Zhang Kai was arrested in August after helping church leaders mount a legal challenge to the campaign to tear down church crosses in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. 'He was using the law to ensure the due legal process,' says Paul Robinson. 'Now that due legal process is being denied him.
'The authorities have destroyed around 1800 crosses on a variety of pretexts,' he adds. 'But the real reason is to try to prevent the visible spread of Christianity in an area described as "the Jerusalem of China".'

A leaked Chinese government report revealed the most prominent and visible churches were being targeted for cross removal: 'The priority is to remove crosses at religious activity sites on both sides of expressways, national highways and provincial highways', said the report, Realisation of Handling of Illegal Religious Buildings.

It's not just lawyers who are being targeted. Two church leaders who were opposed to the campaign of cross demolitions have just been jailed for 'corruption, financial crimes and gathering a crowd to disturb the social order.'

Pastor, Bao Guohua, and his wife, Xing Wenxiang, were sentenced on February 25 to 14 and 12 years - said to be the harshest sentences to be imposed during this current clampdown on clergy. Their affiliated church in Zhejiang had contested the cross removals.

The previous month, January, the authorities arrested high-profile pastor 'Joseph' Gu Yuese, the leader of the Zhejiang Christian Council. He's been charged with embezzlement.

Pastor Gu is believed to be the highest-ranking church leader to be arrested since the cultural revolution. He was also the pastor of a state-recognised church, rather than an 'underground' church. He has since been sacked from the Christian Council and removed as a pastor.

China has a long history of removing turbulent priests, and now human rights lawyers, on trumped-up charges. But this action against a state-registered pastor of such high standing could be a sign of a hardening of official attitudes towards Christianity in China, which is closely regulated and controlled.

The crackdown against Christians in China is usually against leaders and members of churches which have been refused state registration, or prefer to operate independently of state control. For this reason these so-called 'underground' churches are often regarded with suspicion by the single-party atheist state.

The Release petition calls for: 'the unconditional release with immediate effect of Zhang Kai, along with hundreds more detained simply for their defence of human rights and freedom of religion or belief.' The petition to Chinese President Xi Jinping can be signed online at change.org - Zhang Kai.