A CHRISTIAN bookshop owner has been arrested in China for printing unauthorised copies of the Bible.
Police seized Shi Weihan, 37, the owner of Holy Spirit Trading Company, in the early hours from his home in the Chinese capital, Beijing. He is accused of conducting "illegal operations" and remains in custody, more than a month after his arrest.
The police confiscated almost all of the Christian literature and Bibles stored in the home he shares with his wife, Zhang Jing, and seized all the books in his bookshop.
Ms Zhang said that, while the books in their shop were legally printed and sold in China, her husband privately published many Christian books and Bibles without authorisation and distributed them among local home churches: this was the reason for his arrest.
"He was worried about publishing these unauthorised books," said Ms Zhang, 37. "But the church needed these books and so he felt it was a risk worth taking."
Last month, China's top religious affairs officer, Ye Xiaowen, presided at a ceremony to mark the publication of Amity Printing's 50 millionth Bible – 41 million have been distributed inside the People's Republic.
Amity, a joint venture between the Amity Foundation – a Chinese Christian organisation – and United Bible Societies Publishing, is the only authorised publisher of Bibles in China. And when it opens its new factory in Nanjing province this year, it will be able to churn out 12 million books a year – making China the world's single biggest publisher of Bibles, a fact that sits uneasily with the country's poor record on religious freedom.
China Aid Organisation (CAA) says the country has launched a crackdown on unauthorised religious groups ahead of the Olympic Games – Mr Shi's bookshop, in an upmarket office block, is less than two miles from the main Olympics venue.
China detains thousands of members of religious groups every year; some 70 members of a Protestant home church in eastern Shandong province are still being held after their arrest in early December for taking part in an "illegal religious gathering," according to the CAA.
Ms Zhang said her husband had no plans to stage such a protest, nor has he ever been in trouble either with his bookshop or the home church he runs every Sunday. The government has neither interfered with the home church nor pressured him to register it, she said.
Ray Sharpe, a US businessman and long-term friend of Mr Shi's, said he took his faith very seriously. "Yes I would say he is an outspoken Christian. I would describe him as an evangelical. He never hesitates to talk about his faith," he said.
With eight months to go before the Olympics, the government is taking great pains to paint itself to the international community as a country of religious tolerance. It says local Christian groups will be encouraged to hand out Bibles to athletes and spectators during the event.
The CAA says Mr Shi is being held in an unheated cell and is subjected to sleep deprivation. Ms Zhang says she has been denied visitor rights to see her husband and so is "not clear" about his condition.
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