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50 Cases of Christians From The Church of Almighty God Persecuted to Death by the Chinese Communist Government (Selected)

August 3, 2018

（50 Cases）

Table of Contents

1. Christian Xie Yongjiang Tortured to Death by Chinese Communist Police

A tragic event occurred in early May of 1997: A Christian from The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in the city of Huaibei in Anhui Province was arrested by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and tortured to death. The victim was Xie Yongjiang, a 43-year-old man from Xieweizhuang in Dachen Village, located in Wugou Town, Suixi County in Anhui Province’s Huaibei City. He believed in the Lord Jesus in the Local Church, and later on joined The Church of Almighty God. He was an honest and honorable person.

Arrested for His Faith, Murdered During an Interrogation Under Torture

On April 29, 1997, Xie Yongjiang learned that a member of the Church, Mr. Luo (a 36-year-old native of Wugou Town), had been arrested because of believing in Almighty God and preaching the gospel. Xie Yongjiang became concerned that the belongings of the Church stored at Luo’s home would be confiscated by the police, so he and his son-in-law Mr. Gao (24 years old at the time) and Gao’s father (54 years old at the time, now dead due to illness) rushed to transfer them elsewhere that very same night. When they were done, it was already 2 a.m. the following morning. The three rode their bicycles home, but as they neared Wugou Town, they were stopped by some police officers from the local police station who were on a patrol. The officers recognized Xie Yongjiang from his two previous arrests due to his faith. They forcefully arrested the three on suspicion of unlawful preaching and took them to the Wugou Town Police Station.

According to Mr. Gao’s recollection, around 3 a.m. on April 30, his father, his father-in-law Xie Yongjiang, and he himself were taken to the Wugou Town Police Station in Suixi County, where they were separated for interrogation after being forcibly searched. Two male officers cruelly beat him up with a belt and viciously kicked his legs, beating him while saying: “We’ll keep beating you until you three admit you were preaching, and if you don’t, we’ll beat you to death!” They didn’t stop until the belt snapped. On May 1, the police used a metal rod about 2 centimeters thick and about 70 centimeters long to savagely whip his entire body. Gao was black and blue all over.

On the morning of May 2, when Gao and his father were being taken to the county Public Security Bureau (PSB) to handle the formalities, the elder Gao hinted to his son that something bad had happened to Xie Yongjiang. After Chief Yang with the PSB Criminal Division verified the younger Gao’s statement, Gao asked after his father-in-law, and Chief Yang refused to respond. On the evening of May 2, he asked the police car driver about his father-in-law. Although it was just one small question, the driver fixed him with a fierce stare, picked up a screwdriver, and yelled: “If you ask one more time, I’ll stab you to death with this screwdriver!” Gao was terrified and didn’t dare to ask again. That night, father and son were sent to the Suixi County Detention Center where they were held for 15 days.

Informed source Daqiao (alias) revealed that on May 1, he went to the police station for a visit after learning that Xie Yongjiang had been detained. Xie was locked up in a dark room with just one small opening for a window. Xie told him quietly that the police had beat him ruthlessly, only because of his faith in God.

Xie Yongjiang’s wife reported that when she went to the Wugou Town Police Station on the afternoon of May 1 to bring her husband a blanket, she saw him in the station courtyard washing a police car. The officers did not permit him to speak to his wife. She just saw that he was limping as he walked.

On the morning of May 2, Xie’s wife went to bring her husband some food, and the police notified her that he had been transferred to Suixi County. That same afternoon, Xie Yongjiang’s family was notified that he had hanged himself in the police station at 2 a.m. that same morning, and his body had already been taken to the crematorium. His family’s request to view his remains was denied.

The CCP Made up Lies to Hide Their Evil Deeds

It wasn’t until May 10, the day Xie Yongjiang’s remains were cremated, that his family was able to view his remains at the Suixi County Baishan Crematorium, only by going through their connections. All of his relatives present wept when they saw the pitiful sight of his body.

Xie’s son reported: “I saw that my father was only in his underwear and there were black and blue bruises covering his entire body. There was a deep, ring-shaped welt around his neck level with his shoulders, and the welt had burst and was bleeding. There were large swaths of blood on the stretcher. On his left temple, there was a 4-centimeter-long gash wound, and on the right side of his head there was a 3×2 centimeter wound. They both looked like they had been caused by being struck with a blunt object. There were two wounds respectively on the edge of his right eye and the bridge of his nose which were a bit black, as if they had been done by a baton or the edge of a piece of metal. There were four lacerations more than 4 centimeters long on his waist. And my father’s eyes were half open and bulging out, his mouth was open, and his fists were clenched. It was clear that he died struggling in the midst of incredible suffering.”

On the cause of Xie Yongjiang’s death, his son said: “The police said that my father killed himself, but his entire body was covered with wounds. It’s clear that he had been beaten. There was a really deep wound on his left temple, and in particular the welt around his neck was under his Adam’s apple. It looked like a full circle around his neck, and it had bled quite a bit. If someone hangs themselves, how could the welt be under their Adam’s apple? How could their neck bleed? It’s clear it wasn’t suicide.” It is evident that the police were lying.

When Xie’s family saw how brutal the police had been with such disregard for human life, they were indignant and they all agreed to sue the Wugou Town Police Station to seek justice. The police bribed the local village cadres and Xie’s cousin to persuade his family to agree to settle it privately. The family was resolute. They didn’t want money—they wanted the murderers to be punished. When the people the police had sent to persuade them saw that enticements would not work, they once again went to Xie’s home with threats. As a result, Xie Yongjiang’s children didn’t dare to go out at night. His wife spent all day in tears because of his passing. For a period of time, she wouldn’t eat or drink and was in a daze, sitting all day in the courtyard just staring blankly.

Xie Yongjiang’s murder by the police because of his belief in Almighty God led to a local uproar. The Suixi County Procuratorate approved the arrest of Wang Min (a native of Wangjiazhuang in Mengji Village, Wugou Town), the Wugou Town Police Station auxiliary officer who had admitted to forcing Xie Yongjiang’s confession through torture. Before the case was closed, Wang Min retracted his testimony, saying that he was just taking the heat for the police station and before long, he was released on bail pending trial. After that, there was a civil mediation between Wang Min and Xie’s family in the Suixi People’s Court. In the Conciliation Agreement, it was written that during the interrogation, Wang Min struck Xie Yongjiang’s back with a belt four times, kicked him twice, and early the following morning Xie hanged himself and died. Wang Min gave the Xie family 41,000 RMB in compensation for financial losses. The family clearly knew that Xie Yongjiang had not hanged himself, but because they had no recourse and were under great pressure, they had no choice but to agree to the mediation.

This tragedy occurred nearly 20 years ago, now, but their grievances have not yet been resolved.

2. Christian Zhan Hongmei Brutally Beaten to Death by Chinese Communist Police

Zhan Hongmei, female, was born in 1970 and was from Dongmiao East Village in Jiudian Town, Pingdu City, Shandong Province. She believed in Jesus along with her parents since she was small. In the fall of 1998, she joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG). She honored her parents-in-law, was very reasonable, and very well-liked in the neighborhood. She was arrested by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2003 for believing in Almighty God and spreading the gospel of the kingdom, and was brutally beaten to death at the age of 33.

At about 8 a.m. on October 29, 2003, when Zhan Hongmei went to the home of Zhou Xiangshan in Jiudian Town’s Jiulikuang Village to share the gospel, she was reported by the Zhou family. The security director there, Jiang Xiangang (male, 41 years old) brought three other male security officers—Sheng Chunxiang, Zhou Fenggang, and Zhou Lei—to the site to apprehend her.

Zhan Hongmei did her utmost to escape but she lacked the physical stamina—the four men caught up to her, pushed her down onto the ground, and rained blows and kicks down on her. Jiang Xiangang and the others confiscated her gospel literature, dragged her back to Jiulikuang Village Committee with her feet dragging on the ground, and then started their second round of beatings.

Around 11 a.m., Jiang Xiangang and his staff made a report to the police, and upon hearing the news Jiudian Town police officers rushed to detain Zhan Hongmei and escorted her to the local police station. Local police chief Li Linzhi, police officer Yang Zhilei, and the driver Zheng Shantang beat her once again (it is said that they clipped her with iron plates).

That afternoon Zhang Fayun (male, 58 years old at the time), an officer with the Jiudian Town Police Station, went to ransack Zhan Hongmei’s house with several other officers. They found a Bible.

The next morning (October 30) Zhan Hongmei’s mother and mother-in-law rushed to the Jiudian Town Police Station but the police would only allow her mother-in-law to see her. She later revealed that she saw Zhan Hongmei in handcuffs and shackles, restrained on a tiger bench with a chain. Her hands and feet were swollen, her face was black and blue and swollen from beatings, her ears were purple, and her pants were soaked with urine. She saw that her daughter-in-law’s life was in danger and begged the police to release her, but Zhang Fayun said she was playing it up, and also said: “She believes in Eastern Lightning. We’ll let her go for 3,000 RMB, otherwise she won’t get out!”

Zhan Hongmei’s family learned on October 31 that she had been beaten to death by the police.

To escape liability, the police later lied, saying that she had died from a sudden heart attack, but then changed their story to say she committed suicide by taking poison.

In order to seek justice, her family demanded an autopsy. According to them, the autopsy was conducted at Pingdu People’s Hospital, which determined: there was extensive bruising all over the body, no part of the body was unscathed, the entire body was purple and blood had welled up under the skin in many places; the cause of death was a rib puncturing her lung from being broken which led to a massive lung hemorrhage, inducing terminal heart failure.

The Zhan family wanted to petition for the sake of justice, but the Pingdu City government mobilized the Anti-riot Squad to threaten and obstruct them. They confiscated the car for the purpose of making appeals rented by the petitioners, didn’t allow her family to leave the village, and monitored the family’s phones. When her family managed to get around the police blockades and tearfully knelt down to plead their case to the Pingdu municipal government, one official there scolded them, saying: “Who let her believe in Almighty God? That is something that must be handled!”

They continued to try to seek justice through legal means, but the Jiudian Town police obstructed their lawyer’s investigation, sealing up relevant information. The police also lied, saying that Zhan Hongmei had been politically active and was anti-Party and anti-society, that she was a political criminal.

The case of Zhan Hongmei being beaten to death by the police remains shelved to this day.

3. Christian Gao Cuiqin Electrocuted to Death by Chinese Communist Police

On July 15, 2014, Ms. Gao Cuiqin (alias Zhang Ping), a Christian from The Church of Almighty God (CAG), was arrested by the Chinese Communist government due to her belief in Almighty God. She was then killed during custody at the age of 53. Prior to that, she had lived in the town of Suo, located in Huantai County, Zibo City in Shandong Province, China. She joined The Church of Almighty God in 2003.

Gao Cuiqin’s Arrest and Subsequent Murder

Early morning on July 15, 2014, around 6:30 a.m., Gao Cuiqin was at home making breakfast when six plainclothes police officers (four male and two female) burst into the Gao’s house, led by Gong Yuebing, deputy captain of the Shandong Huantai County Public Security Bureau’s (PSB) National Security Brigade. Gao’s mother-in-law and sister-in-law were standing in the doorway at the time. According to the family, the police forced Gao to accompany them to the Suo Town, Huantai County Police Station due to her belief in Almighty God, without producing any documentation. After registering her, she was transferred to the Huantai County Detention Center. Two other Christians from her village were arrested along with Gao that day: Ms. Wang (alias Li Min, 67 years old) and Mr. Liu (alias Wu Tao, 50 years old). Around noon that same day, the police returned to Gao’s home and demanded that her mother-in-law pay for Gao’s living expenses while detained. She did not comply.

The day after Gao’s arrest, she was beaten to death by the police.

Emergency personnel with Huantai County Shengjie Hospital disclosed that around 11 a.m. on July 17, the police called Shengjie Hospital requesting an ambulance for a medical emergency. Doctors rushed to the scene, but seeing that the patient had already been dead for some time, did not bring her body to the hospital. The police made another phone call to the Huantai County Branch of the Shandong Qilu Hospital, and emergency personnel took the victim to the hospital.

At 1 p.m. on July 17, Zhao Xuepeng, the director of Huantai County Police Station in Suo Town, called Gao Cuiqin’s husband, Mr. Liu (not the same Mr. Liu mentioned above). He said that Gao Cuiqin was in the hospital and urged him to go, but did not tell him over the phone that she was already dead.

About an hour later, Gao’s sister, brother and sister-in-law went to the hospital, but the hospital didn’t have a record of Gao’s hospitalization. They were unable to find her.

At 6 p.m. that evening, after Gao’s husband Liu met with the police, he inquired into his wife’s condition, but received no response from the police. He was taken to the hospital where he saw two tubes in his wife’s nose and a flat line on the ECG. Her head was twisted at an angle and her neck was tilted up; her body was stiff. It was clear that she had been dead for a while, but the doctor was still using an external pacemaker, pretending to try to save her. According to Liu, he overheard a doctor present state that when his wife had arrived at the hospital, she showed no signs of life. Liu then took photos of his wife’s body.

An emergency department staff member said that Gao had been dead for some time when she was sent to the hospital, that she showed clear signs of having been beaten; her entire face was purple and extremely swollen.

According to Li Min (alias), another Christian who was held in the same detention center along with Gao Cuiqin, around 5 a.m. on July 16, she heard the sound of the impact of iron shackles from the adjacent room where Gao was being interrogated, followed by a terrifying scream. After that, everything was silent.

Another Christian who was arrested due to her belief in Almighty God, Liu Yun (alias) said that on the 16th when she was arrested and brought to the Suo Town Police Station, she heard an officer answer a phone call and say that someone in the detention center had died: “It was done by [name]. He had no idea and hit her with an electric baton randomly….” Only later did she realize that the officer was reporting on who had beaten Gao Cuiqin to death.

