China seizes Christians in Easter raid By Peter Foster

 Dozens of Chinese Christians were arrested on Sunday when police prevented an evangelical Protestant church from holding its Easter Sunday service, as the state continued its attack on protests against one-party rule.

                                                                                                                                  Photo: REUTERS

 Christians queue up to receive Holy Communion during an Easter Sunday mass at the state-controlled Xishiku Cathedral.

 

 Security forces clashed with followers of a growing underground Protestant movement that was blocked from moving into a new meeting hall near Beijing, leading to three weeks of confrontation with the communist authorities.

 Worshippers from the Shouwang, or "watch tower", church were taken away in buses, some defiantly singing hymns. Church leaders had issued a "fire and brimstone" cry for the congregation to worship outside the building even if it meant arrest and prosecution.

 "The devil Satan has taken advantage of the authority God has granted to the national government and is seeking to destroy God's church," Pastor Jin Tianming wrote. "His devil's claws have finally been revealed. Satan get thee behind me!"

 Up to 500 members of the Protestant house church movement, unregistered assemblies of worshippers that the government bans to prevent the rise of opposition, have been detained in recent weeks. Yesterday's arrests were a continuation of the authorities' increase in repression of dissenters to stop any chance of a revolution such as those seen in North Africa and the Middle-East.

 "Between 20 and 30 followers were taken away," said Pastor Jin by telephone from his home, where he has been under house arrest for the past two weeks.

 Christians are free to worship in China if they register with the state-approved churches, but millions of evangelical Protestants refuse to submit to government control. Estimates put the number of underground Christians at 40 million, with some claiming there are as many as 80 million. Shouwang church was founded in a flat in 1993 but now has 1,500 members. It claims to have been blocked from taking possession of a £2.5 million building it bought in 2009.

 Activists warn that the repression could raise support for the protests that China is seeking to suppress. "The Chinese government are playing a very dangerous game," said Mark Shan, a spokesman for ChinaAid, a US-based Christian rights group. "They are pushing the church into a corner and other Christians, when they see how Shouwang have been treated, may react in the same defiant way."

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