Christians in banned church arrested

Beijing - Chinese police have arrested 130 Christians from a banned church, three of them US missionaries, a human rights group…

Beijing - Chinese police have arrested 130 Christians from a banned church, three of them US missionaries, a human rights group said yesterday.

The members of the China Fang-cheng Church, including three Taiwan-born US citizens, were being held in the central province of Henan, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy said.

The centre said the church, an evangelical group with 500,000 members, was one of at least 14 Chinese Christian sects banned by Communist authorities as "evil cults".

Henan officials said they had no knowledge of any arrests, while police were not available for comment.