Two organisers of a Christian summer camp were detained last month by police in China's northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The two women were identified as Zhou Yanhua and Gao Ming, both of whom were members of Yining County Church. They were arrested for 15 and 10 days respectively, on charges of indoctrinating minors with religious and superstitious beliefs.
According to a report by China Aid, the pair were getting things ready to drive a group of children to the summer camp, but around half an hour before they were to depart, police officials arrived, and detained the two women. The children present were escorted to the nearest police station to have their IDs registered.
27 year old Gao was a seminary student at Yanjing Theological Seminary, and was detained for a period of 15 days. Meanwhile, Zhao, who headed the church that sponsored the summer camp, attempted to help Gao by admitting to the officials that she was the organizer. That landed her 10 days in detention. The online publication also shows a translated version an extract of a conversation between Yanjing Theological Seminary students on WeChat, discussing Gao's detention.
Gao's arrest is evidence that it is not only house churches in China that are at risk of suppression from the government. Other risk groups include members of the China's official Protestant church, and advocates of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement.
It is believed that what fueled the arrests was the Chinese law that prohibits any kind of religious preaching to children and teenagers. The law considers matters of faith as a dangerous kind of brainwashing from which children must be protected. The laws in this regard are so strict that parents and pastors who rope in children in any activities of the Church could face disciplinary action.