In the afternoon of July 18, when Gao’s family were at the funeral home taking care of her remains, they saw that there were many red marks on her back, her armpits were black, her face was blue, and that her head was twisted to one side. They simply could not straighten it out. According to a longtime PSB employee, he analyzed the conditions of her death and concluded that Gao Cuiqin’s injuries were consistent with being tied to a chair and attacked by a high voltage electric baton.

CCP Cover-up

After Gao Cuiqin’s death, the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had the village secretary negotiate terms with her widower, Mr. Liu. On July 18, Liu reported to the mayor that Gao had been an innocent victim, and local municipal leaders dispatched three employees from the PSB and the Discipline Inspection Committee to negotiate with Liu. They said that Gao was rightfully arrested for her belief in Almighty God, and they demanded that Liu handle the matter privately. He did not agree to this.

The case of Gao Cuiqin’s murder was not investigated; the two male officers suspected of beating her to death disappeared without a trace.

Gao’s family demanded to see video recordings of her interrogation, but the police refused.

The police did everything they could to conceal her true cause of death, saying: “Gao had a pre-existing heart condition, which led her to death from sudden cardiac arrest.” But her family said she had no such medical history.

Many of her fellow village residents were outraged when they learned that Gao had been beaten to death by the police because of her belief in Almighty God, and many said: “How could the police beat such a good honest person to death? Wasn’t it just her faith?”

The police continued to pressure Mr. Liu and his family, threatening them with the family’s jobs and their children’s future prospects. Under such pressure from the Chinese Communist Government, Liu had no choice but to agree to settle it unofficially.

4. Church Leader He Chengrong Tortured to Death by Chinese Communist Police

 

On December 21, 2012, a Christian from The Church of Almighty God named He Chengrong was arrested secretly by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for her belief in Almighty God. She was murdered during custody at the age of 44.

Ms. He Chengrong (alias Xiaoran) lived at Block 1, Shengyuan of Experimental Forestry Center in Aksu, Xinjiang. She joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) at the end of 2004. Before she died, she used to be a leader of The Church of Almighty God.

Captured Due to Monitored Phone Calls and Murdered During Custody

On December 21, 2012 at about 1 p.m., He Chengrong was tracked and located by the police by her phone calls. She was arrested on the way to the church because she failed to escape from the police’s hunting and intercepting. The police confiscated 700 RMB of cash, two TF cards, some gospel materials and all the personal stuff on her. Finally, the police escorted her to the National Security Brigade of Aksu Public Security Bureau.

After He Chengrong was arrested, her husband tried to bribe the police officers of the local public security bureau by paying them more than 30,000 RMB as a ransom, and the police agreed to release He Chengrong in four or five days.

According to He Chengrong’s family, on January 9, 2013 at about 12 p.m., unexpectedly, three policemen from the National Security Brigade of Aksu Public Security Bureau came to inform them that He Chengrong was sent to the First Agricultural Division People’s Hospital in Aksu due to myocardial infarction on the evening of January 8, and that she died after a failed rescue attempt. They questioned the police, with controlled indignation and agony, “Why not inform the patient’s family when she was under emergency medical care?” But the police fooled them with the excuse of “not having enough time.”

He Chengrong’s family couldn’t see her remains until January 10 at 4 p.m. They were shocked by the dreadful appearance of the deceased. The remains were covered with a mass of bruises, including a black and blue bruise of about 2cm in width behind her ears, and finger-wide vertical marks on both sides of her neck. There were bruising scratches all over her back. It was hard to find a piece of skin as wide as the palm in normal color, and her arms were also a mass of bruises. The lower half of her body was so swollen that her legs looked like two loaves of bread double thicker than usual.

According to the revelation of a female Christian who was detained next door to He Chengrong’s cell, she saw that He Chengrong was beaten to a dead faint by the police officers and then awakened by cold water. On the night when He Chengrong died, she heard He Chengrong groaning loudly in agony all night long. She could feel that He Chengrong was suffering great pain and trying to shout out but failed. Early next morning, she heard someone in He Chengrong’s cell shouted, “She won’t pull through! She’s dying!”

Another female prisoner surnamed Wang at the age of 45 at the time, who was a former bank clerk, shared the cell with He Chengrong. She exposed later that the police from the National Security Brigade punched, kicked and slapped He Chengrong in order to obtain the information about the church and other Christians. They kept her from sleeping day and night, and forcibly fed her with chili oil. She was carried back to her cell on a stretcher every time after being interrogated.

During the last interrogation, He Chengrong was again fed with chili oil and her stomach suffered from the stimulus. She felt so uncomfortable that she could not swallow anything. Ms. Yue’er Nisha, an Uyghur guard in the detention center, asserted that it was a deliberate fast. She shackled He Chengrong’s feet to prevent her from going to the toilet. Moreover, she directed other male prisoners to tie her onto a wide bed and forcibly insert a tube into her oesophagus to feed her with hot food.

On January 7 at about 8 p.m. that very night, He Chengrong was incontinent, got a very high fever, and remained unconscious at the edge of death. Though the guard got several reports about that, she turned a deaf ear to it, saying that she was pretending to be sick. He Chengrong wasn’t sent to the hospital until January 8 before dawn, and died after a failed rescue attempt.

On January 10, He Chengrong’s family went to the hospital after they got the notice from the police. He Chengrong’s family took pictures and shot videos of her remains on the spot. The police feared that He Chengrong’s family would obtain the evidence against their advantages. So they photographed all He Chengrong’s family members present for a special purpose. The police fooled He Chengrong’s family by saying “A satisfactory solution will be given to you.” They dismissed He Chengrong’s family back home forcibly and only allowed one of He Chengrong’s brothers-in-law to stay.

At about 6 p.m. that very evening, without being approved by He Chengrong’s family, the Xinjiang police sent a forensic scientist to the funeral home to open He Chengrong’s skullcap to take away her brain and dissect her abdomen to remove her heart, lungs, stomach, liver and part of the intestines with the excuse of “examination of the cause of death.”

According to He Chengrong’s brother-in-law, that was really a cruel scene of dissecting He Chengrong’s remains. Zhao Youpeng, the 54-year-old male vice director of Aksu Public Security Bureau, together with the Secretary of the same public security bureau, vice director of the Nancheng Police Station, vice director of National Security Brigade, was then at the scene.

Later, the police did not allow He Chengrong’s family to see her remains again.

The Police Deployed Armed Police to Threaten He Chengrong’s Family

Zhao Youpeng, vice director of Aksu Public Security Bureau, was in charge of the aftermath of He Chengrong’s death. He came to find He Chengrong’s family to solve this problem with the forensic scientist and some people from the Aksu Court, Aksu Procuratorate and National Security Brigade. Zhao Youpeng told He Chengrong’s family that her belief in Almighty God was against the Party and the society, and that she was a political criminal for her belief was associated with politics, and that the police were not responsible for the death of He Chengrong because she died of myocardial infarction. He Chengrong’s family stated that she never ever had heart disease or myocardial infarction etc., except for stomach disease.

Later, He Chengrong’s family negotiated with the Aksu police several times to demand justice for her. The police deployed the armed police and took the tough stance of denying any relationship with He Chengrong’s death. They took out a laboratory test report which stated that He Chengrong died of pulmonary infarction to demand her family to sign it. They even threatened them with imprisonment if they would not leave. The police first said He Chengrong died after invalid rescue efforts because of her myocardial infarction, and they also said she died of pulmonary infarction. He Chengrong’s family thought there must be a problem because of the inconsistency. Afterward, He Chengrong’s husband was escorted by the police to the police station. Zhao Youpeng threatened him, saying, “Wasn’t it just the death of a political criminal? Be smart! It is Xinjiang here!” Then Zhao forced He Chengrong’s husband to sign a laboratory test report which stated that He Chengrong died of pulmonary infarction. But He Chengrong’s husband refused to sign it.

On February 5, 2013, the Aksu police had He Chengrong’s remains cremated forcibly at Xidaqiao Crematorium. The cause of He Chengrong’s death became a mystery forever.

5. Christian Li Suansuan Injured and Killed by Chinese Communist Government

Li Suansuan (used name: Li Aiping), female, born in December 1966, a Christian from The Church of Almighty God, resided on the Junmingongjian Road, Turpan City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region before being killed; joined The Church of Almighty God in March 2012, arrested when receiving Christians at the Church’s gathering.

On or about July 14, 2013, Li Suansuan was forcibly arrested by the Shengli Police Station in Turpan City for believing in Almighty God and keeping several spiritual books in her house. On July 20, the police informed her family that she had died at the police station. The family rushed to Toksun People’s Hospital. The local police said Li was died of a sudden heart attack. Li’s family was very skeptical. The deceased had been very healthy before her death and without any history of heart disease. How could she suddenly die of a heart attack?

Since then, Li’s family members had been demanding to see the remains of the deceased, but they were repeatedly subjected to harsh restrictions by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

After 15 days, Toksun County Public Security Bureau informed Li’s families to see her body in a hospital. Before they saw it, all of their cell phones were confiscated because the police didn’t want them to take photos. After that their cell phones were returned. They saw Li’s body was covered with a white cloth, her head was shaved clean and covered with white gauze. Seeing this, her families were very grieved. Her younger brother questioned the director of Toksun County Public Security Bureau, “China claims its nationals have religious freedom. What law did my sister break that you’re allowed to beat her to death? Is there any justice?” The director said gruffly, “The proof is the books on our table!” Her brother tried to argue with him, but was forcibly arrested and detained by the police.

In order to seek justice for the deceased, Li’s younger brother was prepared to pursue legal remedy. He found two lawyers and explained the sequence of the incident to them. The lawyer said, “The victim had died at the police station. This is an undeniable fact. In addition, there are battered scars on the deceased’s body as well as suspicious points like the hastily performed autopsy at the behest of the police. It can be seen that the victim’s death had a direct relationship with the local police. However, the Public Security Bureau there had signaled to the courts here from early on. You can’t win even if you litigate this case. It may even be impossible to get a court hearing.” Li’s younger brother could only give up.

Later, Li’s husband was ready to go to court again. When he went to a lawyer for consultation, he was stalked by the police wherever he went, and they threatened him, “If you don’t clean up your act, we will bust you too! It is the communists’ world now. You can’t win the lawsuit anywhere, particularly for those who believe in God. Killing them doesn’t mean anything. Nobody cares!” Li’s husband was too scared to file a lawsuit. His phone was intercepted, and he was forbidden to take a long trip by the police.

Forty days later, the police informed Li’s family that she would be buried. Li’s younger brother putting cloths on her, he found her body was covered with mud and wearing a mesh hat on her head. There was a deep gash between her eyebrows and the bone was exposed. The body was covered with purple bruises, with a long-sutured cut extending from the neck to the stomach, the brain, heart, liver and lungs were removed before the cut was stitched up. Later, the police asked Li’s family to bury her remains in Heishantou, while the policemen accompanied them along the way, and one of them shot down the whole process. The police didn’t leave until they ensured Li’s family had already buried Li. Li’s used name Li Aiping was caved on her gravestone.

Thus, the case of Christian Li Suansuan being persecuted to death by the CCP police just ended quietly.

6. Christian Zhang Zhaoqi Beaten to Death With Stick by Chinese Communist Police

On September 8, 2005, The Church of Almighty God (CAG) Christian Zhang Zhaoqi was arrested by the police for believing in Almighty God and gathering. On the following day, he was beaten to death by the chief of the detention center with a wooden stick!

Victim Zhang Zhaoqi (alias: Old Gao), male, aged 50, resident of Potou Village, Chengguan Town, Qin County, Changzhi City, Shanxi Province. He joined CAG in 2001 and was a gospel preacher of CAG before his murder.

On September 8, 2005, past 9 p.m., when Zhang Zhaoqi was gathering at the home of a Christian surnamed Zhao in the Li Village Group of Shangyi Village, Jiaokou Town, Qinyuan County, the village director Xi Sanhu, villager group leader Han Huaiguan, militia commander Wang Xiangrui, along with the Jiaokou Town police station chief Wei Shumin and two other plainclothes policemen burst into the house. Without producing any credentials, the police searched around, confiscating hymn books, compact discs and even the VCD player they found. They also subjected Zhang Zhaoqi to physical search and interrogation, and forced him to provide his personal identification information. Zhang did not respond. The police escorted Zhang in handcuffs to the Jiaokou Town police station in Qinyuan County.

According to the internal personnel of the Public Security Bureau, on September 9, past 1 p.m., Zhang Zhaoqi was transferred to the office of the Qinyuan County Public Security Bureau. Four policemen, Li Jie, Zhao Wei, Li Yanbing, and Hu Hailong beat Zhang during the interrogation.

Shortly after 6 o’clock that evening, the police took Zhang to the Qinyuan County Detention Center where he was interrogated by the Chief Shi Jianye of the Qinyuan County Public Security Bureau’s Political Security Section, but the interrogation still made no progress. When Hao Mingzhu (male, about 50 at that time), director of the Qinyuan County Detention Center, was wining and dining out, he was called back by his colleague to participate in the interrogation. Annoyed over his wining party being spoiled by Zhang, and by Zhang’s refusal to provide any information about the church, Hao picked up a wooden stick and whipped Zhang over his whole body for an hour until Zhang was covered with bruises. At about 9 p.m., Zhang died in the Qinyuan County Detention Center. Hao Mingzhu’s motive for causing the death of Zhang Zhaoqi was revealed by Hao’s wife when she was chatting with her friends over a game of Mahjong.

It was reported that on the second day after Zhang’s death, people from the Changzhi City Procuratorate of Shanxi Province came to the detention center and saw Zhang’s bruise-riddled body, whose apparent cause of death was torture. Subsequently, Hao was held in the Qin County Detention Center, but Jia Wenjing, director of the Qinyuan County Public Security Bureau, publicly exonerated Hao Mingzhu at the general meeting, saying that Zhang Zhaoqi died because no one was there to discourage Hao.

