Falling on Big Deaf Ears: Chinese Christians Plead for Obama's Help

It's obvious from their pleas that they are not privy to news from the outside world. Now if they were Muslim, they might get a shout out. Sorry Chinese Christians. You're on you own.

President Barack Obama, scheduled to arrive in China last night, is under pressure to press the Chinese Government to halt a new campaign of "persecution" against the country's flourishing network of unregistered churches.

The largest of these "house churches" in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu and Linfen have been evicted from their buildings in recent weeks and a number of their leaders have been questioned, detained or arrested.

"Obama should tell President Hu Jintao to stop the persecution of China's house churches," said Zhang Mingxuan, the president of the Chinese House Church Alliance, speaking by phone from a hotel in Nanyang where he was being detained for the duration of Mr Obama's visit to China.

Fan Yafeng, a prominent church leader, legal scholar and human rights activist, told the Herald that the growing crackdown against house churches was larger and more important than campaigns earlier this year against human rights lawyers, the media and the internet.

China's Christian population has surged from about 3 million during the Cultural Revolution to 130 million, according to the highest Chinese Government estimate.

The Obama Administration has chosen a quieter and more targeted approach to human rights advocacy than many of its predecessors, as it tries to forge co-operation on global issues such as minimising climate change and rebalancing the world economy.

Professor Fan claimed he spoke for "many, many human rights activists in China" in saying Mr Obama was "the weakest US president on human rights in 30 years".