No Change in Second Trial of Beijing House Church Leader
The verdict of the second trial of a prominent Chinese house church pastor remains the same as he continues serving his three year jail sentence.
The verdict of the second trial of a prominent Chinese house church pastor remains the same as he continues serving his three year jail sentence.
On Tuesday, the Beijing Municipality Haidian District People’s Court ruled that Pastor Cai Zhuohua operated an illegal business with the help of his wife, Xiao Yunfei, and his brother-in-law, Xiao Gaowen, who were also sentenced to prison and fined for their involvement. The verdict continued to accuse the house church pastor of “using book samples obtained from third parties or materials downloads from the Internet for content” to engage in the illegal publishing and printing of over 200,000 volumes of books, receiving money in exchange for the literature.
“This court believes that defendant Cai Zhuohua along with defendants Xiao Yunfei and Xiao Gaowen illegally engaged in the business of publishing, printing, and copying publications, that this severely disrupted market order, that the circumstances are particularly severe, and that the behavior of each constitutes the crime of illegally operating a business and should be punished,” the verdict read.
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The second verdict comes despite claims by all three defendants that the printing of the books was not for the purpose of seeking personal profit, that the funds used for the printing was from past years of business, and that the books was intended for internal use only.
The defendants have 10 days within the second day after receiving the verdict to appeal.
Cai is currently serving his three year sentence at the Beijing Municipality Haidian district detention center.
