A pastor from the U.S. has been sentenced by a court in China's Yunnan province to seven years in prison for allegedly "organizing illegal border crossing."
According to China Aid, North Carolina pastor John Cao and his co-worker, Jing Ruxia, were charged with "organizing illegal border crossing" after they went through the China-Myanmar border in March last year.
Cao reportedly established 16 schools, providing educational resources to more than 2,000 children in Myanmar's northern Wa State.
The China-Myanmar border has reportedly not implemented strict regulations in the past and the pastor had so far been able to pass through without incident. However, Cao and Jing were detained on March 5 last year as they were attempting to enter China from Myanmar.
A detention notice from the Menglian County Public Security Bureau was sent to Cao's relatives and his arrest warrant was approved by the procuratorate 20 days later.
Two months later, Cao's mother, identified only by her surname, Sun, received an indictment notice from the police indicating that the case has been officially moved out of the investigation phase and had been transferred to the procuratorate for prosecution. At the time, Sun said that her son looked well and had hoped for a fair trial.
After nearly a year in custody, Cao was finally tried on Feb. 9, 2018. The pastor was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of 20,000 yuan (US$3,000), while Jing was sentenced to a year in prison and a fine of 5,000 yuan (approximately US$792). Jing has since been released because she had already been held in custody for a year, according to China Aid.
Apart from his educational work, Cao founded a church in his home province of Hunan and also serves as a pastor for China Ministries International. After a devastating earthquake tore through Wenchuan, Sichuan in 2008, Cao had worked to help students and victims rebuild their lives by setting up schools for impoverished children in Pu'er, where he was held in custody.
Cao had become a North Carolina resident after marrying Jamie Powell, an American citizen in 1988. Powell still resides in the U.S., along with their two sons.
Chinese courts have sometimes handed down harsh sentences to pastors. Earlier this year, a court in Guizhou province ordered the two pastors of Huoshi church to pay a 7,053,710.68 yuan ($1,096,499.33 USD) fine for collecting that amount in church offerings from their congregation.
Pastor Su Tianfu and Yang Hua had filed several appeals arguing that the money cannot be considered "illegal income" because it had only been used on the church, but all their appeals were denied.