According to insiders of the Public Security Bureau, the aftermath of the case was handled by Wang Chengde, political commissar of the Qinyuan County Public Security Bureau. The police first assigned Zhang Shuwei, director of the Chengguan police station in Qin County, and a policewoman from Qinyuan County to negotiate with Zhang’s family. Not until the fourth day after Zhang’s death did the two come to Zhang’s eldest brother’s home and let him identify the photographs, and informed him that his younger brother Zhang Zhaoqi had died without mentioning about Zhang’s cause of death or the whereabouts of his body.

The police only paid Zhang’s family a burial fee of 19,000 RMB as compensation, then cremated the body and destroyed the remains. None of Zhang’s relatives have seen Zhang’s body from beginning to end.

Afterward, Zhang Zhaoqi’s nephew and eldest brother wrote a letter to the Shanxi Provincial Public Security Department, the provincial party committee, and various judiciary agencies to report about Hao Mingzhu’s murder of Zhang, but the case was left unanswered.

The murderer Hao Mingzhu was incarcerated for only a few months in the Qin County Detention Center and was assigned to the Qinyuan County Public Security Bureau’s Police Dog Breeding Center. In 2011, he was transferred to a post at the National Security Brigade.

7. Church Leader Jiang Guizhi Ravaged to Death by Chinese Communist Government

On January 4, 2013, The Church of Almighty God (CAG) leader Jiang Guizhi was arrested by the police because of her belief in Almighty God and subsequently died whilst being detained by the authorities. She was 46 at that time. Jiang had lived at Jiankang Road, Qinghe District, Pingyu County, Zhumadian City, Henan Province. She joined The Church of Almighty God in November 2002, and prior to her death had been a leader of the church.

Covert Raids and Secret Arrests

At around 1 p.m. on January 4, 2013, Jiang arrived at the rented accommodation of a 63-year-old Christian woman surnamed Zheng for a worship gathering with her and church member Zhang Li. The apartment was located at the southeastern corner of Qingping Square in Xinmi City, Henan Province. At a little past 7 o’clock in the evening, eight police officers headed by Yu Hongchao, the captain of the Xinmi City National Security Brigade, burst into the room after gaining entry to the apartment with a key. According to Zheng’s account, the police did not present any official credentials before apprehending her, Jiang Guizhi, and another woman present, Zhang Li. Jiang Guizhi and Zhang Li were put in handcuffs. The police ransacked the apartment; not even the toilet trash was spared, and they also cut a sofa open with a knife to see if there was anything inside. The apartment was turned upside down. The police took books containing the words of God, 10,000 RMB in cash, computers, mobile phones, items of clothing—even household goods, cooking utensils, and food.

That evening at around 9 p.m., Jiang Guizhi and the other two women were taken to the Xinmi City Public Security Bureau.

Torture, Abuse, and a Brutal Killing

On January 6, 2013, Yu Hongchao, the captain of the National Security Brigade of Xinmi City’s Public Security Bureau, and officers named Shen Ke, Wang Lei, and Bai Shuangfeng, secretly escorted Jiang Guizhi and Zhang Li to the Xiyuan Hotel in Xinmi City for interrogation. From then on, the two of them never saw each other again.

Jiang Guizhi is dead, and there’s no way of knowing the precise details of what she suffered. For the other Christians who were arrested and interrogated by Yu Hongchao and the other officers at the Xiyuan Hotel at the same time, thinking about what happened there still feels like a nightmare. According to a female Christian named Wang Fang (alias), in an attempt to force her to provide information about church’s leaders and its assets, officers including Yu Hongchao and Wang Lei didn’t let her sleep during the time she was detained at the Xiyuan Hotel; as soon as she closed her eyes, they’d kick and punch her. The extreme exhaustion and terror of the ordeal left Wang Fang disoriented and feeling mentally unstable. The police forced her to take off all her clothes and insulted her with dirty, filthy words. They did not let her use the toilet, forcing her to wet herself. They also made her lick the urine off the ground. Another female Christian, Mo Wen (alias) has also said that at the Xiyuan Hotel, Shen Ke and other officers forced her to spread her legs and squat on a wooden baton. They also used a belt to beat her about the face and head, in addition to hoisting one of her legs into the air on a metal frame, leaving her balancing on tiptoe by the other leg. In another method, called “grilled lamb,” she was handcuffed with her arms around her legs, a metal pipe was threaded behind her knees, and she was then hung upside down. … The various methods the Chinese police used against these Christians give an indication of the kind of torture and maltreatment Jiang Guizhi would have suffered.

After being secretly interrogated for 21 days, Jiang Guizhi was sent to Zhengzhou City No. 2 Detention Center on January 25, 2013. 18 days later she was dead.

Another female Christian from The Church of Almighty God who was held in the same cell as Jiang Guizhi and talked to her, has said that after arriving the No. 7 cell, Jiang was listless and seemed troubled. Several days later, Jiang dropped her bowl whilst eating and was unable to pick it up despite several attempts. One morning several days after that, Jiang was unable to get out of bed. She seemed confused, and her reactions were slow. The prisoner in charge of their cell, Chen Lin, sent several prisoners to force her to get up. She didn’t know how to dress herself, was incapable of holding a food bowl, and didn’t know how to use the toilet. Only when repeatedly asked by her cellmate did Jiang reveal that the police had taken her to a private room in a hotel where she was interrogated, raped, and had objects stuffed inside her vagina. After talking for a short while, Jiang fell silent and unresponsive. The only way to get her to drink was to spoon feed her soy milk. Seeing that Jiang was unwell, prison officer Guo Xiaoyun called several prisoners to carry her out in a sheet. That was the last time her Christian cellmate saw her.

The Police’s Callous Disregard for Human Life and Attempts to Cover Up Their Evildoing

According to the police, Jiang Guizhi died in the early morning of February 12, 2013. But following her arrest on the night of January 4, 2013, her family were given no information about what had happened until the second day after her death, when Pingwu Police Station in Pingyu County, Zhumadian City, Henan Province sent a police officer to inform them of her death. The officer said that Jiang had died of a heart attack at Zhengzhou City No. 2 Detention Center.

When Jiang’s family saw her body at the mortuary of Fourth Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, they were overcome with grief and indignation. The doctor said that when she was brought to the hospital, Jiang Guizhi was foaming at the mouth, disoriented, and had lost control of her bowel and bladder movements. Her family had come to the hospital for a death certificate; on it, they saw questions marks written next to recorded symptoms of high blood pressure, heart disease, and cerebral infarction. The diagnosis was that her death had been caused by multiple organ failure. Seeing the death certificate confirmed to the family that the police’s claim that she had died of a heart attack was an attempt to cover up the truth and avoid responsibility.

In their search for evidence, Jiang’s family asked to see the records of her interrogation. The police firmly refused, and only allowed them to watch surveillance videos of Jiang’s day-to-day life in the detention center. The recordings showed her to be in very poor physical condition during the last days of her life. When she tried to drink water, it dribbled from her mouth. She was incapable of dressing herself and unsteady when using the toilet, needing help to pull her trousers up. When Jiang’s family asked the police why they hadn’t immediately taken her to hospital given how serious her condition was, they evaded and said they had not known she was ill. When her family asked why she had been arrested and what the verdict of her case was, Bai Shuangfeng, who had been in charge of handling the case at the Xinmi City Public Security Bureau, only replied that Jiang had been arrested because she believed in Almighty God and was a leader in The Church of Almighty God. He said he couldn’t comment on anything else.

Afterwards, to cover up their crimes and get the case closed as quickly as possible, the Zhengzhou police made several trips to Pingyu County to discuss the incident with Jiang’s family. They also called together officials from the local county party committee and county government, as well as the leaders of where Jiang’s brothers-in-law and son worked, to put pressure on Jiang’s family to keep the case secret. In addition, they threatened to monitor their phone calls, saying that they would suffer the consequences if they leaked the truth of the case. In the end, Jiang’s family, under pressure from the government, had no choice but to compromise and not pursue the matter any further.

On March 5, 2013, Jiang Guizhi’s body was cremated at the Zhengzhou City Crematorium. On March 9, her ashes were brought back to her hometown Pingyu County and buried in a tomb in a white temple on the east side of the crematorium.

8. Preacher Ye Aizhong Electrocuted to Death by Chinese Communist Police

In March 2012, a tragedy occurred when a Christian from The Church of Almighty God (CAG) was arrested and secretly murdered because of helping his fellow Christians to buy and exchange electronic goods.

Victim Mr. Ye Aizhong, 42 years old, was from Yuelai Town, Shuyang County, Suqian City, Jiangsu Province. He joined The Church of Almighty God in 1999 and had been a preacher in the Church before his murder. Below is the full story of Ye Aizhong’s arrest and brutal murder at the hands of the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Killed After Arrest at Computer City

Sources have said that Ye Aizhong was a warmhearted man who loved helping others. He had attracted the attention of the CCP police because he often helped other Christians buy and exchange MP5 players used for listening to hymns and sermons.

At a little past 8 a.m. on March 26, 2012, Ye Aizhong and another Christian from the same town, a 48-year-old man with the surname Feng, went to Shuyang County Computer City to help Christians have their MP5 players repaired. The two men were arrested outside the Computer City by two plainclothes policemen (who were about 30 years old) from the Nanguan Police Station in Shuyang County. Without presenting any official credentials, the policemen bundled Ye and Feng into a black car and, their eyes blindfolded, took them to the Shuyang County Detention Center. They also took an MP5 player and 5,000 RMB belonging to Ye Aizhong.

At the detention center, in attempt to force them to provide information about the inner workings of the Church and the church money, the police denied Ye and Feng anything to eat or drink for two days and a night.

At around 10 p.m. on March 27, the policemen took the two men to the second floor of the Shuyang County Public Security Bureau’s Crime Squad, where they were interrogated separately. According to Feng, three pairs of policemen took turns at interrogating them throughout the day. The policemen repeatedly struck them with electric batons on their chest, shoulders, back, waist and feet, ultimately causing Feng to feel numb all over and lose consciousness. Soon after, another group of officers ordered Feng to sit on the floor with his legs sticking straight out. They then placed an unelectrified baton across his legs and stomped to and fro on it for a full half hour, leaving the skin raw and bleeding. Afterwards, they used electric batons to deliver electric shocks to Feng’s head until he fainted. When he regained consciousness, they wouldn’t let him close his eyes; as soon as he did, he was beaten or shocked with an electric baton. This carried on until 4 a.m.

While Feng was being tortured, the officers took the electrified chair from the room he was in to the adjoining one, where Ye Aizhong was being held. Soon after, there came the sound of Ye’s excruciating screams. His cries of agony lasted for an hour or so, after which they gradually died down.

On the evening of March 28, Feng—who was chained to a chair at the time—vaguely heard, from the room where Ye was being detained, the sound of the police officers interrogating and beating him, and his screams of pain.

At daybreak on March 29, the police took Feng outside. As he passed the doorway to the room where Ye was being held, Feng saw him sitting motionless in the electrified chair, his head hanging down. Feng called out to him twice, but Ye gave no response. The same day, the police took Feng to the Shuyang County Detention Center and detained him there for 15 days on the charge of “suspicion of using superstition to undermine the law.”

On March 30, the officers from the Shuyang County Public Security Bureau’s Crime Squad informed Ye’s family that he had died on March 29. Despite their grief, one of Ye’s younger brothers tried to reason with the police after hearing this terrible news, saying that Ye had not been breaking the law by believing in Almighty God—so why had he been arrested and beaten to death? “He wasn’t beaten to death!” An officer in his thirties replied with conviction, “He fell ill and died after being given a blood test!” When Ye’s family asked the police for a diagnosis from the hospital, the police were evasive and incapable of producing anything. This increased suspicions among Ye’s family that he had been beaten and tortured to death by the police, because his family knew that Ye had never suffered ill health; how could he suddenly die because of a blood test? It led to an impasse between the two sides.

To Cover Up Their Evildoing, the Police Forced Ye’s Family to Sign a Disclaimer

Afraid of the negative consequences if the incident became widely-known, the police threatened Ye Aizhong’s family, saying, “Sign this or we won’t let you see his body.” They also threatened several of Ye’s cousins and relatives who operated timber factories, saying that their factories would be closed and they’d be put in prison if they tried to protest on Ye’s behalf. Under this pressure, Ye Aizhong’s family had no choice but to give in and sign the disclaimer tearfully.

They weren’t allowed to see his remains until April 5th. The sight of Ye, who had always been so lively and active when alive, lying unmoving in a yellow body bag in the funeral home, covered in welts, not a single part of his body unblemished by signs of injury, filled his family with intense grief and indignation. They couldn’t stop themselves from crying out with heart-rending sobs of anguish.

At about 12 a.m. on that day, the remains of Ye Aizhong were cremated in the Shuyang County Funeral Home. His ashes were brought back by his family and buried in his family’s cemetery.

9. Christian Zhang Ruixia Tortured to Death by Chinese Communist Government

Ms. Zhang Ruixia, born in 1961, was a native of Qingfeng County, Puyang City, Henan Province. She joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 1991. In June 2014, more than ten policemen, headed by Captain Ma Zhihong of Linzhou City Public Security Bureau’s National Security Brigade, arrested Zhang because of her belief in Almighty God. Zhang was tortured to death during detention at the age of 53. It was not until half a year later that Zhang’s family heard the news. According to Zhang’s family, her body was emaciated and unrecognizable. It had bruises all over. Her abdomen was dented and there was a long sewed up scar on it, which is usually a sign of organ harvesting. The following is the process of Zhang Ruixia being persecuted to death by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

On June 25, 2014 at about 5 p.m., the Christians Zhang Ruixia and Xiaoying (an alias) from The Church of Almighty God went to another Christian’s place at a community in Linzhou, Henan Province. About an hour later, the police forced the door open. Led by Ma Zhihong, captain of National Security Brigade of Linzhou Public Security Bureau in Anyang, Henan Province, a dozen policemen forcibly rummaged the house without showing any documentation. They arrested Zhang Ruixia and Xiaoying and took them to the Criminal Investigation Brigade of Linzhou Public Security Bureau. A policeman said that they tracked Zhang Ruixia all the way from Xinxiang to Linzhou.

