{"id":41872,"date":"2014-08-28T14:39:00","date_gmt":"2014-08-28T14:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=41872 "},"modified":"2014-08-28T14:39:00","modified_gmt":"2014-08-28T14:39:00","slug":"41872-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=41872","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Security Personnel Storm Zhejiang Church, Demolish Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"
2014-08-28<\/div>
 <\/div>\"2014828aae3b4a8-4093-4a73-ac24-22c8376e3277.jpeg
<\/div>
Security guards set up roadblocks at the Aojiang township in China’s Zhejiang province as the cross of the Guangming Church is removed, Aug. 28, 2014.<\/div>
 Photo courtesy of a church member.<\/div>
 <\/div>
 <\/div>
Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang on Thursday dispatched more than 1,000 security personnel to remove a cross from a Christian church building, local Protestants said.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
The security guards arrived outside the Guangming Church in Aojiang township near the eastern city of Wenzhou, scuffling with several dozens of its congregants.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
Eventually, the authorities beat back the protesters, with a number of injuries reported in the process, and succeeded in bringing down the cross, eyewitnesses said.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
“They demolished [it] at about 5.00 to 6.00 p.m.,” a Protestant pastor who asked to remain unnamed told RFA on Thursday. “The first time they tried it, they were unsuccessful.”<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
“More than 1,000 people came, because they were afraid that the congregants wouldn’t allow them to pull it down,” the pastor said.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
He said the security guards had met with little resistance, however.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“There weren’t many of them; only a few dozen,” the pastor said. “There’s not much we can do about it now; the government was determined to pull it down.”<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Most of the security personnel were private security guards, although some riot police also came to the scene, he said.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“They used temporary labor to do it,” he said, adding that such a process typically costs the government around 50,000 yuan (U.S.$8,140 ).<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Stepped-up campaign<\/div>
 <\/div>
Guangming Church members look at the removed and broken cross. (Photo courtesy of a church member)<\/div>
 <\/div>
Authorities in Zhejiang have stepped up a campaign to remove visible crosses from Christian churches in recent weeks.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
According to an online report apparently posted by one of the security guards, the government paid each of them 300 yuan (U.S.$49) for the day’s work.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
Continue reading the original article<\/a>.<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<div>"They demolished [it] at about 5.00 to 6.00 p.m.," a Protestant pastor who asked to remain unnamed told RFA on Thursday. "The first time they tried it, they were unsuccessful."<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}