China’s crackdown on religious freedom continued last weekend with a raid in southwestern China. Nearly 100 Christians were snatched off the streets or dragged from their homes in a series of coordinated raids. Members of the Early Rain Covenant Church were particularly targeted in the raids. Around the same time that the raids began, members’ personal accounts, cell discussions and social media channels were shut down, and the church’s telephone line was cut.

“Most church members were taken from their homes, and some were grabbed off the street,” one churchgoer recounted. “Some were found via their smartphone’s location and were taken away…The police had the whole neighborhood under control, as well as the surrounding area. They didn’t let anyone get close.”

A number of the church members have since been released, but the ordeal is far from over. Zhang Guoqing, the assistant deacon, remains under around the clock watch by “security personnel” in his home. Church members who went into hiding were hunted down and arrested. One parishioner also reported, on condition of anonymity, that at least 80 people from the church are missing. The fate of those who have vanished is uncertain given China’s record of brutality, and the treatment of those arrested in this same raid is equally unsure. Less than 48 hours after the raid began, three of the church members who were arrested have already attested in a prayer letter to having been tortured by the Chinese police while in custody.

The raids on the homes of members of the Early Rain Covenant Church is only the latest in China’s crackdown on religions that refuse to fall in with the communist party line. Nearly 10,000 Christians have been arrested in 2018, multiple churches have been leveled, Christians have been told to display pictures of President Xi instead of Christ and communist officials have announced their intentions to rewrite the Bible in order to make it more compatible with state ideology. Most ominously of all, prominent Christians, such as Bishop Shao Zhumin, have disappeared without a trace. Christianity is not the only religion facing harsh persecution either. Over one million Muslims are reportedly being detained in western Xinjiang for “re-education.”

China, naturally, denies any allegations of human rights violations despite the fact that they are ubiquitous. Supporters of China continue to cite the official party stance that China’s crackdown is merely “enforcing laws.” Chinese police have told those arrested, however, that the Chinese people are “not supposed to know some details [of the law], so you can never know. It is us rather than you who enforce laws.” Between such statements and the almost daily reports of persecution coming out of the world’s second most populous nation, it is impossible to believe China’s official stance. After all, where there is smoke, there is fire.