Arrest first, ask questions later

China | House-church roundups nab U.S. visitors but nail Chinese | Priya Abraham

Eric Pilson is not entirely sure what provoked the police raid on his friend's house in Hubei province, China. The number of people slowly gathering at the home—42 Chinese in total—may have aroused suspicion.

Whatever the reason, Americans Mr. Pilson and Daniel Cohee found themselves snatched up in a raid on the underground South China Church on Aug. 2. While they were reading their Bibles after breakfast on the second floor, plainclothes officers barged in. The officers shoved and yanked the two seminarians toward the door, at first not even allowing Mr. Pilson to slip on his shoes, while rounding up the rest of the household.

The two Americans could not understand the officers, stumbling through a Chinese phrasebook and flagging onlookers congregating outside the house for anyone who spoke English. "I couldn't tell who was a family member, who was a neighbor, and who was police," Mr. Pilson said. "It was very unorganized, kind of chaotic." The officers drove them to a plain government building—not a police station—for a seven-hour interrogation.