China jails three for illegally printing Bibles

From the Washington Post:
A Chinese court on Tuesday sentenced a Protestant minister, his wife and her brother to prison terms of up to three years for illegally printing Bibles and other Christian publications, one of their lawyers said.

The conviction of house church minister Cai Zhuohua, 34, and his family by the Beijing People's Intermediate Court came days before U.S. President George W. Bush arrives for a state visit.

I hope W says something about this and doesn’t let the State Department types nuance it into oblivion. I know several people who are doing mission work in Islamic parts of mainland China, and it can apparently get a little hairy at times. For the most part, the worst that will happen to them is that they get a bit roughed up and then deported from the country. The people they work with face serious repercussions if the authorities decide to get testy.

I tend to get so sidetracked by the trivial persecutions of the day here in The States that it is easy to forget people face oppression and martyrdom on a daily basis in large parts of the world.

Speaking of martyrdom, Catholic World News is reporting that two Christian girls have been shot in Indonesia, in the same town where three Christian girls were decapitated on Oct. 29. More thanks to the religion of peace.