by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - A young Christian mother in China has been in police detention for a month after being arrested for helping to develop a Christian app called “Song of Songs,” China Aid reports.
Xin Ruoyu from Guangzhou was arrested by Shandong police last month and has been kept in an extrajudicial “black room” for a month, China Aid was told by a local source who knows her. In her early 30s and the mother of a small child, Xin Ruoyu was described by the source as a “loving, caring, and very frail” woman.
The “Song of Songs” app that Xin Ruoyu was working on is a Gospel app that was being developed specifically for Chinese-speaking Christians. “It offers hundreds of thousands of Chinese and foreign hymns and music videos, various versions of hymn books, and sheet music, providing everything one might need,” China Aid said in its report. “Song of Songs” is an Old Testament allegoric poem attributed to King Solomon.
A letter that has been circulating among Chinese house churches has called for prayer for Xin Ruoyu, China Aid reports. “The prayer letter asks for God to strengthen her faith, grant her a healthy body, and provide comfort and care for her family,” China Aid said.
Ruled by the paranoid, authoritarian Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which has steadily and increasingly cracked down on Christianity, China ranks 19 on the Open Doors World Watch List 2024 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.