China has released Jin Mingri, pastor and founder of Zion Church, from prison after nearly nine months.
Mingri’s case was raised by US President Donald Trump during his state visit to China in May.
Trump said he discussed the pastor’s imprisonment with Chinese President Xi Jinping and asked him to reconsider the case. The US president also sought clemency for Jimmy Lai, the imprisoned Hong Kong democracy activist.
“I think he’s giving very serious consideration to the pastor,” Trump said on his way back from Beijing, referring to Mingri, but added that Lai’s case would be more difficult.
ChinaAid, a US-based rights group that monitors religious persecution, confirmed Mingri’s release from prison in a statement.
The organisation said Mingri, also known as Ezra Jin, arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday.
“His unexpected freedom is an answer to countless prayers offered by Christians around the world and demonstrates once again that sustained international advocacy can save lives and restore freedom,” ChinaAid said.
Mingri founded Zion Church in 2007 with about 20 worshippers. Over the following decade, it grew into one of China’s largest independent Protestant churches, operating outside the state-approved religious system, which requires congregations to register with the government.
The church was officially banned in 2018 by the ruling Communist Party, which is officially atheist, after it refused to install security cameras at its premises in Beijing.
Many of Zion Church’s affiliated congregations later became underground worship centres and were subsequently shut down as Beijing intensified efforts to bring religious groups under tighter control.
Mingri’s family expressed gratitude for his release in a statement.
“We truly witnessed a miracle, and we are feeling so overwhelmed with joy,” the statement reads.
The family thanked the US president and the Trump administration “for their tremendous leadership” and said they knew “Mingri’s release could not have happened without the direct intervention of [Chinese President] Xi Jinping.”
While celebrating Mingri’s freedom, ChinaAid noted that eight other jailed pastors and co-workers from Zion Church, as well as priests, bishops, house church Christians, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners, and other prisoners of conscience, “remain unjustly imprisoned by the Chinese Communist Party.”
“We respectfully call on President Trump and his administration to continue making religious freedom and the release of all prisoners of faith a top priority in every engagement with Beijing,” ChinaAid said.
“True progress in U.S.-China relations must include freedom for those imprisoned simply because they choose to believe.”
The Chinese foreign ministry has not officially commented on the case.
