China has since June arrested nearly 1,000 members of a Christian sect which Beijing refers to as a “cult”, state media said on Tuesday.

Those arrested are members of “Almighty God”, also known as ‘Oriental Lightning’,  a Christian group which has attracted followers in some parts of the Chinese countryside for more than a decade.

They include “high-level organisers and backbone members” of the group, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing officials.

It did not give details of what crimes the suspects, said to come from more than six provinces, are accused of.

A Christian group worshipping in Asia

China has previously cracked down harshly on groups it labels as “cults”, most notably the Falungong spiritual movement which was banned in the late 1990s.

Falungong members insist they were targeted because the ruling Communist Party saw the group as a threat, detaining and allegedly torturing thousands of its followers.

Beijing has for years struggled to suppress the Almighty God group, with state media reporting the arrest of “nearly 1,000” followers in 2012, when the organisation was under the spotlight for predicting an apocalypse.

Almighty God told members at the time that a “female Jesus” had arrived and called on members to overthrow the Communist Party, which it refers to as “the big red dragon”, the state-run Global Times reported.

State media says the group brainwashes its members and encourages them to isolate themselves from family and friends.

This year’s crackdown follows the May murder of a woman at a McDonalds in the eastern province of Shandong, which police blamed on members of Almighty God.

Five people will go on trial on Thursday in connection with the murder, Xinhua said.

The movement’s founder is reported to have fled to the United States.

China tightly controls the exercise of religion, permitting worship at government-controlled Buddhist, Daoist, Muslim, Protestant and Catholic establishments but banning other religious organisations.

Beijing often proclaims that it grants citizens wide-ranging religious freedoms.