On June 25 at about 7 p.m., the Christians Xiaoqing (an alias) and Xiaohong (an alias) from The Church of Almighty God were also tracked and arrested by the police.

According to Xiaoqing, on June 25 at about 11 p.m., Xaioqing was taken to the Criminal Investigation Brigade of Linzhou Public Security Bureau for interrogation. When she went to the toilet, she saw Zhang Ruixia, Xiaoying and Xiaohong were detained respectively in three different rooms. Zhang Ruixia was handcuffed to a tiger bench, with her head down. There were four or five plain-clothes policemen in their twenties in the room. She heard a policeman roaring at Zhang, “Don’t keep your head down in silence. We have a lot of ways with you.” As soon as Xiaoqing went back to her interrogation room, she heard that Zhang uttered a cry in misery and then everything was in silence in Zhang’s room. Afterward, she heard a policeman say, “The woman is really tough. She did not even cry when being beaten. She is really hard to deal with.” Xiaoqing never saw Zhang Ruixia again after that.

About two or three months later in the Detention Center, Xiaoqing met Xiaoying, who was arrested together with Zhang Ruixia, and learned from her that Zhang Ruixia had been killed by the police.

About twenty days after Zhang Ruixia was arrested, four policemen from a police station in Macun Village, Qingfeng County, Puyang City, Henan Province, went to Zhang’s for house-ransacking. There was no one at home, so they wanted to borrow ladders from Zhang’s neighbors to climb over the wall to get into Zhang’s house but were turned down. Then the police went to Zhang’s mother-in-law’s place. They rummaged her house but searched out nothing.

After Zhang’s family learned Zhang had been arrested, they inquired many times where Zhang Ruixia was being detained from the village cadre Liu. But Liu refused to tell them anything. It was not until at the end of January 2015 when Xiaoqing, who had been arrested together with Zhang Ruixia, was released, that Zhang’s family knew Zhang’s death. By that time, Zhang had been dead for half a year. As stipulated in the PRC Criminal Procedure Law, the family of the detainee shall be notified of the detention of the detainee within 24 hours. However, the authorities of Linzhou Public Security Bureau of Henan Province not only did not notify Zhang’s family after she was arrested, but they did not even inform them after she died.

Later, at a hotel opposite Linzhou Public Security Bureau, the family of six met Ma Zhihong, captain of the National Security Brigade of Linzhou Public Security Bureau, who arrested Zhang Ruixia. They made a request to see Zhang’s remains. Ma Zhihong turned them down first. Eventually he allowed only one family member to go to see it. Afterward, Zhang’s younger brother saw a skinny, desiccated body. Its face, hands and feet were so small that they were just like a child’s, without any flesh. It was hardly recognizable and only the jaw and teeth showed that she might be Zhang Ruixia. The body was covered with bruises. Her abdomen was dented, and there was a long sewed up scar on it, which is usually a sign of organ harvesting. Through a DNA test, it was identified that the body was Zhang Ruixia’s.

Later, Zhang’s family were not allowed to see Zhang’s remains again. They questioned how Zhang died and why the police did not notify them of her death in half a year. Ma Zhihong said: “Her belief in Almighty God amounts to engagement in counter-revolution and law breaking. We had been hunting for her for two years as she was a head.” Ma lied that he did not know Zhang’s home address. He also excused that Zhang had been sick and was sent to hospital the following day after she was arrested, and that they also had the video of her interrogation as evidence. When Zhang’s son made a request to see the video, Ma Zhihong made another excuse, “I will discuss it with my leaders for permission.” But they never gave the video of Zhang’s interrogation.

In March 2015, over twenty people of Zhang’s family and neighbors went to Linzhou Public Security Bureau to demand justice for Zhang, holding banners and wreaths. The policemen gave Zhang’s younger sister and nephew some punches and kicks and threatened them, “You’re disturbing the social order. We’ll arrest all of you if you keep making trouble here!”

Zhang’s family wanted to take her remains home but were refused by the authorities of Linzhou Public Security Bureau. Eventually, Zhang’s remains were cremated in Linzhou City.

10. Christian Zhang Hongtao Tortured to Death by Chinese Communist Police

Ms. Zhang Hongtao, victim, a native of Tianshui City, Gansu Province; an ordinary Christian from The Church of Almighty God (CAG). On December 6, 2012, Zhang Hongtao was arrested for preaching the gospel. On the same day, she was tortured to death by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the age of 55.

Arrested for Preaching the Gospel, Tortured to Death in 4 Hours

On December 6, 2012, past 9 a.m., Zhang Hongtao and several Christians from The Church of Almighty God met in Xiaochuan Town, Cheng County, Gansu Province, to preach the gospel. Upon arriving there, Zhang Hongtao and other Christians started preaching the gospel to the owner of a cold-noodle stall. Unexpectedly, it was overheard by a CCP plainclothes policeman. About 10 o’clock, Zhang Hongtao was unlawfully arrested and escorted to the police station in Xiaochuan Town.

About 2 p.m. the same day, the police at the Xiaochuan Town Police Station called a contact number on Zhang Hongtao’s phone (a Christian from The Church of Almighty God), claiming that Zhang was admitted to the Cheng County Hospital. After 4 p.m., they called again and said that Zhang Hongtao had died.

On December 7, the police of the Cheng County Public Security Bureau located Zhang Hongtao’s husband surnamed Dong, informing him that Zhang had been arrested for preaching in Cheng County, and she had died of sudden cerebral hemorrhage. At the Cheng County Public Security Bureau, Dong saw his wife lie flat in a small house naked. Without the consent of the family, her skull had been opened. There was an egg-size lump on her head. Her face, neck, shoulders, back and legs were covered with bruises that appeared to have been caused by beating. When Dong asked what had happened to his wife, the police dodged the question by saying that the autopsy was conducted to ascertain the cause of death. They did not disclose other details.

Seeing the wounds on his wife’s body, Dong suspected that his wife had been killed by the police. The next day, he notified the family and some village people to visit the leaders of the county Public Security Bureau, county Politics and Law Committee and the Petition Office to resolve the matter. However, every department evaded the matter with the excuse that “the leaders were on business trip.” Later, when Zhang’s family angrily returned to the Cheng County Public Security Bureau and demanded for a resolution, their answer was, “On December 6, Zhang Hongtao was taken to the public security bureau for questioning because of preaching the gospel of Almighty God, but she refused to say anything and died afterwards. The deceased died of normal cause, which was determined by autopsy to be cerebral hemorrhage. The public security bureau takes no responsibility for it.” Zhang’s family found the police’s statement unacceptable. Zhang’s body was obviously covered with multiple wounds and a large lump on her head. How could that be called a normal cause of death? Zhang Hongtao was just having a minor cold on that day. From the time she was arrested at 10 a.m. to around 2 o’clock in the afternoon, there was only a little more than 4 hours. Had it not been due to external injuries, how could it have resulted in her sudden death? However, the police did not mention anything about the injuries on Zhang’s body.

Total Disregard of Human Lives, Gross Cover-up of Crime

Finding no recourse in pursuing the case in the county Government and Provincial Public Security Department, Zhang’s family returned on December 10 to the Cheng County government compound for an explanation. A person with the tough look of a leader threatened to arrest Zhang’s family for unlawful gatherings, petitioning and inciting. The politics and law committee secretary persuaded the crowd to leave with the excuse of “We will reply to you after discussion.”

Afterwards, the government sent a secretary and a lawyer to Zhang Hongtao’s home twice to settle the matter with a conviction against her: “The Church of Almighty God is the object of severe crackdown of the state. Zhang Hongtao’s believing in Almighty God and promoting the gospel constitutes an unlawful act.” Finally, a one-time compensation of 100,000 RMB was given to Zhang’s family, providing that the family could not retrieve the body, which was to be handled by the government. Zhang’s family saw there was no place to appeal but could only compromise.

11. Christian Zhang Laigu Murdered While in Custody

Victim Zhang Laigu was female, 35 at the time, and lived in Nanling County, Wuhu City, Anhui Province. She joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 2003 and was responsible for spreading the gospel. She was outgoing, lively, and cheerful. At the end of 2012, Zhang was arrested under false pretext by the Chinese Communist Government in Shanghai when she was spreading the gospel, and she died in custody after being illegally detained. Below is the full story of Zhang’s arrest, torture, and death at the hands of the Chinese Communist Government.

Zhang Died in Custody After She Was Arrested Under False Pretext When Spreading the Gospel

At 8 p.m. of December 12, 2012, when spreading the gospel in a community in Fengcheng Town, Fengxian District, Shanghai, Zhang Laigu was arrested by seven or eight plainclothes police officers from the Fengcheng Town Police Station. That evening, she was transferred to the Shanghai Minhang District Detention Center.

According to the recollections of a Christian with the surname Li (who was detained in the adjacent cell to Zhang Laigu), Zhang was referred to “Anonymous” in the detention center because she refused to give her name. She was frequently subjected to verbal abuse by the guards, and bullying and physical abuse by the other prisoners. Despite it being the middle of winter, she was not allowed to drink warm water. The last time Li saw Zhan Laigu was when she heard the loudspeaker announce, “Anonymous prisoner no.36, come out!” Soon after, she saw Zhang pass in front of her cell, but Zhang didn’t dare turn her head to look at her. Li says Zhang had a grave expression on her face. She looked sallow and wan, there were bags under her eyes, she seemed helpless. There was great sadness in her eyes; Li sensed she had suffered a great injustice. Li winked and nodded at Zhang, trying to cheer her up, but Zhang gave no response. After that, Li heard no further news of Zhang Laigu. It wasn’t until she was released from prison that she discovered Zhang had died in custody.

The police told Zhang Laigu’s family that she had torn her trousers into a rope and hanged herself in the toilet. “The police were lying,” Li says. “At the detention center where I was held with Zhang Laigu, the toilet lights were embedded into the wall. The walls were covered in smooth tiles and were curved and slightly sloping, without any corners or edges. They were also 4m high. There wasn’t anywhere you could tie something. There’s no way she could have hanged herself in there.”

The Police Tried to Threaten Zhang’s Family to Cover up Their Evildoing

Following Zhang’s death, the Shanghai Minhang District Detention Center informed her family that she had committed suicide whilst in her custody. Zhang’s family was shocked. That’s because they knew her as a strong, cheerful person. There was no way she would have killed herself. They felt outraged. Twenty or thirty of her relatives went to the detention center in Minhang District, Shanghai to seek justice and demand to see Zhang Laigu’s body. When they saw her body and tried to take pictures, the police immediately forced them to stop. Zhang’s relatives were incensed and started arguing with the police—who, seeing the way things were going, immediately threatened that “Anyone who causes trouble will be arrested!” Immediately afterward, they shut the group of twenty or thirty relatives in a large hall in the detention center and cross-examined each of them on their relationship with Zhang Laigu. During this time, they didn’t allow any of them to leave.

On January 12, 2013, the body of Zhang Laigu was cremated at the crematorium in Minhang District. The Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau provided 700,000 RMB in compensation to her family.

After Zhang Laiju’s death, the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau and the Public Security Bureau of Nanling County, Wuhu City, Anhui Province sent four police cars containing eight officers to the home of her parents, where they threatened to outlaw all religious assemblies in the village.

12. Church Leader Ma Suoping Injured and Killed by Chinese Communist Government

Ms. Ma Suoping (Spiritual Name: Youling), 40 years of age, was a resident of Shuangfengyan Village, Shuanghe Township, Xiangning County, Linfen City, Shanxi Province. In 1999, she joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG). Before she was murdered, she was one of the main leaders of The Church of Almighty God in mainland China.

At around 2 o’clock in the afternoon on July 17, 2009, more than 20 plain-clothed policemen holding police batons and clubs, along with police dogs burst into Mr. Liu’s home which was located in Luan County, Tangshan City, Hebei Province. Without showing any credentials, the police captured five Christians including Liu, Ma Suoping and Linlin. A male police officer in his 40s who was about 1.7m tall grabbed Ma Suoping by her hair and proudly said, “This is her! Even though she has makeup on, I can recognize her!” The police brought the five into the living room and forced them to crouch down. They used clothing and bedsheets to wrap their heads up, then brought their police dogs into the rooms to do a search. They confiscated Liu’s 120,000 RMB, 2 cases of books on believing in God, 4 laptops, 5 cell phones, 2 bags of clothing, a few boxes of health products, etc. Afterwards, the police took Ma Suoping and the other four Christians with their heads wrapped up and put them into separate cars. They took them to a military sub-district facility in Tangshan City in Hebei to interrogate them secretly.

According to Liu’s neighbor, the day that Ma Suoping was captured, the police dispatched approximately forty to fifty police cars and vehicles along with hundreds of policemen and SWAT police. Both sides of the street in front of Liu’s house were blockaded and SWAT police carrying guns were present up to over 60m from his front door.

According to inside sources, the police have known for a long time that Ma Suoping is one of the main leaders in The Church of Almighty God and even designated her as a “national leader.” She was already wanted on the Public Security Network in July 2008. The Public Security Bureau in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province had already attempted to capture Ma Suoping many times but had been unsuccessful. In 2009, through operations involving monitoring and tracking her cellphone, the police were able to pinpoint Ma Suoping’s location to Tangshan. Afterwards, they carried out an operation to capture Ma Suoping. This operation was directly arranged by the National Ministry of Public Security, which mobilized police forces from Henan and Hebei as well as Tangshan City police to carry out a surprise arrest in Tangshan.

After Ma Suoping was captured, the other Christians that were captured along with her never saw her again nor did they know where she was taken. Nobody knows what kind of cruelties she had to endure before she died.

According to Linlin and Ms. Wang, both of whom were also captured, the police tortured them and tried to coerce them to confess just how much Church money Ma Suoping managed and where they were located. The torture that they went through included: having their hands shackled behind their backs and being violently dragged up, having their upper bodies and arms pricked with toothpicks, smashing their heads onto the floor etc. During this time, Linlin could not bear the torture and tried to smash herself into a wall to commit suicide. Her head bled a lot. However, the police continued to try to extort a confession from her. Linlin and Wang were only common believers in The Church of Almighty God yet they received such harsh treatment. One can only imagine what the Chinese Communist police did to Ma Suoping.

