Oct. 13 (UPI) -- Leaders of an underground Christian church in China have been arrested, and the U.S. Department of State has demanded their release.
Pastor Mingri "Ezra" Jin and more than 30 other pastors and staff of the Zion Church were arrested Friday in Beihai in the Guangxi region, his daughter Grace Jin Drexel told NPR. Beihei is in the south, near Vietnam.
"This crackdown further demonstrates how the [Chinese Communist Party] exercises hostility towards Christians who reject Party interference in their faith and choose to worship at unregistered house churches," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. "We call on the CCP to immediately release the detained church leaders and to allow all people of faith, including members of house churches, to engage in religious activities without fear of retribution."
The arrests began Thursday for "illegal dissemination of religious information via the Internet," said Sean Long, a pastor and spokesperson for Zion Church. Witnesses said there was a "wanted list" and that police were violent in the arrests. One woman pastor was pulled away from her newborn baby forcefully, he said.
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