Chen Hekun (陈合坤) is a Catholic priest of the underground Baoding Diocese in Hebei Province who was forcibly disappeared from his home in Zhangjiakou on April 29, 2024. A rights-defense roster dated August 31, 2026 still lists him among reported current-custody cases; no charge, sentence, or place of detention has been publicly documented.
Chen, a native of Zhangjiakou, served in the Baoding Diocese — described by the reporting as one of China’s largest underground (non-official) Catholic communities and a diocese the authorities have treated with particular suspicion. On April 29, 2024, he was taken from his home in Zhangjiakou and has not been heard from since, according to a May 18, 2024 report by the religious-freedom organization ChinaAid. The same report notes that another Baoding Diocese priest, Chi Huitian (池会田), had disappeared twelve days earlier, on April 17, and that police later said Chi had been sent back to his birthplace of Xingtai — the reason for his detention was not given.
The report places the disappearances in a wider pattern: after the 2018 provisional agreement between the Vatican and Beijing, authorities pressed underground clergy to register with the state-controlled church apparatus, and priests who refused to join the official bodies faced pressure, political “re-education,” and repeated short-term disappearances until they submitted. In November 2020, several Baoding Diocese seminaries were raided, with two priests and more than a dozen seminarians and nuns taken away.
A prisoner database record created in June 2024 lists Chen Hekun as male, last taken away on April 29, 2024, with the charge, sentence, release date, and detention location fields all blank or marked unknown. The August 2026 roster carries his name in its index of reported in-custody cases and, in its regional list of held-without-sentence cases for Hebei, includes the entry “陈合,” which is assessed as probably the same person (see the Media Profile & Archive for the reasoning and the caveat). His present whereabouts remain unconfirmed.
Sources: Rights Defense Network / 维权网 Issue 131 monthly report, August 31, 2026 (Chinese and English editions); ChinaAid, “天主教中国保定教区陈合坤、池会田两位神父被强迫失踪,” May 18, 2024; CHRD / tenchu 中国大陆良心犯数据库 record for 陈合坤 / Chen Hekun (created June 17, 2024). See the Media Profile & Archive for full source detail, provenance, and evidentiary limits.
View the Chen Hekun Media Profile & Archive for full source detail, reporting chronology, and provenance.