Case Details and Biography of Sun Chao, Christian Church Preacher in Qujing, Yunnan, Criminally Detained

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On August 30, 2026, this outlet learned the case details and biography of Sun Chao, a Christian church preacher in Qujing, Yunnan, who has been criminally detained, and reports them as follows:

Sun Chao: Born in 1989, a native of Qujing City, Yunnan Province, a Christian, a preacher at the Philadelphia Church in Qujing, Yunnan, and a Chinese prisoner of conscience.

After coming to believe in the Lord in his youth, he began actively participating in worship and fellowship activities at a house church; beginning in 2015, deeply moved by his religious calling, he undertook ministries including preaching, pastoral care, and visitation, thus becoming one of the younger generation of preachers in local house churches; he is mild-mannered and humble, but because he has long insisted on serving in an unregistered house church (that is, one not under the jurisdiction of the “Three-Self” church system), he and his family have endured considerable pressure from the government: His wife, Zhao Ying, is also a Christian, and the couple have a daughter and a son; the family should have been happy and harmonious, but unexpectedly their younger son developed congenital cataracts, requiring repeated trips to Chongqing for follow-up examinations; he himself also suffers from epilepsy and requires long-term medication to control it, and because an episode of his illness may result in convulsions and loss of consciousness, his health risks are extremely high, making his family’s medical and living burdens particularly heavy; however, even under these circumstances, he never gave up and continued to serve faithfully in the church; in recent years, as the Chinese Communist authorities have continued to intensify their crackdown on house churches, demonstrating that the space for religious freedom in China has further contracted, he was administratively detained by police in Kunming City, Yunnan Province, in April 2024; in June 2025, he was again administratively detained in Qujing City, Yunnan Province;

On July 25, 2026, he was again administratively detained for 12 days by local police in Xuanwei City, in the Qujing area, for preaching the Gospel; on August 7, the date his administrative detention ended, when his wife went to collect him, she was told that he had been transferred to criminal detention and that the charge had been escalated to suspected “illegal organization of gatherings”; because the nature of his case had changed from an administrative punishment to a criminal case, this means that he may face a considerably longer period of detention and trial; since his arrest, his health condition has genuinely been a cause for concern: he needs to take epilepsy medication on schedule, but it remains unclear whether the detention center can guarantee his medical needs; his family has also been plunged into even greater hardship by his detention, so his wife, Zhao Ying, has continued to issue public appeals in the hope of drawing attention to her husband’s health and lawful rights, while the believers at his church all hope that he will be released soon and reunited with his family. He is currently detained at the Xuanwei City Detention Center (southern section of Xining Road, Rongcheng Town, Xuanwei City, Yunnan Province, Postal Code: 655400).