Members of exiled Chinese church detained in Thailand fear deportation and persecution
- More than 30 congregants of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church were charged with overstaying their visas
- The group came to Thailand last year seeking asylum after fleeing China in 2019 alleging that their members were being harassed by government authorities
Deana Brown, one of two American supporters detained along with the church members, said that Thai authorities in the coastal city of Pattaya detained the 63 church members, many of whom are children, on Thursday.
Thirty-two adult Chinese nationals were charged with overstaying their visas, said Col. Tawee Kutthalaeng, chief of the Pattaya-area Nong Prue police station. Children were not charged, he said. The two American citizens were not placed under arrest, he said.
Brown, CEO of the Texas-based Freedom Seekers International, an organisation whose mission statement says it seeks to rescue “the most severely persecuted Christians in hostile and restrictive countries,” said the group had been told that they would be given a court date later Friday.
Brown said she is working to resettle the church members in Tyler, Texas, where her organisation is based, but that they had run into problems with their visas in Thailand. She said she assumed that she and the other American, a nurse, had been detained because they were there at the time the church members were taken into custody.
