Police in northeast China raided a religious retreat and arrested about a dozen Roman Catholic clergymen while a church in the vicinity was demolished, a US-based religious rights group and local officials said.
The 12 priests and seminarians were attending a retreat on October 20 in Gaocheng county, in Hebei province's Shijiazhuang city, when police swooped and took everyone into custody, the Connecticut-based Cardinal Kung Foundation said in a statement.
The gathering was not sponsored by the government-sanctioned "Patriotic Association," which oversees all state-approved churches in China, the foundation said, adding that the clergymen were being held in a detention house in Gaocheng county.
A staff member at the detention center told AFP Monday seven of them were being held there and that they had been detained for seven days.
"They are charged with illegal assembly. I don't know if they will be released soon," said the worker.
He did not provide information on the other people detained.
Among the arrested were Father Li Wenfeng, 31; Father Liu Heng, 29; Father Dou Shengxia, 37; seminarian Chen Rongfu, 21; seminarian Han Jianlu, 24 and seminarian Zhang Chongyou, 23.
Names of the others seized were unknown, the foundation said.
Prior to the arrests, a Roman Catholic church in Liugou village, also in Hebei province, was torn down, the foundation said.
An official from the Shahe city religious affairs office said the church was razed in June two weeks after being built because it did not have proper building licenses.
"We've demolished it. It didn't have a license to conduct religious activities, nor construction and land use licenses," the official told AFP.
Some 150 parishioners belonged to the new church, the foundation said, most of them new converts to Catholicism.
The religious affairs official, however, said only 20 to 30 people frequented the church.
Another official at the office, surnamed Zhang, refused to say how many local churches had been destroyed for similar reasons, but argued such demolitions were justified.
"In China, one has to abide by Chinese laws," he said.
Foundation president Joseph Kung urged democratic countries to protest the latest arrests in China's ongoing suppression of religious freedom.
"During the entire 25 years of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II, the Pope has repeatedly expressed his deep respect and love for the Chinese people," Kung said in the statement.
"It does not appear that the Chinese government respects the Pope with these consistent and harsh treatments of the Roman Catholic Church in China. All leaders of the free countries should speak out against these atrocious arrests of these innocent religious believers."
In July, five Catholic priests were arrested at Siliying village, also located in Hebei province, about 115 kilometres (70 miles) from Beijing.
The clergymen in their 20s and 30s were on their way to visit a fellow priest who had just been released from a labor camp after serving three years, the foundation said at the time.
China allows places of worship to operate if they are affiliated with state registered "patriotic" organisations.
Nonetheless, millions worship at unofficial churches, some of which are tolerated more than others.