WASHINGTON (AP) — A (*20*) pastor from California has been released from China after nearly 20 years in prison and is back in his native United States, the State Department said Monday.
David Lin, 68, was arrested after entering China in 2006, later convicted of contract fraud and sentenced to life in prison, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and advocacy groups said.
“We welcome the release of David Lin from prison in the People’s Republic of China. He has returned to the United States and is now seeing his family for the first time in nearly 20 years,” the State Department said.
“Praise God! We got the call late last night!!! Daddy is free and now over Alaska,” the pastor’s daughter, Alice Lin, wrote Sunday to Bob Fu, a longtime supporter, before she was scheduled to reunite with her father, according to the screenshot Fu provided to the AP.
“God did it!!!” the daughter wrote.
The U.S. government has been investigating the case of Lin and the other defendants for years, raising them at every meeting with senior Chinese officials, including Blinken’s recent meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Laos.
According to China Aid, a U.S. advocacy group for persecuted activists in China founded by Fu, Lin frequently traveled to China in the 1990s to spread the gospel. The organization said Lin had applied to the Chinese government for a license to serve as a (*20*) minister there. He was unlikely to receive permission, and in 2006 he was arrested while helping a house church, China Aid said.
Lin was officially arrested in 2009 on suspicion of contract fraud and sentenced to life imprisonment after a judicial review, China Aid said.
The accusation is often made against leaders of the house church movement, which operates outside of state-sponsored religious communities. According to the Dui Hua Foundation, a humanitarian organization that advocates for prisoners in China, this is a crime that Lin denies. The Commission on Religious Freedom says: “Those who participate in and lead house churches are often intimidated, harassed, arrested and receive harsh punishments.”
In China, all (*20*) churches must pledge allegiance to the ruling Communist Party and register with the government. Any unregistered church is considered an underground church and its activities are considered illegal in China. Beijing has always cracked down on “illegal preaching” and has only increased its efforts in the past decade.
Lin’s sentence had been reduced and he was due to be released in April 2030. The Commission on Religious Freedom noted in 2019 that there were reports that Lin’s health was deteriorating and his safety in prison was at risk.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Lin’s release.
Other Americans known to be detained in China include Kai Li, a businessman held on espionage charges that his family says are fabricated, and Mark Swidan, who was convicted of drug offenses. Nelson Wells Jr. and Dawn Michelle Hunt are also imprisoned on drug charges, and both are considered “wrongfully imprisoned” by the Dui Hua Foundation, a U.S. human rights organization that cares for political prisoners and other vulnerable detainees.
Dui Hua estimates that more than 200 Americans are subject to coercive measures in China.
Texas Republican and Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul said he was “extremely pleased” about the release of Lin, who spent 17 years behind bars in China, and called for the immediate release of Li and Swidan.
Lin’s arrest, like that of so many others, “marks a growing trend of hostage diplomacy by authoritarian regimes around the world,” McCaul said on the social platform X.
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Associated Press writers Courtney Bonnell and Matt Lee contributed from Washington.
