Beijing police arrested dozens of Christian worshipers yesterday from a “house church” — one not formally recognized by the government — when they tried to pray outdoors, a rights group said. They sang hymns and said prayers as police loaded them onto waiting buses in Beijing’s western Hai-dian District, the US-based Christian rights group China Aid said in a statement, citing witnesses.

“The Beijing authorities have again demonstrated their total disregard of their citizens’ constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right to religious freedom,” China Aid founder and president Bob Fu (傅希秋) said in the statement.