Senior Pastor Wang Yi of a major Chinese house church has been criminally detained and charged with “inciting subversion of state power,” his mother told South China Morning Post. Police raided the church around 6 p.m. Chinese time on Sunday, making over 100 arrests there and at homes.

“These arrests that have lasted three days and three nights are still continuing,” the church reported in a prayer update.

Early Rain Covenant Church, an unofficial church or ‘house church,’ — i.e. uncontrolled by the government — is one of China’s few openly operating house churches, as well as one of the most prominent, according to South China Morning PostWang met President George W. Bush in the White House in 2006 along with other Christian activists.

A Crackdown

Church members report that since Sunday evening, police have rounded up over 100 leaders, seminary students and worshipers, some from their homes, as this video shows. The church posted pictures of one member who was bound hand and foot and dragged, leaving him with ripped clothing and bruises. Two female seminary students were stripped naked and searched. Several students from the church’s liberal arts college were sent to reeducation camps. Of those who have been returned, many are under constant police surveillance.

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