(Bitter Winter) — As reported by ChinaAid, on September 1, 2019, the owner of Wheat Bookstore, an online Christian bookseller, was taken into custody for selling religious publications from Taiwan, the United States, and other countries that were not approved by the state. Following the arrest, a nationwide investigation was launched to track down the people who had bought these publications.
A Christian who requested anonymity told Bitter Winter that believers from as far as Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the northwest and Liaoning Province in the northeast of the country were interrogated for purchasing books on Wheat Bookstore. All the books, the majority published by A Kernel of Wheat Christian Ministries in the United States, were confiscated.
“A believer in Liaoning has been summoned by the local Public Security Bureau three times, and police officers told him that Wheat Bookstore is ‘an anti-China force,’” the Christian said.
Christians from Shandong, Henan, and Zhejiang provinces reported to Bitter Winter that the police searched their homes and inspected the content of their phones because they had purchased religious materials from Wheat Bookstore, even if it happened two years ago.
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