dozens of students, teachers and church leaders, a religious rights group said.
Christian Aid Association (CAA), which has close contacts with the growing house churches in China, told BosNewsLife that Wednesday’s raid in Huaibei City of Anhui Province was carried out by up to sixty "Chinese police, anti-riot squads, and plain-clothes police."
CAA quoted witnesses as saying that although "more than ten police and anti-riot vehicles surrounded the school," four of the House Church leaders escaped. Among those detained were Pastor Liu Haiting, Pastor Liang Zhenjun and Pastor Joseph Wang, the group said, adding that names of additional individuals taken into custody were not yet available.
In addition about 10,000 copies of Christian literature and two hundred new blankets of the organization were "confiscated," CAA claimed. Chinese officials could not be reached for comment, but China’s government has consistently denied human rights abuses in the past and says there is religious freedom in the country within Communist legislation.
"ILLEGAL" ACTIVITIES
However CAA suggested "arrests" were apparently made on charges of illegal religious activities. A school member calling a police hotline during the raid was told that Wednesday’s "police action was a joint effort to crack down on "illegal" religious activities and such efforts were under the direction of provincial leaders," the group said.
The school facility in Huaibei City served as a Bible and sewing school where students learned trade skills besides receiving Bible training. "The owner of the school is Pastor Chu Huaiting, a well known house church leader who currently serves as Vice-President of the Chinese House Church Alliance," CAA explained in a statement.
The Chinese House Church Alliance was established in 2004 and is made up of about 300,000 members from various house church movements scattered across twenty-one provinces, CAA said.
SEVERAL PROVINCES
"Those who have been arrested in the Huaibei City Raid were from several parts of China including the Anhui Province, Beijing City, Jiangsu Province, the Inner Mongolia region, Hunan Province, Zhejiang Province and Shandong Province," the group added.
This was not an isolated incident. In recent months almost the entire leadership of the Chinese House Church Alliance from different provinces across China were reportedly questioned or detained by PSB forces. Pastor Chu was previously arrested and detained by the PSB for nine hours on February 26, CAA said. Wednesday’s arrest and detention allegedly occurred when Pastor Chu was preaching in a house church in the Jiangsu Province.
"These illegal mass arrests and detentions is a very disturbing indication of the deteriorating condition of religious freedom and civil liberties in China, said Bob Fu, a former house church pastor who currently leads CAA from America. "We demand that the Chinese government honor their international obligations to respect and protect the religious freedoms and civil liberties of the Chinese citizens," he told BosNewsLife in a statement.
Most of the up to 80-million Christians in China meet in house churches and not in state-backed denominations, according to estimates from Open Doors and other human rights groups. Human rights activists have recently urged President George W. Bush, who is currently in Southeast Asia, to act on behalf of persecuted Christians in China as well as other countries including India. (With reports from China, India and BosNewsLife Research).
