Husband abroad, wife detained for a decade: Wu Qinghui's case brings the Church's repression back to a family's timeline

On October 10, 2025, the family’s life was cut off into two sections.

Previously, Yang Jian and his wife Wu Qinghui were jointly involved in the pastoral work of Beijing's Xi'an Church. When the arrest occurred, Yang Jian was abroad, and Chinese police did not catch him, but Wu Qinghui was taken away. The American religious media The Roys Report re-disclosed the family's encounters on August 7 and wrote that when Wu Qinghui was arrested, two young children were in the reality of family life being forcibly disbanded.

From that day on, time has become the clearest measure for observing cases.

In October 2025, a nationwide arrest of the Church of Zion began, and several pastors and members of the Church were controlled. Wu Qinglong was then detained at Guangzhou North Sea City's First Detention Centre, where the case was charged with the crime of "illegal use of information cybercrime". Her husband Yang Jin remained abroad, and the couple had long been unable to normally reunite.

In June 2026, a new judicial node emerged in the case. Public data from the Church of Zion showed that the case was transferred to the People's Procuratorate of the Silver Sea District in North Sea City on June 18 for review and prosecution. Meanwhile, Wu Qinghui's physical condition and medical problems in detention began to become the focus of concern for family and lawyers.

On June 28, lawyer Ruth submitted a complaint to the Bank Sea Branch of the Public Security Bureau of the North Sea City and the First Detention Office of the North Sea City, requesting that relevant persons be investigated for alleged abuse of power, neglect of duty and other responsibilities, and request information disclosure from the detention.

The time node that followed was even more crucial.The case progress released by the Church of Zion on July 21st said that the case had been prosecuted to the People's Court of the Silver Sea District in North Sea City on July 17th, and the defense lawyers were not aware of it in advance.

Meanwhile, Wu Qinghui’s home letter from the custody shows a completely different side to the criminal case. She talks about herself reciting the Book of Gorosi while in custody, helping to write letters to the prison staff, and how to maintain a faithful life in a very limited space.

By August 7, when U.S. media the case again, Wu Qinghui had lost his freedom for a decade.

A religious life originally surrounded by family churches, online religious activities and pastoral networks has been incorporated into the criminal prosecution system by public security agencies; a pastor family has been dissolved; two children have long been unable to live with their mother; and a husband abroad can only continue to speak for his wife through the international community.

In recent years, the CCP’s control of family churches has spread from the ban on fixed gatherings to online preaching, online gatherings, church finance and cross-regional pastoral networks.The Church continued to maintain religious activities online after the blockade of Beijing’s physical venues in 2018, and this decentralization eventually became an important backdrop for a new round of repression.

Thus, the Wu Aikido case provides a specific window to observe China’s religious persecution mechanisms. Public security agencies do not need to publicly declare “prohibition of Christianity”, nor do they need to write directly in the law that “family churches must not exist”. As long as the activities of religious organizations without official control are separately inserted into information networks, business management, social order and other criminal and administrative frameworks, religious control can be completed through the appearance of ordinary criminal justice.

From October 10, 2025 to August 2026, Wu has spent a decade in custody.

For the CCP, this is an ongoing criminal case; for two children, this period has only one more direct meaning: the mother has not been home.