Beijing, China - About 100 underground Chinese Christian church pastors were detained in central China last week, a U.S.-based Christian group said Thursday.
Last Friday, 50 police officers raided the house of pastor Chen Dongming in Xinghou, a town in Henan Province, the China Aid Association said in a statement.
The plain-clothed officers frisked other pastors in the house and confiscated possessions such as rice. Police said the pastors were involved in an "illegal religious gathering," the aid group said.
About 100 pastors were subsequently detained in three major Henan provincial cities, and nine are still being held, the group said.
On June 3, border control guards in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region detained 34 Chinese Christians at a checkpoint on the Pakistani border, the aid group said.
They were held for 15 days and then sent back to their hometowns in China.
On May 22, police raided 100 underground churches in northeastern China and detained 600 worshippers, including a group of university professors still being questioned, the group said in an earlier statement.
Churches must register with the government to be legal.
"This is actually just the tip of the iceberg," said Bob Fu, president of the China Aid Association.
"China has been proclaiming to the international community that Chinese people are enjoying a golden time of religious freedom. This series of nationwide assaults on unregistered house churches does not support this claim," he said.