After the defence of the church of Zion, lawyers raised the house: Wang Xia Red said the law was forced to dissolve, and religious pressure began to extend to the defence.

Beijing lawyer Ruth Wang arrived in Taiwan on September 2 with her husband and two young children and sought resettlement in a third country after members of the Church of Zion were arrested.The China Aid Association on September 3 thatShe left China due to continued professional and administrative pressure.The Associated Press subsequently interviewed Wang Xiaobo, who said the authorities demanded that the law office where she was located be dissolved on its own or would be forced to shut down, and asked lawyers to stop participating in the case of the Church of Zion.

The incident extended the chain of responsibility in the case of the Church of Zion to one level. The accused are prosecuted on one level; the lawyers are dissolved by law, pressured and potentially taken further measures to act on them, and the other level. If the defense itself becomes a justification for punishment, the so-called “lawyer’s right” in criminal justice will degrade from a systemic commitment to a limited license in high-pressure cases.

Wang Xiaobo is a partner of the Beijing-Kamen law firm. After the mass arrest of the Zion Church in Beijing in October 2025, the lawyer was involved in defending several church members. Wang Xiaobo told the Associated Press that the relevant judicial department had asked the lawyer to withdraw from the case, and she herself was concerned that further measures could be taken after her return to China. She eventually did not return to the mainland, but took her family to seek resettlement through Taiwan.

Radio Free Asia on September 4Taiwan has granted a temporary stay to Wang Xiaobo’s family and assisted in finding a third-country resettlement plan. The Taiwan Land Commission has also confirmed its presence in Taiwan to the Associated Press. A practising lawyer has ultimately had to find a safe cross-border destination because of his participation in defence of religious cases, so that the case has gone beyond the scope of mere religious law enforcement, into the issue of lawyer’s occupation safety and judicial independence.

The case of the Church of Zion itself is still ongoing. In October 2025, several pastors and fellow workers were arrested; church founder Kim was later released to the United States, but eight pastors and fellow workers were still detained. The trial scheduled for August was postponed once, and the defense lawyer had raised procedural issues such as insufficient reading time. That is to say, the pressure on lawyers did not occur after the case ended, but when the defendant still needed defense and the procedural dispute had not been resolved.

Human Rights Watch on September 9 also mentioned the displacement of Wang Xia Red.And put it in the context of China’s strengthening religious administration and suppression of independent churches. What really needs to be observed is not whether the officials call the measures “lawfully administered”, but whether lawyers can act for sensitive religious cases without losing their law offices, practice qualifications and personal safety.

The value of the lawyer system lies in the fact that when the state agency has the power to investigate, prosecute and detain, the defendant still has a professional agent who can independently challenge evidence, procedures and coercive measures. If the lawyer is forced to withdraw from the case because he plays this role, or even move his family out of China, then the balance between judicial power and the right to defend has actually been broken.

The family has now left mainland China, but the long-term direction remains uncertain. Her experience has led to a clearer chain of repression in the case of the Church of Zion: religious groups are prosecuted, defence lawyers are under administrative and professional pressure, and lawyers eventually leave across borders. In such cases, whether lawyers are safe is an important measure of whether the defendant can get genuine defence.

When the defense of the defendant also involves the dissolution of the law and personal risks, the case is not just a matter of religious freedom, but also a question of whether the state authority allows independent legal agents to exist. If a judicial system needs to maintain control of sensitive cases by compressing the space of lawyers, then procedural justice also loses its most critical balancer.