Of those arrested, ChinaAid says eight remain in custody.

China Aid is an international non-profit dedicated to promoting religious freedom and human rights for Christians in China.

Those who were at the scene of devastation likened it to a scene from the World War II Japanese invasion of China.

A witness said about 300 police officers and local government officials arrived and began demolishing the Shuangmiao Christian Church.

The church was still being constructed.

Apparently the government had said the church was an illegal structure so it had to be demolished.

The church's pastor had previously tried to discuss the matter with officials and was detained for "false charges of assaulting the police station, limiting the freedom of others, and attacking a village representative."

Witnesses say police also searched the church members' and construction workers' possessions. They smashed offering boxes and confiscated phones, laptops, jewellery, cash and other personal property.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• FaithWire
• Image: The Telegraph

"We want Santa Sofia to remain a museum. It was a Christian church for over 1000 years," Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople has said. "If it is to be reconsecrated, then it should go back to being a Christian church, since it was not built to be a mosque."

The basilica, completed in 537, became a mosque in 1453 with the Ottoman conquest and was made a museum in 1935.

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