BANGKOK (AP) — Ding Zhongfu was awakened by loud pounding on his door. Five policemen greeted Ding, an elder in a Chinese church.

The officers pinned him to the wall that Thursday morning in November and interrogated him while searching the apartment he shared with his wife, Ge Yunxia, and their 6-year old daughter.

Ding’s family now pleads for his release after he was taken from his home in China’s central Anhui province on suspicion of fraud. In their first public comments on the case, the family denies that Ding committed any fraud.

Instead, they told The Associated Press in an interview, it is part of a wider crackdown on religious freedoms in China.

Four others were detained, all senior members of the Ganquan church, a name that means “Sweet Spring,” according to the family. All were taken on suspicion of fraud, according to a bulletin from a Christian prayer group.

“Under the fabricated charge of ‘fraud,’ many Christians faced harsh persecution,” said Bob Fu, the founder of a U.S.-based Christian rights group, ChinaAid, who is advocating for Ding’s release.

Police have started using fraud charges in recent years against leaders of what are known as house churches, or informal churches not registered with the government in China.

While China allows the practice of Christianity, it can only legally be done at churches registered with the state. Many who choose to worship in house churches say that joining a state church means worshiping the supremacy of the government and Communist Party over God, which they reject.

Beijing in the past several years has increased the pressure on house churches. In 2018, Chinese leader Xi Jinping issued a five-year plan to “Sinicize” all the nation’s officially allowed religions, from Islam to Christianity to Buddhism, by infusing them with “Chinese characteristics” such as loyalty to the Communist Party. Heeding the call, local governments started shutting down house churches through evictions, police interrogations and arrests.

In 2022, pastor Hao Zhiwei in central Hubei province was sentenced to eight years in prison after being charged with fraud, according to Fu. That same year, preachers Han Xiaodong and Li Jie and church worker Wang Qiang were also arrested on suspicion of committing fraud.

On Dec. 1 police called Ding Zhongfu’s wife into the station saying that her husband was being criminally detained on suspicion of fraud. They declined to give her a copy of any paperwork they had her sign that acknowledged they were investigating him.

A police officer at the Shushan branch’s criminal division who answered the phone Tuesday declined to answer questions, saying he could not verify the identity of The Associated Press journalist calling.

The family had been preparing to move to the United States in December to join Ding’s daughter from a previous marriage.

“I wasn’t necessarily a proponent of him moving to the U.S.,” said the daughter, Wanlin Ding, because it would be such a drastic uprooting. “It wasn’t until this event that I realized how serious it was.”

She had wanted him to be part of her wedding in the spring.

Ding’s Ganquan house church had been forced to move multiple times in the past decade, Ge said. The congregation pooled money to buy property so they could use it as a place of worship. Because the churches aren’t recognized by the government, the deeds were put in the names of Ding and two other church members.

Still, police forbid them from using the property to worship, showing up ahead of services to bar people from entering.

In recent years, Ding’s wife said, the church had been meeting at more random locations to avoid police. The church has about 400-500 worshipers from all levels of society.

Ding, in addition to managing the church’s finances, served as an elder in the community, someone people could come to with their problems.

One friend called Ding a “gentle” person in a handwritten testimony for the pastor’s case as part of the public plea for his release: “He was always proactively helping those in society who needed to be helped.”

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This story has been corrected to say the news that five church elders were taken away on suspicion of fraud came from a bulletin from a Christian prayer group, not the Ganquan church.