WASHINGTON (AP) — The daughter of a detained Chinese Christian pastor is urging U.S. lawmakers to help free her father at a time when President Donald Trump has vowed to “save our Great Christian population” worldwide.
Appearing before a congressional panel Thursday, Grace Jin Drexel said her father, Ezra Jin Mingri, was formally charged this week along with 17 other leaders of the prominent underground Zion Church. They were detained in October in one of China’s largest crackdowns on a single church in decades.
It is among the largest churches that are unregistered with the Chinese authorities, defying restrictions from the officially atheist Communist Party requiring believers to worship only in registered congregations.
“My father started Zion in order to worship freely in a church that put God as the sole head of our church, like many faithful Christians everywhere,” said Jin Drexel, who lives in the United States. Yet, worshippers “were harassed, threatened and interrogated.”
As she urged members of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China “to use the authority entrusted into your hands and to not forget us,” another hearing was playing out on Capitol Hill where lawmakers praised the Trump administration’s decision to designate Nigeria again as a “country of particular concern” over allegations of failing to rein in the persecution of Christians.
Trump has focused on Nigeria
Trump has said on social media that Christianity “is facing an existential threat in Nigeria” from …