Zhang Chunlei, co-founder of an evangelical house church, was released on March 16, 2026, after serving a five-year prison sentence. According to the organisation “China Aid,” he bears the physical scars of his imprisonment. The International Society for Human Rights (ISHR) and the Evangelical News Agency IDEA featured him as “Prisoner of the Month” for July 2021. The authorities initially accused the elder of the Ren’ai (Love) Reformed Church from Guiyang in southwest China of leading an illegal organisation. However, weeks after his arrest, he was charged with fraud, based on the fact that he had collected donations and contributions. The court accepted this argument and also convicted him of “incitement to subversion of state power.”

The accusation of fraud is a fairly common one in China, where the ruling Communist Party (CPC) attempts to control all religious activities, against leading members of house churches that rely on donations. The Ren’ai Reformed Church rejected the accusations as unfounded, calling them “absurd.”

Zhang Chunlei went to the police on March 16, 2021, because members of his house church had been arrested earlier during a prayer service at a hotel. Some of them were released the same day, but Zhang Chunlei has remained in custody ever since. This was followed by house searches and seizures at the homes of members. Since 2018, following the introduction of new administrative guidelines for religious activities, this house church has been practicing its faith underground: The community is unwilling to join the state-controlled Three-Self Evangelical Movement.