The So-Called “Principal Offender” in the Zion Church Case, Kim Myung-il, Released Without Charge to the United States; Father of Pastor Gao Yingjia, a Co-Defendant in the Case, Went to Beihai to Demand Its Dismissal

（Rights Defense Network Information Center report）On July 13, 2026，this outlet learned：Recently，Kim Myung-il, the so-called “principal offender” in the Zion Church case, was released without charge to the United States, while the father of Pastor Gao Yingjia, a co-defendant in the case, went to Beihai to demand that the case be dismissed. The authorities handling the case obstructed him in every possible way, demanding that Gao’s father prove that he was Gao’s father.。

After Trump raised the demand for Pastor Kim Myung-il’s release at the Trump-Xi meeting, Xi Jinping ordered Pastor Kim Myung-il’s release on July 3. According to Pastor Kim, there were no conditions attached and he was released without charge.。

Pastor Kim Myung-il is the founder and senior pastor of Zion Church, and the so-called principal “offender” in the Zion 109 case. The substance of this case is religious persecution. Since the principal “offender” has already been released without charge, should the other eight detained “accomplices” not also be released without charge immediately?？

Recently，Gao Yingjia’s father went several times to the Beihai Procuratorate to submit an application to dismiss the case; he encountered obstruction at every turn. The staff behaved rudely and shouted at him, and made things difficult for him in every possible way：they demanded that, in addition to his identity card, he provide proof of parent-child relations; when he called to request the issuance of such proof, he was also repeatedly obstructed. When he went there accompanied by a lawyer, the staff’s attitude clearly changed, but they continued to obstruct him without justification.。

Gao Yingjia’s résumé:Born in 1978, a native of Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, Christian, signatory to the joint statement by pastors, “A Declaration Made for the Christian Faith,” pastor of Beijing Zion Church, person in charge of the Tongliao church district, victim of the Zion Church 10·9 case, and a Chinese prisoner of conscience.。

In his early years, he studied theoretical physics in the Department of Physics at Peking University; after graduating from university with a bachelor’s degree, he continued at Peking University in a combined master’s and doctoral program in a related physics field, ultimately earning a doctorate in physics with outstanding results; in July 2006, he was recruited by the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as a postdoctoral researcher, choosing “particle physics” as his research direction, and completed his postdoctoral program in June 2008; he could originally have remained at the institute or entered a national scientific research institution, but because of his faith in Jesus Christ and a deep sense of being called, he chose to pursue theological training so that he could devote himself full-time to church ministry; afterward, he joined Beijing Zion Church and gradually became a preacher there; in 2014, he was ordained as a pastor; in September 2018, he actively signed the joint statement initiated by Pastor Wang Yi, “A Declaration Made for the Christian Faith,” but soon afterward, because the Beijing Zion Church where he served was unwilling to submit to the management of the “Three-Self” church established by the authorities, it came under pressure and was banned by the local bureau of ethnic and religious affairs on the grounds that it was promoting a “cult,” thereby forcing the church to become an underground “house church”; this change not only subjected him and several other pastors at the church to extensive monitoring of their pastoral movements and interference in and warnings concerning their daily lives, but also led to their home being searched several times; however, sensing that these pastors remained firm in their faith and upheld their beliefs, they began trying new forms of evangelism and worship gatherings; beginning in 2019, as the novel coronavirus spread and raged, people began increasingly using online methods for communication, and these pastors began adopting small-group meeting formats, mainly sharing church worship on Zoom and conducting online evangelism, while also occasionally holding offline activities to strengthen pastoral care for believers in the Tongliao church district under Zion Church;

However, in September 2025, as the Chinese Communist Party issued new religious regulations, the authorities’ crackdown on house churches clearly intensified, because the new regulations were explicitly intended to strictly restrict the online religious activities of house churches; from October 9 to 10 of the same year, police across the country carried out coordinated mass arrests at Zion Church’s various branches. Within just two days, more than 30 pastors, church workers, and key believers were summoned, went missing, or criminally detained, while worship and meeting venues of the churches were sealed, property was searched, and some workers’ family members were frightened, threatened, and harassed; on October 10, while he was at a friend’s home, police from the Yinhai District of Beihai City, Guangxi, broke in and took him away. His home was searched the following day, and he was given no reason when taken away, while the items searched and seized from his home were not accompanied by a receipt or inventory; several days later, 10 pastors and church workers from the church’s districts nationwide were released on bail pending trial, while he, Pastor Kim Myung-il, and 20 others remained detained. It was learned that on October 12 they were all criminally detained on suspicion of “the crime of illegally using an information network”; on November 18 of the same year, after another two people were released on bail, the 18 pastors and church workers were formally arrested by the Yinhai District Procuratorate of Beihai City on the same charge. They are currently detained at Beihai No. 2 Detention Center (Pingyang, Gaode Town, Yinhai District, Beihai City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, postal code: 536005).