On July 22, Ma Suoping was killed by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

On July 24, the police finally notified Ma Suoping’s family that Ma Suoping had already died. Her body was left in the morgue of Yellow River Central Hospital in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province. When Ma Suoping’s husband Mr. Song and the secretary of Shuangfengyan Village, Yang Jinzhu went to see her body, they discovered that it was covered with bruises and scars from beating. However, the police denied that they attacked her. They claimed that Ma Suoping was captured alone on July 21, transferred to Zhengzhou at 5 p.m. on July 22 and died suddenly of a heart attack at 6 p.m. They said that the scars and bruises on her body appeared after she died.

Ma Suoping’s husband Mr. Song was certain that his wife had been healthy all along and that she never had any problems with her heart. Consequently, he refused to accept the police’s explanation and requested that his wife’s body be returned to Shanxi. The director of Zhongyuan Public Security Sub-bureau in Zhengzhou City and two other people negotiated with Mr. Song many times with threats and intimidation. Finally, on July 26 in the afternoon, Mr. Song and his daughter brought Ma Suoping’s ashes back to Shanxi and buried them on July 29.

13. Christian Wang Fengtian Tortured to Death by Chinese Communist Police

In early 2009, a tragedy occurred in Weifang City, Shandong Province, when a Christian from The Church of Almighty God (CAG) was secretly arrested and killed by the Chinese Communist Government.

The victim, Wang Fengtian, was female, born in July 1970, and lived in Zuoshan Town, Changyi County, Weifang City, Shandong Province. She was an ordinary Christian in The Church of the Almighty God. Below is the full story of Wang Fengtian’s arrest and brutal murder at the hands of the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

At about 7 p.m. on January 16, 2009, several policemen from the Zuoshan Police Station in Xiashan District, Weifang City, Shandong Province, entered Wang Fengtian’s home. Without producing any official documents, they searched her home—and despite finding nothing connected to her faith in God, they forcibly took her to Zuoshan Police Station. Several police officers subsequently returned to Wang’s home and searched the living room, bedroom and yard all over again. Even the brick wall in the toilet was broken—but still nothing was found. At 7:50 that evening, another Christian of The Church of Almighty God named Hai’ou (an alias) and her parents were also arrested as a result of their belief in Almighty God and locked up together with Wang.

At Zuoshan Police Station, officers forced Wang to tell them about the church. They brutally interrogated her for a day and night, during which time they gave her nothing to eat or drink. Hai’ou says that while she was being questioned she heard the sound of a woman screaming in agony in another room. The officer who was with her said they were interrogating Wang Fengtian.

At 2 a.m. in the morning of January 17, following their interrogations, Wang Fengtian, Hai’ou and Hai’ou’s parents were put in a large, 2m-high metal cage. On the same day, the four of them were transferred to Weifang City Detention Center.

Hai’ou recalls that whilst in the detention center, Wang Fengtian repeatedly asked for bail pending trial, but the police refused. Wang Fengtian was taken for questioning four times at the detention center. During this questioning, Hai’ou heard the sound of her crying and saw her wearing heavy ankle irons. According to a Christian named Minghui (an alias) who has held in the same cell as Wang Fengtian, the ankle irons were 2cm thick and linked by chain to her handcuffs. They made it very difficult for Wang Fengtian to walk. After each questioning session, the police reduced the number of chain links between the handcuffs and ankles, eventually resulting in Wang being unable to stand up straight whilst walking.

By February 16, Wang Fengtian and the other Christians had been detained for one month. Because the police had been unable to obtain any evidence for a conviction, the detention center asked Wang and the others to sign a statement of acquittal and began preparing to release them. As this happened, more than a dozen police officers from the Zuoshan Police Station were standing beside them. Once Hai’ou, Wang Fengtian, and Minghui had signed the statements, the officers rushed forward, cuffed their hands behind their backs, put black hoods on them, and bundled them into a van—just as if they had been condemned to execution. Even the guard from the detention center could only stand there open-mouthed, and asked, “What happened? Weren’t they acquitted?”

The police secretly took Wang Fengtian and the two others to a hotel (it was later learned that it was the Shuiyuntian Hotel in Jingzhi Town), where they were illegally detained. During this time, Hai’ou heard the sound of police yelling, things being smashed, and the cries of Wang Fengtian from the next room. She heard one policeman surnamed Han say, “Wang Fengtian hasn’t confessed. She’s been beaten black and blue, she’s swollen up like a pig!” Hai’ou quietly wept after hearing these words. Despite setting up a private court in which Wang Fengtian and the others were subjected to brutal interrogation, the police didn’t receive any confessions.

Two weeks later, in early March, Wang Fengtian lost her life as a result of vicious torture by the police.

After Wang Fengtian was beaten to death, the police didn’t immediately inform her family. Instead, they tried to conceal her death, and made several visits to the homes of Wang Fengtian, her parents, and all her relatives to ask whether they believed in Jesus, what their jobs were, and to try and find out more about Wang Fengtian’s family background, etc. To cover up their crimes, the police also sent Wang’s badly beaten corpse to a hospital for cosmetic reconstruction. A nurse (Wang Li, female, 44 years old, who came from the same village as Wang) who took part in the procedure recognized Wang Fengtian. Fearing information about what they’d done would get out, the police immediately segregated the nurse and stopped her from taking part in the surgery.

Later, when Wang Fengtian’s younger sister went to identify the body, she saw that her sister’s back was covered in bruises. It was obvious that Wang Fengtian had suffered inhumane torture before she died. Yet due to threats of local police, Wang Fengtian’s family had no choice but to keep quiet. Unable to air their grievances, they had no way of getting justice for Wang Fengtian.

14. 70-Year Old Christian Nan Xiangming Dies After Police Intentionally Delay Medical Treatment While in Custody

Mr. Nan Xiangming, born in 1942, resided at Ponan Group One, Podi Village, Junma Township, Liquan County, Xianyang City, Shaanxi Province. In October 1994, Nan Xiangming and his wife believed in the Lord, and in 1999 they joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG). Nan Xiangming and his wife were an honest and upright couple who were happy to help others. They were proactive in assisting the Church burning CDs of hymns and sermons. Due to the Chinese Communist Government’s serious persecution of The Church of Almighty God, in order to evade police searches, in 2003, Nan Xiangming and his wife built a basement room to house Church books, CDs and CD writers.

On July 24, 2014, three Christians came to help Nan Xiangming and his wife renovate their basement. Unexpectedly, the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) learned of this and the five of them were arrested. Nan Xiangming was innocently sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for believing in Almighty God. The long time in prison without enough to eat coupled with high-intensity labour led to his aggravated diabetes. Treatment was delayed due to the police’s refusal for Nan Xiangming to receive treatment out of custody. In February 2016, Nan died in prison, at 74 years of age.

The following are the facts of Nan Xiangming being persecuted to death by the CCP:

At about 1 p.m. on July 24, 2014, Nan Xiangming’s wife Wang (aged 67) was making lunch and Nan Xiangming and three other Christians were resting in the living room. Suddenly five police officers, Liu Jiang and others from Junma Township Police Station, Liquan County, Xianyang City forced entry and without showing any documents, starting to search the home and confiscate property. They made a mess of Nan’s home and ultimately found these: 118 spiritual books, 2 CD-writers, 86 CDs, 2,795 blank CDs, 53 stamps, 4 MP4 players, 2 DVD players, 1 newly purchased tricycle, 1 used electric tricycle, 1 electric motorbike, 1 cell phone and 500 RMB in cash. These items were all confiscated. The police forced the arrest of Nan Xiangming and his wife, along with the other three Christians and took them into custody at Junma Township Police Station in Liquan County.

That evening at around 8 o’clock, Yang Chao, the Director of Junma Township Police Station in Liquan County, and other police officers conducted interrogations of Nan Xiangming and the others successively. The police forced Nan to answer what the source of the faith items at Nan’s home was and who the top leaders of the Church were. Nan Xiangming refused to answer, and the trial lasted until past midnight. Police intimidation coupled with long-time starvation resulted in Nan Xiangming, who already suffered from diabetes, becoming weak all over, paralysed, sat in the corner, holding strong until dawn.

Around 8 a.m. on July 25, the five Christians including Nan Xiangming were transferred to Liquan County Public Security Bureau. After that, Nan Xiangming was detained in Liquan County Detention Center.

On August 2, Nan Xiangming and the others, wearing prison uniform and handcuffs and shackles, were escorted to the village where Nan Xiangming lived and paraded in public.

On August 29, Nan Xiangming was officially arrested.

At 3 p.m. on May 14, 2015, Nan Xiangming was sentenced to three years of imprisonment by the People’s Court of Liquan County, Shaanxi Province, on the charge of “sabotaging the enforcement of laws by utilizing evil religious organizations” because of believing in Almighty God.

On July 13, Nan Xiangming was transferred to Weinan Prison in Shaanxi Province to serve his sentence.

On July 16, the prison authorities called Nan’s daughter and asked her to buy drugs to treat Nan’s diabetes. Since then, the prison officers refused visits by Nan’s family and only allowed a monthly remittance to Nan Xiangming’s bank card; no other items were allowed to be sent to him.

On February 1, 2016, Weinan Prison once again called Nan Xiangming’s daughter and asked her to send 20,000 RMB.

The next day, Nan’s daughter went to the prison and learned that Nan was in a critical condition and had been sent to Xin’an Central Hospital in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province (a prison hospital).

In the hospital visitation room, Nan Xiangming secretly said to his daughter that the long period of food deficiency in prison had resulted in a deterioration of his diabetes. Revealed by the examination, his blood sugar level had reached 14-15mmol/L (at home Nan’s blood sugar remained in normal range of 3-5mmol/L). Moreover, recently when he ate, he vomited whatever he ate. Nan’s daughter’s successive requests to prison guards for transferring her father to another hospital and approving his treatment on medical parole were rejected. The prison authorities said: “The Chinese Communist Party’s policy is this: Treatment out of custody for diabetes will only be given in the case of blindness or foot rot!”

At 9 p.m. on February 7, Nan’s family received a call from Weinan Prison. The prison authorities said that all rescue measures had proved ineffectual and that Nan Xiangming had died.

Later, a relative of Nan learned from the hospital that Nan died after invalid rescue efforts because his high level of blood sugar caused diabetes syndrome, which resulted in coronary heart disease.

At strong request from Nan’s family, Weinan Prison finished the case rashly by paying cremation fee of 8,000 RMB.

15. Christian Chen Yanling Dies After Police Intentionally Delay Medical Treatment While in Custody

Chen Yanling, female, was born in 1972 and lived in Yanzi Township, Qian’an County, Songyuan City, Jilin Province. She started believing in the Lord in 1997 and joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 2000.

One day in the middle of May 2003, after learning that Chen Yanling believed in Almighty God, the Political Security Section of Qian’an County, Songyuan City immediately dispatched six or seven officers to force entry into Chen’s home, and take her to the Qian’an Country Detention Center. During her time there, Chen was interrogated once: the police tried to force her to sign a document denying God, and she refused.

As described by Liu Fang, another Christian who was detained in the same cell as Chen, Chen had been healthy at the time of her arrest. All she worried about was that there was no-one to look after her two young children (a girl aged 12 and a boy aged 10), and would sob loudly with anguish each night.

On the morning of June 19, Chen Yanling told Liu Fang that her head really hurt. She said she felt nauseous and wanted to throw up. As she did so, she couldn’t stop herself from vomiting, her face flushed. The other prisoners in the cell asked the warden for help, but the warden only gave Chen a painkiller and made no attempt to find a doctor to treat her. As a result, there was no letup in Chen’s symptoms: she threw up three or four times that morning, vomiting nothing but liquids. By 5 o’clock that afternoon, Chen’s condition was getting worse. The vomiting was now accompanied by convulsions, and when there wasn’t even any saliva left in her stomach to throw up, all that remained were the frequent convulsions. At the beginning, Chen would regain consciousness when somebody pinched her philtrum, but afterward the illness came at increasingly short intervals, occurring less than every ten minutes. Chen fell unconscious and not even pinching her philtrum would wake her. The warden didn’t come despite calls from the prisoners throughout the day.

At 7 p.m. in the evening, seeing how bad the situation was, Chen’s cellmates repeatedly shouted for the warden seven or eight times. Only then did Prison Deputy Li, three male wardens, and a female doctor slowly make their way to the cell. The doctor took Chen’s temperature and, seeing it wasn’t high, gave her a shot of an unknown drug and prepared to leave. A warden named Zhang Bo kicked Chen a couple of times and said she was pretending. He and the others turned to leave. At that moment Chen gave started convulsing. A warden picked up the used syringe and viciously stabbed Chen in the heel twice. Her heel twitched, and then she immediately started convulsing again. Deputy Li pinched her philtrum, and seeing her stop convulsing, strode away together with others. Afterward, Chen kept convulsing. After being pinched, she’d regain consciousness for a couple of minutes and then start convulsing again. Chen’s cellmates were upset by her condition and started to cry. But no matter how much they called out, the warden didn’t come.

They had shouted to the warden at least 20 times that day, but the guards refused to take Chen to the hospital for treatment.

Only at 9 p.m. that evening, when Chen had been unconscious for several hours, did head of the detention center Wang Hui send her to the Qian’an County Hospital.

The next day, a female warden warned each of Chen’s cellmates separately that someone would be coming the following day to ask if Chen had been given an injection and medicine. They were all to say she had. Afterward, Liu Fang disobeyed the warden and gave a faithful account of Chen’s deteriorating condition to the officer taking notes that day, which earned her a rebuke from the warden.

According to an insider, Chen’s family was informed by the Public Security Bureau after she was hospitalized. After hurrying to the hospital, they found her lying on the bed, her face swollen and covered in bruises, breathing with difficulty, barely alive and unable to speak.

