“10·9 Zion Church Case”: Pastor Jin Mingri Still Unable to Meet with Lawyer; Lawyer Still Unable to Review Case Files

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On June 7, 2026, this outlet learned that Pastor Jin Mingri in the “10·9 Zion Church Case” is still unable to meet with a lawyer, and the lawyer is still unable to review the case files.

Pastor Jin Mingri’s daughter, Jin Tingya, recently reported: “My father, Jin Mingri, is now alone in prison and cannot even meet with a lawyer. His family and lawyer cannot obtain any information about his case or his situation in prison.

Please let defense lawyer Li Guisheng review the case files at the Yinhai District Procuratorate of Beihai City and the Beihai City Procuratorate! Reviewing the client’s case files is the responsibility and right of a defense lawyer!

Please, relevant departments, do not break the law in the name of law enforcement! @Director Chen Jun, Beihai No. 2 Detention Center @Chief Prosecutor Zhou Zhongxia, Chief Prosecutor of Beihai City’s Yinhai District @Chief Prosecutor Lin Junjie, Beihai People’s Procuratorate.”

Biography of Jin Mingri: Born in 1968, from Heilongjiang Province, of Korean ethnicity, a Christian, with the pastoral name “Ezra,” formerly a pastor at Beijing Christian Church Gangwashi Church (referred to as “Gangwashi Church”), currently a key founder and senior pastor of Beijing Zion Church, an advocate and promoter of the publicization of urban churches, a victim in the “10·9 Zion Church Case,” and a Chinese prisoner of conscience.

In his youth, he was admitted to Peking University’s Department of Geophysics in 1986 (now known as the School of Earth and Space Sciences at Peking University), and was baptized into the Christian faith in 1989; after graduating from university, he first worked for a foreign company, but in 1991, after feeling called, he voluntarily gave up his secular job and was admitted to Yanjing Theological Seminary (formerly the School of Religion at Yanjing University) to study theology; after graduating, he taught at the seminary and served as a pastor at Beijing Christian Church Gangwashi Church;

In 2002, he traveled to Fuller Theological Seminary in California, United States, to pursue further studies in New Testament theology and obtained a doctorate in theology;

In 2007, he returned to China and began founding Beijing Zion Church. Through his efforts to pastor the church, he developed it into one of China’s largest unofficial churches, with multiple branches in different cities across the country and more than 1,000 people attending weekend worship services;

In September 2018, as the number of people at Zion Church grew daily, the authorities sought to impose strict control. However, the church as a whole maintained that it would not join the “Three-Self” churches controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, and was ultimately banned by the Chinese Communist Party, forcing it to become an “underground house church”; from then on, he was frequently monitored and harassed by the authorities, to the extent that he was forced to leave Beijing for another place; despite facing a difficult environment for gospel work, he remained optimistic and continued his efforts, attempting to pastor Zion Church believers by convening small, dispersed gatherings and sharing evangelistic videos online;

It is reported that during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many other churches suspended activities, his Zion Church instead developed rapidly, spreading the gospel through online platforms such as Zoom, YouTube, and WeChat, sometimes attracting tens of thousands of believers nationwide; however, as the Chinese Communist Party authorities continued to intensify their crackdown on religious belief, the authorities issued new regulations in September 2025 aimed at restricting online religious activities to officially registered channels; even before this, in recent years, Christian house churches in various regions had been repeatedly attacked and harshly suppressed, including the arrest and abuse by the authorities of many pastors and co-workers from multiple churches affiliated with Zion Church; because he was frequently monitored, he once told the state-security police monitoring him that he would retire from Zion Church in order to reunite with his family in the United States, but the police refused to let him leave;

From October 9 to 10, 2025, Zion Church branches across the country—including those in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan—were attacked in coordinated actions by the authorities. More than 30 pastors, co-workers, and key believers were summoned, became unreachable, or were criminally detained, while worship and meeting venues at the churches were sealed, property was searched, and some co-workers’ family members were threatened and harassed; on October 10, he was also taken away by Beihai police from his home in Beihai City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, and was criminally detained the next day on suspicion of “the crime of illegally using an information network”; in response to such large-scale arrests, the wives of several pastors formed a pastors’ wives group and issued an urgent appeal, calling on Christian churches across China and around the world to pray together with them. He is currently being held at Beihai No. 2 Detention Center (Pingyang, Gaode Town, Yinhai District, Beihai City, Guangxi Autonomous Region; postal code: 536005).

This outlet will continue to follow developments in the “10·9 Zion Church Case.”