BEIJING - A Chinese court has sentenced three activists in the independent Protestant church to up to three years in prison for leaking state secrets.

Xu Yonghai, Liu Fenggang and Zhang Shengqi were found guilty of passing on information to a US-based magazine about a court case involving another member of the independent church, the China Aid Association said.

The Independent Church is the tag given to the affiliated groups whose followers worship outside the Communist Party-controlled official Protestant church.

Liu was also found guilty of passing on information about the government’s destruction of unofficial churches in the eastern city of Hangzhou during last year’s crackdown. Liu was given a three-year prison sentence, Xu two-years and Zhang one-year.

A Hangzhou Court judge named Zhang, verified that the case against the three Christians had been closed and that the three had received their sentences. However, that was all the information that he was willing to give out.

The three men had attempted to promote their stories of how the government cracked-down on “unofficial churches” last year. Reports indicated that during that period hundreds of worshippers and ministers were arrested and detained by police, and dozens of churches destroyed.

The Chinese government has carried out these “crack-downs” in the past to enforce the law in China that Christians may only worship in government-controlled churches. However, despite the great threat of persecution, harassment, fines and imprisonment, millions of Protestant and Catholic Christians have continued to exercise their faith and gather at secret unauthorised places of worship, including private homes.

The Chinese government is now becoming increasingly alarmed at the rise of Christianity in the country, which is a communist and officially atheist nation.

The three men were members of so-called “illegal house churches”, which meet privately to sing and pray together. However, the Chinese government views these gatherings as an act of defiance of state control, and Christians have been treated with harsh consequences if found to attend these unauthorised churches.

Chinese officials deny violating religious freedoms, saying detained activists are criminals who violated Chinese law and threatened national security.

Activists have voiced their opinions that the local governments are trying to extend their control over house churches by sometimes labelling them as illegal cults to force their members to worship in “official churches”.

Modern day China has seen a massive resurgence of religious belief in recent years, and the International church group has estimated that as many as 35 million Protestants could now be in the country.