Elder Qin Defu from Early Rain Covenant Church in China was sentenced to four years in prison Friday for "illegal business operations."

A group affiliated with the church quoted Pastor Wang Yi's lawyer as saying,

"This afternoon, Elder Qin Defu was suddenly sentenced. Brother Qin was sentenced to four years in prison for ‘illegal business operations.' Police reneged on their earlier promise to his family that if they accepted a government-appointed attorney, they would ‘go through the formalities then release him.' At brother Qin's trial, we learned that the charge of ‘illegal business operations' only concerned 20,000 books for the church's own use (most of these were small gospel tracts like 'The Good News You Don't Want to Hear'), and Pastor Wang Yi actively took most of the responsibility for this in his testimony. Based on this, I estimate that Pastor Wang Yi will be sentenced to no less than 10 years in prison."

? In December of last year, Chinese authorities arrested more than 100 members of the Reformed Presbyterian Early Rain Covenant Church. Wang Yi, the pastor of the church, was charged with "inciting to subvert state power" and was taken to a secret location. He is still imprisoned and is yet to be sentenced.