10 foreign church leaders expelled from China

Asian Political News, March 7, 2005

BEIJING, March 3 Kyodo

At least 10 evangelical church leaders were expelled from China in late February after holding a house church meeting with local parishioners, a U.S. Christian organization said Thursday.

Eight Americans, one Taiwanese and an unknown number of South Koreans were discovered last week in a suburb of Harbin, a city in northeast China, and told to leave the country, according to the China Aid Association advocacy group.

On Feb. 24, about 100 security officers from five government agencies found the foreigners with 140 Chinese underground church leaders from seven provinces in an office building that was used as a house church, the association said in a statement. A house church refers to an unregistered place of religious worship.

The director of Public Security Bureau of Heilongjiang Province carried out the raid jointly with provincial public security, national security and foreign affairs bureaus as well as military police and religious affairs authorities, according to the statement. Harbin is the provincial capital of Heilongjiang.

The foreigners were questioned one by one for 13 hours in the office building and a nearby police station, the association said, calling the episode a ''detention and marathon interrogation.''

They were told to leave China within three to five days, it said.