The Associated Press
Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2000; 1:25 p.m. EDT

BEIJING –– Police in central China arrested 130 members of an underground Christian evangelical group on Wednesday, including three American citizens, a human rights group reported.

The church members were seized in an afternoon raid in Henan province's Xihua county and have been detained at the county jail, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported.

Among those arrested were Henry Chu, Patricia Lan and Sandee Lin, American missionaries who are residents of California, the Hong Kong-based center reported. The report did not give their hometowns.

The report could not be confirmed late Wednesday night.

Those arrested were members of the Fangcheng church, whose founder, Zhang Rongliang, was sentenced to two years in a labor camp in December on charges of leading a cult. Fangcheng church leaders also were reported arrested last year, prompting members to appeal to President Clinton to pressure China for their release.

The group is one of scores of clandestine Christian communities, known as house churches because they are unable to worship in public. The officially atheistic communist government forbids worship outside state-sanctioned churches.

However, foreign missionaries estimate the number of Protestants to be as high as ten times the official figure of 11 million. The unofficial churches tend to be more evangelistic and charismatic than the government-approved non-denominational Protestant church.