The police’s reluctance to spend money meant they had only allowed Chen to have two days’ treatment; on the third day, they stopped paying for her medicine. After hearing this, Chen’s family demanded that her treatment be continued—but no one agreed.

On the evening of June 24, Chen Yanling passed away. She was just 32 years old.

Following her death, the police lied and said that she had died from congenital cerebrovascular disease. But Chen had been healthy, and didn’t have this disease. She had clearly suffered from a brain hemorrhage caused by concern for her two children. The police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), however, had only reluctantly tried to save her, and she had died as a result. They can hardly be excused from blame.

16. Christian Wu Xia Persecuted to Death by Chinese Communist Government

On August 23, 2009, Wu Xia, a Christian from The Church of Almighty God (CAG) was arrested by officers of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) because of her belief in Almighty God. She was murdered while in custody at the age of 57. Prior to her death, Wu Xia lived in the Sucheng District of Suqian City, Jiangsu Province. She joined The Church of Almighty God in 2003 and was an enthusiastic host for other Christians. According to an informed source, throughout Wu Xia’s life she was loyal and honest, and her friends and family had great respect for her.

Arrested and Then Killed for Believing in God

In mid-August 2009, two local Christians were followed and then arrested by the officers from the Xiguan Police Station in Shuyang County, Suqian City. Before long the officers found out that Wu Xia believed in Almighty God and had hosted other Christians.

Around 3 p.m. on August 23, the police from the Suqian Public Security Bureau Economic and Technological Development Zone Branch barged into Wu Xia’s home on the pretext of inquiring about some situations, and then arrested her while she was there alone.

According to Wu Xia’s family, a few days later the police told her daughter and her son-in-law to go to the Liyuan Police Station in the Sucheng District of Suqian City (it has now been merged with the Huanghe Police Station in the same district and city) to urge Wu Xia to provide information on the whereabouts of another two Christians she had hosted, wanting to get materials from their computers.

She told her daughter and son-in-law that while she had been detained, the police deprived her of sleep, and constantly shined high-wattage lights directly into her eyes, trying to force her to divulge information on other Christians. But her mind was made up, and she would rather die than become a Judas and betray God. She removed the jewelry she was wearing such as gold earrings and a gold ring and gave them to her daughter, telling her daughter and son-in-law her wishes for her death and telling them to stop trying to persuade her. When her family saw that she was resolute and the police was stubbornly refusing to let her go, they had no choice but to leave.

Her Family Demanded an Explanation, the CCP Denied Responsibility

At about 9 p.m. on August 31, Wu Xia’s family members were notified by the police that she was having a hypertensive crisis, her life was in danger, and she had been sent to the Suqian City People’s Hospital for emergency treatment. They rushed to the hospital, but the police and doctors refused to let them see her. Sometime after midnight that same night one doctor came to tell her family that she had died after a failed rescue attempt.

The police threatened her family members, saying, “If you dare say that Wu Xia was tortured to death by the police, then we will publicize that she believed in Almighty God. This is something opposed by the government—what the government most hates is people who believe in Almighty God. They are the number one criminals in the eyes of the government, so then your entire family will come to a bad end!” Under the pressure of the police, Wu Xia’s family didn’t dare complain or say a word.

That same night, the police took Wu Xia’s remains to the mortuary.

The next day the police just informed a few of Wu Xia’s close relatives to take a quick look at her, and then they prepared her remains for cremation. Her nephew, who was studying law, objected to the cremation and went to the Liyuan Police Station, Suqian City’s Sucheng District Public Security Sub-Bureau, as well as Suqian Public Security Bureau and the Provincial Department of Public Security a number of times to argue the case. All the officers said the exact same thing—Wu Xia was arrested because of her belief in Almighty God, she died in police custody due to illness, her death had nothing to do with the police, they were not responsible, and that she had died in vain. They also said that believing in Almighty God was a serious, important case, and cynically asserted that the family wouldn’t find justice no matter which department they turned to. Her nephew continued to escalate the case and said that if he couldn’t win the lawsuit in China, he’d take it overseas through his former classmates. For fear of causing a stir, the police reluctantly agreed to pay 300,000 RMB of restitution to Wu Xia’s family.

17. Christian Zhang Huanfu Dies After Humiliation and Abuse in Re-Education Camp

Victim Zhang Huanfu was female, 50 years old at the time, from Qiaoping Village, Zhuyang Town, Chongqing’s Jiangjin District. She was an ordinary Christian of The Church of Almighty God (CAG) who joined the Church with her husband Cao Benxian in May 2000. The following is a full account of Zhang’s illegal arrest by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and how she was tortured to death.

Sentenced to Re-education Through Labor for Hosting Christian Meetings; Tortured to Death During Period of Detainment

Zhang and her husband were an honest farming couple. After the two of them started believing in Almighty God, they often attended meetings with neighboring Christians. However, the good times did not last long, as the hosting of Christian meetings at Zhang’s home was reported to authorities.

At around 10 a.m. on August 18, 2008, several police officers from the Public Security Bureau of Yongchuan District, Chongqing Municipality, raided Zhang’s home and found books on believing in God and hymn CDs. Zhang was illegally arrested and taken to the Yongchuan District Public Security Bureau.

For her belief in Almighty God, Zhang was later sentenced to a year of re-education through labor at the Shimahe Women’s Labor Re-education Camp in Jiangbei, Chongqing.

The first time Cao went to the labor re-education camp to visit Zhang, he could barely recognize his wife because she had been beaten up so badly that her entire face had changed shape.

One day in April 2009, the Shimahe Women’s Labor Re-education Camp called Cao to tell him that Zhang was seriously ill. When Cao arrived at the camp, the police took him to a room, where they pointed to a body on the ground which was covered by a dirty and ragged blanket and said: “That is your wife. She hanged herself.” Cao could not accept it and wanted to see his wife’s body, but was blocked by police. After Cao just stayed for 2 short minutes, the police impatiently said to him: “OK, you’ve seen her. Now the body can be taken to the crematorium.” Cao wanted to follow the body to the crematorium, but even this basic right of family members was taken away by the police, as he was only allowed to wait in the car.

At 5 p.m., Zhang’s ashes were returned to Cao, but the police delayed him from leaving. It was only until after midnight, when there were no people around, that the police drove Cao to the side of a road in Qiaoping Village and told him: “Just take the urn of ashes back and bury it in a hole. Don’t notify your relatives.”

According to another Christian of The Church of Almighty surnamed Yang who served time with Zhang: “Zhang Huanfu and I both served time at the Shimahe Women’s Labor Re-education Camp’s third unit. She lived next to me. That labor camp had a rule—new prisoners had to get up at 5 a.m. every day in their first month and start memorizing 23 prison rules after they finish washing their faces and brushing their teeth. Those who could not memorize them were subjected to corresponding physical punishment. As Zhang’s memory was poor, she failed the first time and was punished to stand for an hour. When she failed the second time, the physical punishment was doing squats for half an hour. When she failed the third time, she had to run 20 laps on the track. When she failed the fourth time, she was not allowed to eat. When she failed the fifth time, she was not permitted to go to the toilet and had to urinate and defecate in her pants…. Zhang often went hungry because she could not memorize the prison rules. She was sometimes so hungry that she passed out, but the Captain said she was just pretending and beat her up. Once, a prisoner felt Zhang was really pitiable and bought her a dish to eat, but Captain Liu found out and subjected that prisoner to physical punishment of 300 squats.

From the second month, prisoners had to meet production quotas. Every day, we worked from 7 a.m. in the morning to 10:30 p.m. at night. If we did not complete our task, we were not allowed to eat and had to work overtime. Those who could not complete their task for a long period of time also had their sentences extended. Meal time every day was a total of 30 minutes, just 10 minutes per meal, and included getting food, eating and washing up. Those who did not finish their meals in time weren’t allowed to eat anymore. After finishing work, the time for us to clean ourselves up was 8 minutes, including showering, laundry, and washing our faces and feet. When time was up, we weren’t allowed to wash any further. Toilet time was also fixed. Each person could only go twice a day, and each time could not exceed 10 minutes. As Zhang failed to complete her tasks for a long time, she was regularly reprimanded by the Captain, not only often going hungry but also worrying that her sentence would be extended, adding exponentially to her physical and mental torment.

After Zhang committed suicide by hanging herself in April 2009, prison authorities called an emergency meeting with the people living in Zhang’s cell, prohibiting anyone from leaking information or leaving the cell, and threatening and intimidating them by saying: ‘Anyone who reveals what really happened will be dead immediately!’”

Family Members Want an Explanation but Are Threatened and Intimidated by Police

Zhang’s relatives were grief-stricken and furious after finding out about her death, and 16 of them headed down to Shimahe Women’s Labor Re-education Camp to seek an explanation. The police at the camp surrounded the 16 of them with guns and threatened: “People get killed here all the time. One who died a couple of days ago was tossed outside and no one cared.”

Zhang’s relatives persisted in protesting outside the labor re-education camp for a month and 2 days. In the end, the police threatened the relatives with the job of Zhang’s youngest daughter, forcing them to give up their protests.

Zhang’s wrongful death placed Cao under long-term psychological stress. In the end, he lost his sanity and was placed in the Chongqing Psychiatric Hospital. Just like this, an honest couple and perfectly fine family was destroyed by the Chinese Communist government.

18. Christian Deng Xiufen Killed Through Heavy Labor While in Labor Camp

In September 2002, Christian Ms. Deng Xiufen (alias Zhou Min) was arrested by the police for believing in Almighty God and sentenced to one year of re-education through labor. One day in May 2003, due to the chronic attrition of excessive workload and severe nutritional deficiency, she suffered paroxysmal attacks. Deng Xiufen died in prison 3 hours after the sudden disease at the age of 35 due to intentionally delayed treatment by the Moganshan Labor Re-education Camp in Wukang Town, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province.

Ms. Deng Xiufen, born in 1968, was originally from Wencheng County, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province; she later moved to Hai’an Town, Rui’an City, Zhejiang Province. Since childhood she had believed in the Lord, and in 2001, she joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG). From what we understand, Deng Xiufen was a kind-hearted, forthright and honest person who had won the unanimous praises of relatives and neighbors.

Arrested for Believing in God, Sentenced and Brutally Abused in Prison

On September 26, 2002, Mr. Shen Qiang (40 years old), Director of the Ouhai District Public Security Sub-bureau, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, along with police elites Jianming and three others, went to Deng Xiufen’s home. Under the excuse of having received confidential reports of her believing in Almighty God and possessing spiritual books, they forcibly arrested Deng. Subsequently, accusing her of “participating in an evil religious organization and disturbing social order,” the police illegally sentenced her to re-education through labor for one year.

According to Leilei (an alias, resident of Oubei Town, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, Christian of The Church of Almighty God, also arrested by the police for believing in Almighty God, now fled to the United States), who was held in the same cell with Deng Xiufen, in November 2002, Deng Xiufen was transferred to the Moganshan Labor Re-education Camp in Zhejiang Province to serve her sentence. She was later assigned to engage in forced labor in the seamstress group of the First Squadron, the Second Brigade. Leilei and Deng Xiufen were assigned to the same group. In the labor re-education camp, a yellow card bearing the words “Special Disciplinary Control” was hung on the chest of every Christian of Almighty God. As a result of their belief in Almighty God, Christians such as Deng Xiufen, Leilei and others were routinely abused, discriminated and suppressed by prison guards. They were treated worse than pigs and dogs.

They got up at 5:30 every morning and gathered. Breakfast was only a small steamed bun and a bowl of porridge cooked so thin that hardly any rice grains were visible in it. Living on a starvation diet, they still had to work more than 10 hours every day. Due to the intense labor, excessive physical exertion and starvation, they were in a constant state of debilitation and dizziness.

Due to the prison guards’ “particularly strict management” of the group she was assigned to, Deng Xiufen often had to work overtime. Her work hour was longer than others’ by two hours. Her typical work hour was almost 14 hours. On most occasions, she did not make it in time to the mess hall. Often there was only cold leftover food for her. Sometimes, there was nothing. After the work rush every time, Deng still had to drag her exhausted body to the hall of the labor re-education camp to receive involuntary “forced conversion.” Any unsatisfactory learning performance was met with corresponding punishment.

The prison guards allowed Deng Xiufen and others to spend only 10 RMB a month, which was not even enough for daily necessities, let alone food. Up to 14 hours of high-intensity workload and severe nutritional deficiency caused serious damage to the originally healthy Deng Xiufen.

Paroxysm from Hyper-exertion, Sudden Death in Prison from Delayed Treatment

One day in early May 2003 at about 8 p.m., Deng Xiufen returned to the dormitory after working overtime. She suddenly felt dizzy, nauseous, uncomfortable all over and about to vomit. Seeing that Deng Xiufen was squatting and gasping for air, her face reddened and her neck bulging, Leilei rushed over and helped her sit on a stool. By then, Deng was so weak that she didn’t even have the strength to talk. When Leilei saw that, she lost no time and called the re-education staff on duty (who were also prisoners) to help carry Deng to the door of the duty office. Leilei intended to ask the duty re-education staff to send Deng Xiufen to the infirmary. But the two exit iron doors were locked, and the prisoners could not go out.

Deng Xiufen slumped in a chair. Her body was covered with cold sweat and her hands were icily cold. Time elapsed by the minutes while Leilei anxiously waited for the guard to open the door. Each minute felt like a year. Not long after, Deng Xiufen’s head snapped to the right, her hands were hanging down and cold sweat was dripping from her fingers. Her body was soaked in sweat. When the guard and the prison doctor leisurely arrived at the labor re-education camp respectively, it was already past 11 o’clock at night, three hours after the outbreak of Deng’s illness. The guard ordered two prisoners to carry Deng Xiufen out. Deng had lost sensation in her feet. The prisoners dragged Deng to the infirmary.

The duty reeducation staff secretly told other prisoners that Deng Xiufen was suffering severe prostration at that time. Her clothes were so soaked with sweat that they could be wrung for water. Deng did not make it. She had missed the golden hour for rescue.

