Christians in Beijing detained at Easter service

While Easter services for tens of millions of Christians across China mostly went ahead unhindered, police led away people trying to gather in north-west Beijing, where the Shouwang Church had called for outdoor services after it was evicted from its rented premises during a clampdown on dissent.

Leaders of the church have said they have no political agenda and simply want a permanent place to worship for their 1,000 or so members, who refuse to accept official demands that churches come under direct oversight of the government.

Yesterday police officers shunted dozens of people, many of them young adults, on to buses as they turned up near the walkway where the church had said it would pray on Sundays.

A dozen or so people herded onto one bus appeared to be singing hymns. Police and plain clothes guards patrolling the area in Beijing's Zhongguancun district prevented reporters from approaching the detainees, who mostly did not appear to resist detention.

In past years, the Chinese government has relaxed some restrictions on "house" churches that refuse Communist Party oversight, and many members of these churches are watching the Shouwang dispute to see if it marks a fresh tightening, said Wang Yi, a leader of one such church in south-west China.

"The Shouwang Church has gone further than most in wanting to be a fully open church with its own premises, so in that sense it stands out from smaller churches, but it is also a test of what may come," Wang said.

He added that his house church in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, was able to worship unhindered on Easter.