MIDLAND, Texas — The City of Midland held a press conference concerning the China Aid protestors on Monday at City Hall.
According to Midland Mayor Patrick Payton, "communists agitators" have been threatening Bob Fu and his family.
"There’s some interesting things that have been transpiring here in the city related to, well there is essentially some communist agitators who have been making threats, not veiled threats, but aggressive threats towards Bob Fu and his family, towards ChinaAid," Payton said.
Fu is the founder and president of ChinaAid, an organization working to protect communities in China, particularly Christians facing religious persecution.
Since 2004, Fu has resided in Midland with his family after the community asked him to come here.
"The most important part about Bob Fu's relationship is what he has done to gather people for the freedom of those who’ve been persecuted far beyond just brothers and sisters in Christ as he has advocated for Muslims, he has advocated for all religions, and he’s advocated for secular artists who are getting censored for their work in China as well," Payton said.
Payton said during the conference that the threats against Fu began about a week and a half from Oct. 5.
Around this time Payton began meeting with him. As of Monday, he says Fu and his family are in a safe place and will stay protected.
While Midland Police are helping protect Fu, the mayor also stated the FBI and the CIA were involved in the situation.
During the conference, Payton said Fu was being accused of being a leader of the Chinese Communist Party, despite being wanted by the party for years. Protesters seem to agree.
"The truth is Bob Fu is pretending to be a priest, and actually his true identity is a CCP spy. He's here to collect people's information and provide it to Chinese Communist Party so that the CCP knows who is against them," Renee, one of the protesters, said.
In response to this claim, Payton listed a series of names of those imprisoned by the CCP that Fu would like released if he, as the protestors claimed, truly held sway within the party.
Finally, Payton confirmed at the time that they don't truly know who these "hired henchpeople" are or why exactly they are targeting Fu, but insisted the community would do all it could to protect him and his family.