Chinese underground church figure Jin Mingri freed from prison

Jin Mingri, also known as Ezra Jin, a pastor and founder of the underground Zion Church, has been released from prison in China and has arrived in the United States. His incarceration stemmed from overnight raids in October 2022, which Christian groups described as among the strictest crackdowns on religious activity in modern Chinese history. The Chinese government maintains tight control over religion and officially promotes atheism.

Jin's family released a statement thanking supporters, saying they had "witnessed a miracle" and were "overwhelmed with joy." The Chinese foreign ministry has not officially commented on the case. The family expressed gratitude to U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration "for their tremendous leadership" and acknowledged that they knew "this could not have happened without the direct intervention from President Xi Jinping." They expressed hope that the release signals a positive turn for people of faith in China and for bilateral relations.

U.S.-based rights group ChinaAid, which monitors religious persecution, confirmed that Jin arrived in Los Angeles. Its founder, Bob Fu, welcomed his release but noted that "countless" religious practitioners, including eight from the Zion Church, remain incarcerated in China. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of Western lawmakers including dozens of UK MPs, said it was "overjoyed" with the news.

Trump had urged Xi to release Jin during direct talks when the U.S. president was in Beijing for a state visit in May. Trump later said Xi "would strongly consider" the pastor's case. Trump also raised the detention of pro-democracy Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced this year to 20 years in prison for colluding with foreign forces under Hong Kong's controversial national security law.

Jin founded the Zion Church in 2007 with just 20 people. It grew into one of China's largest unregistered churches, with a network of some 10,000 people across 40 cities. The Chinese Communist Party officially banned it in 2018 after the church resisted government pressure to install security cameras at its property in Beijing. Many branch congregations have since been investigated and shut down. Christians have long been pressured to join only state-sanctioned churches led by government-approved pastors. The October 2022 raids resulted in the detention of 30 church leaders, followed by a similar crackdown in January that saw nine more people detained.