Arrested Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Reformed House Church Elder Li Yingqiang Spends His 47th Birthday in Prison

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On June 23, 2026, this outlet learned that today, arrested Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Reformed House Church elder Li Yingqiang spent his 47th birthday in prison. He was taken away by police on January 6, 2026. On February 12, his family received notification that his arrest had been approved, on the charge of “inciting subversion of state power.” He is currently detained at the Deyang City Detention Center.

Li Yingqiang: Born on June 23, 1979, he is from Qingshi Town, Qichun County, Hubei Province, and is a Christian. He previously served as director of the editorial department of New Youth: Weighing, as a council member of the Chuanzhixing Social Economic Research Institute, and as the former founder of the grassroots public-interest education organization “Liren Rural Library.” He is an elder of the Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Reformed House Church, one of those involved in the major crackdown on the Chengdu Early Rain Church, and a Chinese prisoner of conscience.

In 2007, he founded the grassroots public-interest education organization Liren Rural Library. However, as its operations subsequently continued to expand, it established 22 branch libraries in 12 provinces and cities over the course of several years. As a result, beginning in 2011, the organization came under major attack from the authorities. By 2014, multiple branches had been forced to close. In September 2014, all of the organization’s branches were inexplicably ordered to cease operations at the same time by multiple departments, including the Culture Bureau, Education Bureau, and Public Security Bureau. On January 3, 2010, he accepted the Gospel and became a Christian. Later, moved by his faith, he decided to devote himself to spreading the Christian Gospel, and in November 2012 began studying theology at Huaxi Covenant Theological Seminary. After completing his studies, he was ordained an elder of Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church.

Because he repeatedly engaged in street evangelism with Pastor Wang Yi and other pastors and church co-workers, and actively promoted the “house church” model of worship while refusing to join the management of the “Three-Self” churches controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, he was arrested during the authorities’ December 9, 2018 mass-arrest operation. On December 11, Chengdu police criminally detained him on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” after which he lost contact with the outside world. On August 18, 2019, he was finally released on bail pending trial, but was sent back to his hometown in Hubei.

He later returned to Chengdu. On September 3, 2024, while he was still serving as a pastor and conducting Sunday worship with approximately 50 believers at Early Rain Covenant Church, police from the Hongpailou Police Station in Chengdu’s Wuhou District again raided the gathering, citing “engaging in religious activities without permission.” Four pastors, including him, were administratively detained for 14 days.

On January 6, 2026, amid the Chinese Communist authorities’ escalating crackdown on house churches nationwide, police from the local police station suddenly raided the Early Rain Academy teaching site, forcing him to stop teaching there and immediately organize the evacuation of teachers and students from the site. Later that day, police took control of him at his home in Deyang and searched the residence. A number of other pastors of Early Rain Covenant Church, including the pastors of its Chengdu and Deyang congregations—evangelists Dai Zhichao, Yan Hong, and Wu Wuqing—as well as core co-workers, including Deacon Zeng Qingtao, Associate Deacon Jia Xuewei, and brother Ye Fenghua, and their family members, were also closely monitored, threatened, subjected to home searches, restricted in their personal freedom, and cut off from contact. The following day, it became known that he had been arrested. On February 12, his family received notification that his arrest had been approved, on the charge of “inciting subversion of state power.” He is currently detained at the Deyang City Detention Center.