Pastor freed from prison in China weeks after US President Donald Trump requested his release

Pastor freed from prison in China weeks after US President Donald Trump requested his release Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri was detained with 17 other church leaders in October in one of China’s largest crackdowns on a single church in decades. WASHINGTON: A pastor of a prominent underground church who was detained in China in October has been released, less than two months after US President Donald Trump brought up his case when meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, according to rights advocates. Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri, of the underground Zion Church, arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday (Jul 4), and “is finally reunited with his family”, Frances Hui of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation wrote on X. The Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, a group of Western lawmakers, also reported his release and shared a photo of the pastor with his daughter, Grace Jin Drexel, both smiling. Jin’s case gained attention after Trump, when wrapping up his state visit to Beijing in May, said he raised the issue of the pastor's release with Xi and that the Chinese leader said he would give serious consideration to it. Jin was detained with 17 other church leaders in October in one of China’s largest crackdowns on a single church in decades, raising worries over Beijing’s escalation in curtailing religious freedom. ChinaAid, a Christian NGO, said on Sunday it welcomed Jin's release. The pastor had been held in detention centres in the southern Chinese city of Beihai since last October. Jin's daughter Grace told Reuters on Sunday that eight members of the Zion Church are still detained in China. "ChinaAid welcomes with profound gratitude the release of imprisoned Chinese house church pastor Ezra Jin, who arrived safely in Los Angeles on Jul 4, 2026," the NGO said in a statement that used Jin's English first name. China's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside work hours. "We know that this could not have happened without the direct intervention from Chairman Xi Jinping. We hope this is a signal of a positive turn for people of faith in China and relations between our two nations," said a separate family statement shared with Reuters. TIGHTENED SCRUTINY China's ruling Communist Party has historically regarded organised religion with suspicion, and under Xi, has tightened scrutiny of unofficial groups, AFP reported. Authorities have been cracking down on unregistered churches in recent months. In June, an Early Rain Covenant Church service in southwestern Sichuan province was raided, and two leaders detained. That followed the detention in January of several other leading members of Early Rain. The same week, Yayang church in eastern Zhejiang province was scaffolded and had its cross removed, AFP reporters saw. Zion Church was founded in 2007 in Beijing. It grew to 1,500 members before shuttering in 2018 under pressure from Chinese authorities. The church maintained an online presence that flourished during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a following across 40 Chinese cities. Jin's family relocated abroad after 2018 but he returned to China to be with the church, afterwards facing a travel ban. He has not seen most of his family, including two young sons, for more than seven years, his daughter told AFP last year.