Pastor freed from prison in China weeks after Trump requested his release

WASHINGTON (AP) — A pastor of a prominent underground church who was detained in China in October has been released, less than two months after U.S. President Donald Trump brought up his case when meeting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, his family and rights advocates said Saturday.

Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri arrived in Los Angeles and “is finally reunited with his family,” Frances Hui of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation wrote on X.

He and 17 other leaders of the underground Zion Church were detained in October in one of China’s largest crackdowns on a single church in decades, raising worries over an escalation in the government’s curtailing of religious freedom.

A family statement said the release happened very quickly. It thanked Trump and said they know the release could not have happened without Xi’s direct intervention.

“We hope this is a signal of a positive turn for people of faith in China and relations between our two nations,” the statement said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Jin’s case gained attention after Trump, when wrapping up a state visit to Beijing in May, said he raised the issue of the pastor’s release with Xi and that the Chinese leader said he would give serious consideration to it.

Activists welcomed Jin’s release but also remembered those still being held.

“At least 8 members of Zion Church remain detained in China,” Maya Wang from Human Rights Watch wrote on X. “They should all be freed.”

The Zion Church is among the largest churches unregistered with the Chinese authorities, defying restrictions from the officially atheist Communist Party requiring believers to worship only in registered congregations.

“My father started Zion in order to worship freely in a church that put God as the sole head of our church, like many faithful Christians everywhere,” his daughter Grace Jin Drexel, who lives in the United States, told a congressional committee in November.

Jin brought his family to the U.S. after authorities targeted Zion Church in 2018 but decided to go back despite the risks. His daughter said last fall that she hadn’t seen her father in six years.

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Ken Moritsugu in Beijing and Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.

Didi Tang, The Associated Press