After a closed-door trial the day after Christmas, a court in Chengdu, China, on Monday sentenced prominent house church Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church to nine years in prison. His crimes: inciting subversion of state power and operating an illegal business. The sentence comes more than a year after Chinese authorities cracked down on Early Rain Church on Dec. 9, 2018, breaking down the doors of church members’ and leaders’ homes and arresting more than 100 people. 

Last August, the night after 26-year-old seminarian Samuel Chau spoke at a large Christian rally on how believers should respond to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests, a stranger sent him a message on WhatsApp. The text was filled with profanities, accusations, and threats.

The sender warned Chau against participating in any more prayer meetings and condemned him to hell. When Chau asked if the stranger had contacted the right person, he responded with Chau’s full name and the name of his seminary. (WORLD has given Chau a pseudonym due to the threats against him.)

A Chinese court sentenced Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church to nine years in prison after a secret trial last week. The People’s Intermediate Court in the southwestern city of Chengdu convicted him of illegal business operations and inciting to subvert state power, fined him, and confiscated up to $7,160 worth of his personal property.

A Chinese court held a secret trial of Pastor Wang Yi of Early Rain Covenant Church in Chengdu on Thursday, a government source confirmed to church leaders. Chinese authorities have detained Yi, a former legal scholar and outspoken critic of China’s persecution of Christians, for a year on suspicion of state subversion.

Last year, a reporter for the website Bitter Winter captured never-before-seen video footage of the inside of a reeducation camp in Xinjiang, China. The video showed bars and wire netting fitted over the dormitory windows, rooms with double iron doors and a keypad lock, surveillance cameras throughout the campus, and outdoor areas surrounded by chain-link fences. On the exterior of the building were words of appreciation for China’s Communist leader: “Heartfelt thanks for the cordial care of the Party Central Committee, with Comrade Xi Jinping as its core.”

In summer 2018, I remember talking to my friends while working on an article about the estimated 1 million Muslim minorities, mostly Uighurs, held in reeducation camps in China’s Xinjiang region. None of those friends had heard about the situation, and they were shocked to learn that concentration camps had reemerged with merely a blip on the world’s radar. 

Police cracked down on thousands of protesters who gathered in India’s Assam state on Thursday to oppose a new law that grants citizenship to non-Muslim migrants. At least two people died and authorities arrested dozens.