China releases US pastor after wrongfully imprisoning him for 18 years

Originally published in Worthy News

China on Sunday released US pastor David Lin from prison after wrongfully detaining him for 18 years, Reuters reports. Ruled by the authoritarian, paranoid Chinese Communist Party (CCP), China ranks 19 on the Open Doors World Watch List 2024 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.

Now aged 68, Lin was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006 after being convicted of fraud for helping an underground church open a meeting centre in Beijing, BBC News reported. The United States maintains the charges were bogus and consecutive administrations have sought his release.

Lin was finally released on September 15 after US national security adviser Jake Sullivan met China’s Foreign Minister Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing last month to discuss, among other matters, “the cases of American citizens who are wrongfully detained or subject to exit bans in China”, a White House readout of the meeting said.

In a statement following Lin’s release, the US State Department said: “We welcome David Lin’s release from prison in the People’s Republic of China. He has returned to the United States and now gets to see his family for the first time in nearly 20 years.”

Lin’s daughter Alice told the Politico news outlet: “No words can express the joy we have — we have a lot of time to make up for.”

Two other US citizens, Mark Swidan and Kai Li, remain imprisoned in China on charges the State Department says are bogus. Mark Swidan faces the death penalty for alleged drug trafficking.

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