Pat Klein of the Wyoming-based Vision Beyond Borders, said they were convinced officials wanted them to leave the Kunming airport in southern China without the Bibles, preventing their distribution.
"We paid a lot to come here and bring them," from Thailand, Klein said in a statement from the customs area, where the four have been since Sunday, August 17. "We’re not bringing in contraband, drugs, evil stuff. We’re just bringing in Bibles."
Klein said the 300 Mandarin-language Bibles were printed in Indonesia, transferred to Thailand and flown to Kunming in duffel bags. They paid more than $350 in excess luggage fees in addition to the $200 per person for Chinese visas, plus their tickets
NO COMMENT
Chinese officials were not immediately available for comment and a police official in Kunming said he was not able to confirm the seizure. There has been international pressure on China to allow more religious freedom, including Bible distribution during the Beijing Olympics. While authorities have pledged to allow some distribution, Communist officials have also cracked down on the distribution of Christian literature.
Klein, a 46-year-old from Wyoming, said he has brought more than 10,000 Bibles into China over the past 20 years but has never had books seized before. "We’ve not done anything wrong," he told the French News Agency AFP by telephone from Kunming. "We’re not trying overthrow the government or disrupt the Olympics."
The group of four Americans, which included a 15-year-old boy and his 78-year-old grandfather, were refusing to leave the airport on Sunday night without the books. Officials told them they could have the Bibles back when they left the country and meanwhile could take one each with them, Klein said."If China’s going to say they have freedom of religion, why take our Bibles?" he was quoted as saying.
RESTRICTING RELIGION
China’s Marxist constitution provides for freedom of religion but in practice the ruling Communist Party restricts independent worship by forcing groups to register. The government says China has 15 million registered Protestants and five million Catholics in official churches.
There are believed to be tens of millions more — including an estimated 10 million Catholics — in "underground" or "family" churches, which refuse to submit to government regulation. Several church leaders have been detained in recent days and weeks.
American President George W. Bush attended a church service in Beijing on an Olympic visit to China last week, during which he repeatedly called on China to allow more religious freedom. (BosNewsLife’s Asia Correspondent Santosh Digal contributed to this report).
