China bars US Evangelical in response to sanctioning of Chinese official

China said on Wednesday it had blocked an American Evangelical leader and businessman and his family from visiting following the US sanctioning of a Chinese official for alleged religious persecution. The Chinese Foreign Ministry imposed sanctions on Johnnie Moore, a member of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), prohibiting him and his family from entering mainland China or the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.

Moore responded to the move by China, stating on Twitter that “it is an honor to be sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Party for giving my voice to the Uyghur Muslims, Christians (including Jimmy Lai), Tibetan Buddhists & countless others the CCP tries to silence."

"The CCP doesn’t understand the difference between ‘the truth’ and a ‘lie’ but here’s some truth we know: they are weaker than they want us to believe that they are. A global coalition is building to hold them to account and it transcends political parties and U.S. administrations. This Great Wall of Collaboration is a promise to future generations that we will not hand our world to the CCP to victimize the innocent as they please.”

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