and political dissidents, according to watch group Human Rights in China (HRIC).

During a process of Annual Inspection and Registration for all lawyers and law firms, with a closing date of May 31 for renewal applications, authorities also denied three law firms the necessary approval to practice. Officials harassed and physically abused several of the affected lawyers in the months prior to the loss of their licenses.

The process of building a country ruled by law has suffered a serious setback, HRIC claimed in a statement on June 4.

The rejection of applications followed the Feb. 4 disappearance of Gao Zhisheng, a high-profile Christian human rights activist who once said that every human rights lawyer would eventually become a human rights case. Gao's whereabouts remained unknown at press time.

Chinese authorities last week launched a crackdown directed at Christians who belong to China's huge network of unregistered house churches, calling a cult one of the fastest-growing populations of Christians in the world.

According to a news release from ChinaAid, the powerful Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party launched Operation Deterrence on Dec. 1.

ChinaAid said according to the Politburo's top-secret instructions, the crackdown on the largest component of the mainland Chinese church is to continue through March 2011.

CCP Central Committee for Comprehensive Management of Social order, the foot soldiers of China's security apparatus, have been told to collect information about house churches throughout the country and turn these reports in to their superiors. A long blacklist of church leaders and influential believers has also reportedly been drawn up.

Chinese police have detained dozens of Christians who were trying to gather at the site of a banned Easter service.

The Shouwang church in north-west Beijing had called for outdoor services after it was evicted from its rented premises during a clampdown on dissent.

Church leaders have said they have no political agenda and want only to find a permanent place of worship for their 1,000 or so members, who refuse to accept official demands that churches come under direct Communist party oversight.

Police led away dozens of people, many of them young adults, as they arrived near the walkway where the church had said it would pray on Sundays. Police and plainclothes guards prevented reporters from approaching the detainees, most of whom did not appear to resist as they were herded on to a bus.

Nineteen Chinese pastors have joined together to send a remarkable petition to the National People's Congress on behalf of one of Beijing's largest underground churches. The Shouwang church is the most recent target of Communist authorities' crackdown on the unauthorized house church movement that now numbers some 50 to 70 million Chinese Christians.

The Shouwang church began in a home but has grown to 1,000 members in recent years, with many well-educated and affluent congregants. Forced out of rented meeting space in 2009, the church bought its own property, only to be denied access by the government. Ousted from rental space once again this spring, the congregation has sought to meet outdoors. But their worship services have been disrupted, and hundreds were detained by police on Easter Sunday. Pastor Jin Tianming and other church leaders are under house arrest to prevent them from leading services.

As The New York Times noted, the crisis is stirring up the tens of millions of Chinese believers who have come to place more faith in Christianity than in the atheist Communist Party. That has led to the bold petition.

Their petition goes beyond calling for redress of one church's afflictions:

We believe that the Shouwang Church incident is not an individual, isolated episode that happens to a single church but rather a typical phenomenon in respect of the conflict between state and church during the period of social transition.

That conflict between state and church, the pastors argue, can be resolved only with official recognition of religious liberty, an essential step to ensure the freedom, stability, and prosperity of the nation:

We believe that liberty of religious faith is the first and foremost freedom in human society, is a universal value in the international community, and is also the foundation for other political and property rights. Without the universal and equitable liberty of religious faith, a multi-ethnic, multi-religion country would not be able to form a peaceful civil society, or bring about social stability, ethnic solidarity or the nation's prosperity.

On Christmas Day, police across China tear gassed and beat down Christians for worshipping at unofficial Christmas services, according to an American aid group in the region.

[On Christmas] morning at about 8.00 a.m. our church was holding a Christmas activity on Binjiang Road in Langzhong city, Li Ming, said in an interview with Radio Free Asia (RFA): There were around 20-30 police officers, and they used tear-gas canisters. My eyes were so swollen I couldn't see at all.

According to Li, police arrested three people and confiscated the group's musical instruments and sound system.

The alleged Christmas Day oppression was not limited to one city. ChinaAid, a Texas-based group that focuses on the abuse of Christians in China, reported that 30 members of Shouwang Church in Beijing were arrested while holding outdoor worship services.

Shouwang pastor Jin Tianming, told RFA that he does not know what the clampdown will mean for the future of his church, which has experienced persecution from the Chinese government in the past that caused it to permanently end outdoor services.

In addition, six worshippers in a house church were beaten and arrested in the coastal province of Zhejiang on Dec. 24, according to Pastor Luo Sennian: They threw out all the things that belong to our church. I went over there to talk to them, and immediately five or six of them set about beating me.