Jia Xuewei: A Church Deacon Who Was Disappeared

Jia Xuewei, assistant deacon at Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church.

He formerly worked as a reporter for China News Service, was dispatched to Europe, and also worked as a writer and published books. Because his girlfriend at the time came to Chengdu from Beijing, he followed her there and committed himself to Chengdu Early Rain Covenant Church.

Not long afterward, the shocking Early Rain 1209 crackdown of 2018 took place. The church, which then had nearly 1,000 people, was forcibly dissolved by the Chinese government; its meeting hall was seized, all church property was confiscated, the church pastor and his entire family were arrested, their residence was re-locked and sealed, other core ministry workers were arrested, and more than 100 other church members were detained in so-called “legal education centers.” More than seven years have now passed since this crackdown. The church pastor, Wang Yi, is still serving his prison sentence, while his wife, Jiang Rong, remains under long-term house arrest. The outside world cannot learn her specific situation or make contact with her.

Jia Xuewei witnessed the entire course of the crackdown. When he first came to the church, most people did not know him, but soon everyone came to know him through his articles. Drawing on his writing talent and years of experience as a reporter, he recorded the course of the crackdown. These articles were later collected in the book Silence Comes Like an Avalanche (an electronic version of the book can be found online).

After the crackdown, many people in the church were forced to move. Even church members who were a couple and both blind were not spared. Seeing this situation, he took the initiative to help brothers and sisters in the church move house, visit people in need, and provide church members with whatever assistance he was able to offer. These actions turned him from someone the authorities had previously paid no attention to into a target with whom the authorities were extremely dissatisfied. The authorities began pressuring his landlord to terminate the lease, cut off his water, electricity, and gas, and block the keyhole. He became homeless, sometimes spending the night in bookstores and fast-food restaurants. On one occasion, simply because a church member who rented a home provided him only with a bathroom to shower in, that member was also implicated and forced to move. After he experienced this treatment several times while renting homes, he was forced to become homeless, leaving his household belongings at the homes of church brothers and sisters, carrying only a few changes of clothes, and living in inexpensive youth hostels. Staying in a hostel required registering his identity card, and usually the police would find him soon afterward and demand that the hostel owner drive him out. He could only move to another hostel. This way of life continued for at least a year.

Even so, he still told the brothers and sisters in the church: “Let him bear the consequences if anything happens. He has no wife or children to care for; all of you have wives and children to care for.” Later, he was chosen as an assistant deacon of the church and stopped working as a reporter. He led small-group Bible studies, emphasizing that the brothers and sisters should speak more and he should speak less, guiding people toward the gospel itself. He especially liked children, told them stories, and was well-liked by them. They affectionately called him “Uncle Jia.”

During his service in the church, he was repeatedly placed under administrative detention by the authorities. Because he was unmarried and his parents had died, and his only brother and sister lived elsewhere and had not yet accepted the faith, no family members paid attention to him when he was detained. On one occasion, the police suddenly pinned him to the ground on the street, put a black hood over his head, and took him away directly. It was only after he had been detained for several days that anyone learned he had disappeared.

On January 6, 2026, the authorities once again persecuted Early Rain Covenant Church. This was the second crackdown against Early Rain Bible Church. Jia Xuewei disappeared again; his phone could not be reached, and no one was at his rented home. After making inquiries through various channels, church brothers and sisters learned that he had been criminally detained at the Deyang City Detention Center in Sichuan Province. His brother and sister have still not received any legal documents concerning his criminal detention.

He is no longer in the detention center and is being held under residential surveillance at a designated location. Residential surveillance at a designated location is a coercive criminal measure that exists completely outside legal oversight, and family members do not know the specific place where the person is being held. The holding environment is a small room completely covered with padding, with dedicated personnel monitoring the detainee 24 hours a day. No one speaks to the detainee, and there are frequent interrogations. People held under residential surveillance at a designated location may be deprived of sleep at any time and subjected to disguised torture, such as being roasted, starved, exposed to the sun, or frozen, without oversight. The authorities do not allow lawyers to provide any legal services. The only people a person held under residential surveillance at a designated location can speak to are the police and state-security officers who interrogate them. After remaining in such an environment for a long time, even a mentally healthy person can suffer a breakdown. According to people who have experienced residential surveillance at a designated location, compared with a detention center, even though conditions in Chinese detention centers are extremely poor, they are practically heaven compared with residential surveillance at a designated location.

We have reasonable grounds to believe that Jia Xuewei of Early Rain Bible Church, who is being held under residential surveillance at a designated location, and Ye Fenghua, another person involved in the crackdown who is being held under residential surveillance at a designated location, are suffering this torture.