SHANGHAI, China – A U.S.-based group reported that Chinese police on Wednesday raided a Bible school run by an underground Protestant church, detaining 36 people amid a crackdown on Christians worshipping outside Communist Party control.
About 50 officers surrounded the school in the eastern province of Anhui, according to the China Aid Association. It said those inside, including students, teachers and leaders of the underground church, were taken away in police vans.
The school’s owner, Chu Huaiting, was later arrested at his home, the group said in an e-mail. It identified Chu as vice president of the Chinese House Church Alliance, which it said has about 300,000 worshippers in unofficial congregations.
The school also taught sewing to help students support themselves, and completed blankets were confiscated in the raid along with thousands of copies of religious literature, it said.
A female officer who answered the phone at the police department in the town of Huaibei where the school was located said she had not heard of the reported raid.
The China Aid Association said most of the Church Alliance’s leaders have been either questioned or detained in recent months, adding to similar reports from other groups.
The Midland, Texas-based association is headed by a former leader in the unofficial church movement, Bob Fu. The group did not elaborate in its e-mail on how it learned details of the reported crackdown, but Fu has said that he maintains strong ties to church leaders within China.
China allows worship only in the official Three Self Patriotic Movement, set up following the expulsion of foreign missionaries and church leaders after the 1949 communist revolution. The party retains final say on the group’s finances, leadership and doctrinal issues, and severely restricts religious education.
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