According to the disclosure of an inmate from the Second Squadron of the Moganshan Labor Re-education Camp, she had witnessed the incident on the night before Deng Xiufen expired. When Deng was taken to the infirmary, there was no doctor in the medical room. The guards put Deng in the bed and left. Deng was lying there motionless. Her face was ashen and she seemed to be unconscious. Half an hour later, the doctor and Li Ming, the secretary of the Second Brigade, slowly arrived at the infirmary. At that time, Deng Xiufen had passed away. Afterward, this was written on Deng’s death certificate: myocardial infarction, timely rescue rendered but resuscitation failed.

After Deng died, the prison guards arranged for two prisoners to watch Leilei round the clock, strictly disciplining her, not allowing her to speak out the real cause of Deng Xiufen’s death. Christian Deng Xiufen, only aged 35, left the world this way.

19. Christian Zhang Xiaoyue Dies From Food Deprivation and Beatings for Maintaining Her Faith

Zhang Xiaoyue, female, born in 1964 and lived in Sankou Town of Huangshan City’s Huangshan District in Anhui Province, China. She started believing in the Lord Jesus in 1996 and joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 1997. On September 2, 2014, Zhang Xiaoyue was arrested by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) because of her belief in Almighty God. She was sentenced to three years in prison and was killed while serving time at the age of 50. Below is Zhang’s story of persecution to death.

Around 5 a.m. on September 2, 2014, the police from Huangshan District, Huangshan City, Anhui Province carried out a concerted operation resulting in the arrest of five local Christians from The Church of Almighty God. Zhang Xiaoyue was one of them.

At about 8 a.m. that morning, Zhang Xiaoyue’s mother went to her home but saw no sign of her. Her mother later received a phone call notifying that Li Ru (alias, female), a Christian from the same church, had been arrested because of her belief in Almighty God and the police had confiscated a lot of spiritual books found in her house. After hearing this, she rushed to her daughter’s house to look for her again and discovered that all the spiritual books Zhang Xiaoyue usually read were nowhere to be found. She figured that her daughter had also been arrested by the police.

Three or four days later Yu Zhe, a village cadre, brought two police officers to Zhang Xiaoyue’s mother’s home and said to her, “Your daughter has been arrested because of her belief in Almighty God and is being held in a detention center. Take her some clothing.” Hearing this, her mother became extremely anxious and angrily asked them, “My daughter’s faith doesn’t break any laws. Why did you arrest her? She has cerebral atrophy. By arresting her, aren’t you putting her on a path to death?” But the police were completely lacking in compassion and yelled at her, “Your daughter believes in Almighty God, and this is forbidden in China. Her belief is against the law, and she’s even preaching the gospel all over the place. We don’t care whether she has any kind of disease or not. Everyone who believes in Almighty God must be arrested!” Her mother then got some clothing to bring to her but was not allowed to see her.

A month later Yu Zhe, the village cadre, once again asked Zhang Xiaoyue’s mother to bring her some winter clothing; she got some clothing and went to the Huangshan District Public Security Bureau. The police told her that Zhang Xiaoyue had been given a 3-year sentence for “using a xie jiao organization to undermine the enforcement of the law.” However, they only gave her the arrest notice, not the verdict. Zhang Xiaoyue was later transferred to the Changfeng County Women’s Prison, Anhui Province to serve her sentence.

At 3 a.m. one day in December of 2015, Zhang Xiaoyue’s elder brother received a phone call from the prison saying that she had a serious, life-threatening illness, asking him to take her back home. Zhang’s brother and husband rushed over to the prison and the staff there told them that Zhang Xiaoyue had already died. Zhang’s family made a request to view the remains, and the guards took them into a room. They allowed the family to see her head, but no part of her body. Her family could just see that she had become a bag of bones and her lips didn’t even cover her teeth. After her family identified her remains, the prison guards immediately removed her body for cremation. Her family later took her ashes to their hometown for burial.

According to another Christian who was in prison with Zhang Xiaoyue, the prison guards demanded that she give up her faith and sign the three statements (a guarantee, a statement of severing ties, and a statement of remorse), but she staunchly refused. The guards then refused to give her anything to eat or drink and threatened the four prisoners in the same group as her to watch over her, otherwise they would deduct points from them (points impact whether someone will be released). So that they wouldn’t lose points, those four other prisoners took turns watching her during the day and wouldn’t allow her to eat or drink and at night had her stand guard, not allowing her to sleep. Zhang Xiaoyue had not been in good health before, not eating or drinking on top of that left her so weak that she couldn’t even walk. Every time she attended an indoctrination class several people had to carry her to the class. A prison guard also said that if Zhang Xiaoyue didn’t sign the three statements, everyone would have points deducted and would be penalized, fanning the flames of the other prisoners’ hatred for her. The prisoners madly beat her, stuffed their shoes into her mouth, hit her in the chest with plastic stools, and forced long-handled shoe brushes into her vagina. One night in December 2015, Zhang Xiaoyue suddenly started coughing up and defecating blood, so the prison guards finally sent her to the prison hospital. At around 5 a.m., Zhang Xiaoyue died in the prison. The prison guards later spread rumors slandering her, saying that because of her faith she had become possessed and had harmed herself to the point of death. They really mow down human lives as if they were grass and deliberately distort right and wrong!

20. Christian Wang Fang Tortured to Death by Chinese Communist Police While Detained

Wang Fang (alias: Jiajia), female, was born on September 13, 1980 in Jinyang Town, Liangzhou District, Wuwei City, Gansu Province. She lived in the dormitories of a mud logging company in Huochezhan Town, Shanshan County, Xinjiang. She joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 2011.

One day in December 2012, Wang Fang was arrested by police in Shanshan County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region because of her belief in Almighty God. On December 24, she was criminally detained by the Tuha Public Security Bureau on suspicion of “sabotaging the enforcement of laws by organizing and utilizing cult organizations.”

On August 30, 2013 the Shanshan County Court sentenced Wang Fang to three years in prison for “sabotaging the enforcement of laws by organizing and utilizing cult organizations” by actively spreading the gospel.

On October 13, 2013, Wang Fang was sent to Women’s Prison in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to serve her sentence.

According to Zheng Zhen (an alias), another inmate who was also a Christian from The Church of Almighty God, she, Wang Fang and other Christians were subjected to forced conversion for three months in Prison Area 6, Block 12. In January 2014, they were sent for labor reform in Prison Area 3, Block 6, where the work was hardest of all. They would be sent out to work between 7:30 and 8 a.m. each day and would often only finish at 2 a.m. the following morning. The prisoners regularly worked for over 18 hours at a time. Sometimes, the guards would even make them work for three days and nights without rest.

According to another Christian called Wenwen (an alias), who was detained in the same block as Wang Fang, the hardest part of being in Block 6 was the extended sleep deprivation. At times, the prison guards would make them work through the night without a break, often scaring them with bangs from their electric batons. The prisoners were in a state of anxiety, depressed and exhausted both mentally and physically.

Christians who were detained there at the same time said that Wang Fang was often verbally abused by her monitor (the guards specially assigned other prisoners as monitors for those who believed in Almighty God), as a result of which she became reserved and uncommunicative. One day in October 2014, Wang Fang’s monitor reported her to the prison guard for this. When the prison guard talked to Wang Fang, she said nothing. The next day, after work finished at 2 a.m. and Wang Fang didn’t report herself, a guard accused her of “resisting reform” in front of 200 other prisoners. Prisoners who resisted reform were sent to special punishment cells (cells expressly reserved for prisoners who broke the rules.)

After returning to the dormitory, a prison guard handcuffed her to her bed and arranged for a monitor to keep watch on her. They didn’t let her sleep or close her eyes the whole night. When Wang Fang said, “Why are you doing this to me? I haven’t done anything wrong!” The guard replied harshly, “You’re resisting reforms. We have a right to do this!” (At the time, Wenwen was in the next dormitory and heard what was said between Wang Fang and the guard.)

When the prisoners were put to work in the morning, Wang Fang fainted and then slipped into a coma. She stopped breathing as she was being taken to the hospital. The doctor said it was “sudden death.” Wang Fang had been physically weakened by prolonged overwork. Clearly, she had suddenly fallen ill and died after being persecuted without reason and not allowed to close her eyes the whole night.

Afterward, the prison refused to release any information, forbade the prisoners from discussing Wang Fang’s death, and secretly disposed of her personal items. They also told her family her death had nothing to do with the prison. Thus was a 34-year-old Christian persecuted to death by the Chinese Communist government.

21. The Curious Case of Christian Shen Xiurong Jumping to Her Death During Interrogation

Victim Shen Xiurong was female, 42 years old at the time, resident of Xiaocui Village, Wangmiao Town, Pingyuan County, Dezhou City, Shandong Province; a leader of The Church of Almighty God (CAG) who joined the Church in 1998. According to Shen’s neighbors and fellow Christians at her church, she was a resolute person and was never pessimistic or backed down when she encountered struggles in life. On March 6, 2008, Shen was arrested by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for believing in Almighty God and taken to the Public Security Bureau of Pingyuan County, Dezhou City. After being interrogated for 4 hours, she suddenly fell from a building and died. The details are as follows:

At around 11:30 a.m. on March 6, 2008, Chen Guang, a driver of the State Security Brigade of Pingyuan Public Security Bureau of Dezhou City, drove to Shen’s house in a black car carrying two plainclothes police officers along with a Christian of The Church of Almighty God surnamed Yan (male, 60 years old), who had been arrested in Qiancao Town of Pinyuan County. The two officers suddenly broke into Shen’s home and arrested her. Without showing any official documents, they ransacked the house but did not find anything. The two officers then confiscated Shen’s CD player and the recital CD inside it, and took Shen to the State Security Brigade of the Public Security Bureau of Pingyuan County.

Shen and Yan arrived at the Pingyuan Public Security Bureau around 12:30 p.m. After they got out of the car, the two plainclothes officers made Shen carry the CD player upstairs. As she was heading up the stairs, Shen took out the CD inside the player and broke it into pieces. The officers were incensed and yelled at her. After arriving at the third floor, Shen and Yan were separately interrogated.

Yan recalled: At around 3 p.m. that afternoon, he was undergoing interrogation when a tall police officer who arrested them came to the interrogation room and said aggressively: “This woman (referring to Shen) is quite tough. We must detain her!”

Shen’s husband found out that his wife had been arrested when he returned home after 12 p.m. At around 4 p.m., he was suddenly notified by Shen’s uncle, who worked at the Pingyuan County Court, that Shen had fallen from the building of the public security bureau and died. Her body was being held inside the freezer of the crematorium.

It is understood that Shen had died after falling headfirst from the third-story toilet window into a trash container on the ground. Police from the Pingyuan Public Security Bureau explained to Shen’s family that she had committed suicide, but Shen’s husband knew his wife’s personality very well. He said angrily: “You definitely killed her!” However, the police denied it and maintained that Shen had killed herself. Based on professional who had studied forensics, the distance from the third floor to the ground is too short for a headfirst fall to be suicide. But as Shen had already died, what happened during the time she was detained and how she really died could not be ascertained.

Shen’s body was cremated on March 10 and buried 5 days later. Afterward, the Pingyuan Public Security Bureau paid Shen’s family 220,000 RMB to keep the matter private, and warned them not to pursue things further. The death of Shen was thus left unsettled.

22. Christian Wei Xiuyun Tortured to Death by Chinese Communist Police

Victim Wei Xiuyun, female, born June 8, 1952, resident of Longxi Village, Dianbu Town, Feidong County, Hefei City, Anhui Province, China, joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 1998. On November 17, 2014, Wei was arrested by the Public Security Bureau of Feidong County, Hefei City, Anhui Province, for believing in Almighty God. On the second day after her arrest, she was tortured into a comatose vegetative state. After six months of persistent coma, Wei passed away on May 18, 2015, at the age of 63. In order to cover up the incriminating evidence, the Feidong County Public Security Bureau dispatched 50 to 60 heavily armed policemen to surround the hospital to wrest away Wei’s corpse after her death. Moreover, they disallowed family visits. Until six months later, the Feidong County Public Security Bureau coerced Wei’s family to sign a no-appeal agreement before handing over the remains to them for cremation.

The following is the story of Wei Xiuyun’s arrest and persecution to death by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Police Broke into Civilian Residence, Rummaged House and Arrested Christians

On November 17, 2014, at 4 p.m., when Wei Xiuyun and her daughter-in-law were doing housework at home, two policemen from the Feidong County Public Security Bureau, led by Wei Bangfa, Party Secretary of Longxi Village, Dianbu Town, Feidong County, abruptly broke into the house, forcibly subdued and arrested Wei Xiuyun without producing any credentials. Subsequently, Liu Chao, deputy secretary of the Feidong County Politics and Law Committee, rushed to Wei’s house with more than a dozen of policemen.

Afterward, when Wei’s husband took their grandson home from school, they were also subdued.

After ransacking Wei’s home for two hours, the police seized a copying machine, two boxes of A4 paper and ink and other copying tools, four MP5 players, two opera players for the senior, and six TF cards.

Subsequently, the police forcibly escorted Wei and her husband, daughter-in-law and grandson to the Feidong County Public Security Bureau.

Christian in Deep Coma Under Close Monitor by Police

At 7 o’clock that night, Wei and her husband were escorted to the Feidong County Hostel for secret interrogation in separate rooms.

On the next day (November 18) at around 6 p.m., Wei was transferred to the Hefei Second Detention Center. During that period, what kind of persecution the police had imposed on Wei Xiuyun was unknown to her family.

According to Wei’s son, on November 18 at 9 p.m., the police at the Hefei City Second Detention Center called and said that his mother was ill and she had been sent to the Anhui Provincial Hospital for treatment. Around 10 p.m., when Wei’s son rushed to the hospital, he saw his mother in a coma, her face pale and slightly puffy. There was vomiting residue on her clothes. He learned from the doctor that Wei’s coma was caused by brainstem hemorrhage.

