Underground church leader Jin Mingri has been released from prison in China and has travelled to the US, less than two months after his incarceration was raised directly by Donald Trump.
The pastor and founder of the Zion Church had been imprisoned following overnight raids across China in October, described by Christian groups as one of the strictest crackdowns on religious activity in the country’s modern history.
The Chinese government tightly controls religion and officially promotes atheism.
Jin’s family thanked supporters in a statement, adding: “We truly witnessed a miracle and we are feeling so overwhelmed with joy”. The Chinese foreign ministry has not officially commented on his case.
The family thanked the US president and the Trump administration “for their tremendous leadership”, and said they knew “this could not have happened without the direct intervention from [Chinese President] Xi Jinping”.
“We hope this is a signal of a positive turn for people of faith in China and relations between our two nations.”
US-based rights group ChinaAid, which monitors relgious persecution, confirmed Jin, also known as Ezra Jin, had arrived in Los Angeles in the US following his release.
Its founder Bob Fu welcomed his release, while noting that “countless” religious practitioners, including eight belonging to the Zion Church, remained incarcerated in China.
The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of Western lawmakers that includes dozens of UK MPs, said it was “overjoyed” with the news.
Trump had urged Xi to release Jin during direct talks between the two while in Beijing for a state visit in May.
“He said he’s gonna strongly consider the pastor,” the US president said afterward.
Trump also raised the detention of pro-democracy Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced earlier this year to 20 years in prison for colluding with foreign forces under the city’s controversial national security law.
Jin started the Zion Church in 2007 with just 20 people. It grew into one of China’s largest unregistered churches, with a network of some 10,000 people in 40 cities across the country.
It was officially banned by the Chinese Communist Party in 2018 after resisting government pressure to install security cameras at its property in Beijing.
Many of its branch congregations across the country have since been investigated and shut down.
Christians have long been pressured to join only state-sanctioned churches that are led by government-approved pastors and toe the party line.
Thirty church leaders were reported to have been detained in overnight raids last October.
This was followed by a similar crackdown against another church in January, in which nine people were detained.