According to Wei’s family, Wei had been in a deep comatose vegetative state with signs of edema on her face and hands. Her body was connected to an ECG monitor. Her life was sustained by relying on a ventilator for breathing and nutrient fluid through a nasogastric tube.

One day, two months later, when Wei’s daughter was combing her mother’s hair, she discovered a three-centimeter long scar above her right ear. There was no hair on the scar. The daughter then asked the doctor if the scar had been caused by beating. The doctor lied and said, “The scar was not caused by beating but by sleeping.”

In the end, Wei Xiuyun stayed in a coma without responding to treatment for an entire six months in the Anhui Provincial Hospital and died on May 18, 2015. The medical history report issued by the hospital indicated that Wei had died of visceral failure due to brainstem bleeding.

Police Wrested Corpse Away, Forced Family to Sign No-Appeal Agreement

On May 19, 2015, at 1 a.m., after Wei Xiuyun’s death, when her relatives were ready to send her body to the hospital mortuary, Gao Yuanzhi, director of the Hefei City Detention Center, suddenly said, “Wei Xiuyun had died of unnatural cause. Her family cannot claim the body. It must be handed over to us for disposal!” As soon as his words were said, five or six plainclothes policemen immediately reached out to grab the mobile stretcher carrying Wei Xiuyun’s body. Wei’s daughter cried indignantly upon seeing that, “If any one of you dares to move my mother, I will fight to death with him. You didn’t spare her when she was alive, and you still won’t leave her in peace when she is dead!” Upon hearing that, the police let Wei’s relatives send the remains to the hospital mortuary.

After Wei’s family had just left the morgue and walked to the hospital hall, they received telephone calls from the Hefei City Detention Center’s political officer Tang and the hospital mortuary’s manager, saying that the body had been taken away by officers from the Feidong County Public Security Bureau and sent to the Feidong County Funeral Home.

At this point, Wei’s husband remembered that he had just seen about fifty to sixty armed policemen amass around the entrance of the hospital, and realized that the police had come prepared.

What made them even more indignant was that after Wei’s death, the authorities of the Feidong County Public Security Bureau did not allow the family members to view the remains at the funeral home.

On December 10, 2015, in order to close the case as soon as possible, Deputy Commander Huang Taohe of the Feidong County Public Security Bureau’s National Security Brigade gathered Committee Secretary Wei Bangfa of Longxi Village and Wei’s family together for an agreement to cremate the corpse.

According to Wei Xiuyun’s family, at the time, Village Committee Secretary Wei Bangfa drafted an agreement with the general contents as follows: Wei Xiuyun was arrested by the Public Security Bureau of Feidong County for believing in Almighty God. She had become ill during incarceration in the detention center and died in spite of emergency treatment. The Feidong County Public Security Bureau agrees to compensate Wei’s family with 150,000 RMB, providing that no future appeal is allowed. Upon agreement, the body can be turned over to Wei’s family for cremation.

Pressured by the Chinese Communist Government, Wei Xiuyun’s family reluctantly signed the agreement and retrieved Wei’s body for cremation.

23. Christian Shen Suping Tricked Into Going to Police Station Then Persecuted to Death

In November 2013, the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entrapped and arrested Christian Shen Suping from Rugao City in Jiangsu Province, and then secretly executed her, all for believing in Almighty God. She was 57 years old.

The victim Shen Suping (alias Zhang Ping), female, was born on June 14 in 1957. She was from Zhongxin Village, Jiang’an Town in Jiangsu’s Rugao City. She joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in May 2007 and was a preacher of the Church before being murdered. The story of Shen Suping being tricked into going to the police station and then killed by the CCP police is below.

From the time she believed in Almighty God, Shen Suping spread the gospel enthusiastically, drawing the notice of the CCP police and making her a target for arrest.

Around 11 a.m. on November 25, 2013, Shen Suping was at her parents’ home having lunch when police officers Huang Kuiding (male, in his 50s), Gu Feng (male, about 40, auxiliary police), and a plainclothes officer, all from the Rugao Jiang’an Police Station charged in. Huang Kuiding cajoled Shen Suping, saying: “We’d like to ask you to come to the police station to help us with some information.” He also assured her family: “We all know each other and we’re on good terms. Don’t worry, she’ll be home in time for dinner!” They readily believed his promise and did not try to stop him. This is how the police fooled Shen Suping into going to the Jiang’an Police Station with them.

A little after 5 p.m. her husband went to the police station to meet her. After he didn’t see her for quite a while, he called Huang Kuiding, who said that she had been taken to the Rugao Public Security Bureau and would be brought back in the following morning. The officer told him to go home and wait for news.

On the evening of November 26, Shen Suping’s husband still hadn’t seen his wife return home and become extremely worried. He made another call to inquire with Huang Kuiding, but no one picked up. At 8 p.m. Shen Suping’s younger brother and an acquaintance in the Joint Defense Force went to the Rugao Public Security Bureau to look into it, and the police there told them: “Shen Suping had a sudden myocardial infarction. Medical intervention was ineffective, and she died.”

Her family was thunderstruck when they heard the terrible news. They simply could not accept it. They had never imagined that a person in such good health could be taken by the police and then suddenly die after just one day and one night, with the cause of death a “myocardial infarction”! Her family found the police’s explanation difficult to believe. She had always been healthy with absolutely no cardiovascular conditions, and right after this happened to her, the officer Huang Kuiding was suddenly nowhere to be found and was not picking up his phone. He was clearly trying to avoid dealing with it. The police’s actions and words held absolutely no water; they were extremely suspect. In their grief and anger, Shen Suping’s family questioned the police: “We entrusted you with a perfectly healthy person and you caused her death! Was her faith a crime?” The officer replied icily: “She’s dead now, just drop it! We’ll let you see her body if you agree to handle this privately.” They had to agree so that they could see her remains.

On November 29, Shen Suping’s husband, younger brother, and sister-in-law went to the Rugao Chengxi Funeral Home to view her remains.

According to Lanlan (an alias), a Christian from The Church of Almighty God who was arrested on the same day as Shen Suping, after her arrest on November 25, she overheard two auxiliary officers discussing: “That old lady’s son died in a car accident. That’s so sad, but the police won’t let her go, and they’re even torturing her.” (Shen Suping’s son died in a car accident.) On December 5, when Lanlan was released she learned that Shen Suping had been killed by the police the day after her arrest, and only then did she figure out that the old lady the auxiliary officers had been talking about was Shen Suping. Officer Chen Jianjun asked Lanlan: “Do you know where Zhang Ping went?” Lanlan said: “Wasn’t she beaten to death by you guys?” Chen Jianjun quickly replied: “Go home and don’t breathe a word about it.”

Shen Suping’s family later made a request to see the recordings during the investigation of the deceased at Lantian Hotel and the medical intervention at the hospital, but the police continued to evade this with the excuse that “it had been too late.” Instead they showed videos produced by the CCP slandering and attacking The Church of Almighty God to her family, making them even more suspect of the police’s claims of a myocardial infarction being the cause of death.

A deputy chief surnamed Zhu, also threatened Shen Suping’s younger brother, saying: “Your sister believed in Almighty God which is forbidden in this country. If you stir up trouble, you’ll be arrested, too!” Her family had no choice but to agree to handle it privately due to the pressure exerted on them by the CCP police. The Rugao Public Security Bureau gave the family 358,000 RMB in compensation in order to squelch the issue.

24. The Curious Case of Christian Wu Haiyan Jumping to Her Death While Detained

In July 2014, a case in which a Christian of The Church of Almighty God (CAG) was illegally arrested and persecuted to death by the Chinese Communist government had occurred in Hejin City, Shanxi Province. The victim Wu Haiyan, female, aged 57, was a resident of Dujiagou Village, Qingjian Town, Hejin City, Shanxi Province. By the time the incident happened, she was one of the leaders of CAG who had joined the church for nearly a decade.

The following is the account of how Wu Haiyan was killed:

At the beginning of March 2013, after learning that Wu Haiyan was a leader of CAG, the police unsuccessfully tried to arrest her three times in a row.

After spending nine months in abscondence, Wu Haiyan returned home. On July 7, 2014, at around 6 p.m., after having caught wind of her return, the Hejin State Security Brigade police broke into her home, forcibly arrested her and confined her in a room on the second floor of the law training center of the Hejin Municipal Commission for Discipline Inspection, where the police interrogated her around the clock, forcing her to give up her faith and reveal other church members and the church’s information. Wu refused to comply. Captain Cheng Fei of the Hejin State Security Brigade arranged for Wu Haiyan’s two daughters to persuade their mother to confess about the church’s information without avail.

On July 17, the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) arrested another Christian Li Hui (alias) of CAG and detained her with Wu Haiyan.

At noon on July 19, Captain Cheng Fei of the State Security Brigade interrogated Wu in a room adjacent to the one where Li Hui was held. Li heard Cheng Fei ask, “Who is your superior leader? Where did you stay in these months away from home?” Wu refused to answer. Seeing that he was unable to get any information from Wu, Cheng Fei aggressively threatened her, “We have already found out that you are the highest leader of CAG believers in Hejin City!” Then he played her by saying, “We have people in your church. Your district leader is our person (the district leader had fled long ago in order to evade the CCP’s arrest). Even if you don’t speak to us, we can still sentence you to eight to ten years. We will send you to Senglou Town tomorrow (where the county detention center is located)!” Fearing that her mother would be sentenced, Wu’s eldest daughter tried to persuade her mother to cooperate with the police. Wu refused on the spot.

Past 8 o’clock that evening, a policeman once again did ideological work on Wu Haiyan and Li Hui, trying to persuade the two to abandon their faith and betray the church and other Christians. They staunchly refused.

Past 5 o’clock in the morning of July 20, Wu Haiyan and Li Hui were arranged for cleaning duties by the police. After cleaning a yard together, Wu was arranged to go upstairs to wipe the glass, and Li Hui was sent to clean the bathroom. In just a little over ten minutes, Li heard someone shout, “Wu Haiyan jumped off the building!” As the incident occurred so abruptly, Li Hui was in shock and collapsing in tears.

On the same day, Li was picked up by relatives. Before leaving, the police repeatedly threatened and warned her that if she told anyone about the incident, she would be held responsible according to the law. They even demanded her relatives to write a letter of guarantee. The police also warned Li Hui, “We are just letting you go for now. We are not finished with this thing about your belief in Almighty God yet. You will be on call all the time!”

Although the police described Wu Haiyan’s cause of death as suicide by jumping off a building, Li Hui felt that the matter was too suspicious. First, Wu Haiyan had not shown any suicidal tendency before the incident. Second, if Wu had indeed committed suicide, why did the police threaten and warn her repeatedly, and prevent her from speaking about it? To date, she has still been tracked and monitored!

After Wu Haiyan’s death, the village asked the judicial authorities to make compensation to the deceased person’s family accordingly, and the leaders of the relevant authorities agreed verbally. However, after the body of Wu Haiyan was cremated on July 25, 2014, the police reneged. The family of the deceased has yet to receive any compensation payment. Moreover, the mobile phone of the deceased’s husband has been monitored by the police. The current head of the village learned that the police claimed, “Even if we were to make compensation, the money will be squeezed out of those who believe in Almighty God.”

25. Christian Xu Xinyao Beaten to Death While Imprisoned

On December 10, 2012, Xu Xinyao (alias: Li Hong), a Christian from The Church of Almighty God, was arrested by the authorities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for believing in Almighty God. On January 7, 2013, he was killed during incarceration at the age of 49. Born on July 16, 1964, Xu was a resident of Dongshe Village Group 3, Longchi Township, Pucheng County, Weinan City, Shaanxi Province. He joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in September 2002. He was a preacher of The Church of Almighty God before his death.

Xu Xinyao Was Arrested and Killed Soon After

At around 2 p.m. on December 10, 2012, when Xu Xinyao and two other Christians were preaching the gospel of Almighty God to the villagers of Yuanlei Village, Fengcun Township, Dali County, Weinan City, five policemen from the Fengcun Police Station rushed to the scene. Without producing any official credentials, they forcibly arrested several people and escorted them to the town police station.

At the police station, the police put handcuffs on the three Christians by force and interrogated them about their belief in God. Whoever’s turn it was for being questioned, they were fiercely slapped and kicked several times by the police.

Around 7 p.m., Xu and two other people were escorted to the State Security Brigade of the Dali County Public Security Bureau.

According to a Christian who was arrested with Xu, the three of them were interrogated separately. During the interrogation, she heard kicking sound from the interrogation room next door from time to time.

Around 11 p.m. that evening, the police shut the three Christians in the Dali County Detention Center on the charge of “believing in a cult.” They were held administrative detention for 15 days. Since Xu never disclosed his real name and family address, upon completion of his administrative detention, he was transferred to criminal detention with the detention period extended to January 22, 2013.

On the morning of January 7, 2013, Xu Xinyao, who was held in No. 16 men’s cell, spewed foam and died.

According to a male prisoner in cell No. 16, Xu was frequently beaten viciously by the prisoners in the cell on behest of the prison guards. Whenever he sang religious songs, the prisoners in the same cell beat him frantically. On the morning of January 7, Xu collapsed when he was gang beaten by the prisoners again.

News Blackout and Obliteration of Evidence by the CCP

In order to prevent the story from leaking out, the police shuffled the inmates in cell No. 16 at around 7 p.m. on January 7. The female prisoners were abuzz, “The guards do this because they are afraid that the Prosecutor’s Office may summon the detainees for questioning about Xu’s cause of death.” At about 4:30 p.m. on January 10, 2013, the detention center released all the Christians whose detention periods had been extended like Xu.

According to Xu’s family members, a cellmate of Xu who was released at the end of December 2012 called the brother-in-law of Xu and said, “Xu has nothing to eat or drink in the cell and is beaten every day. He is suffering in there. You need to figure out a way to bail him out immediately.” It was only at this point that Xu’s family knew that he had been arrested and detained. They rushed to raise money and sort things out. Before they could get to see him, they received a call from the Dali County Public Security Bureau informing them to collect Xu. When they rushed to the detention center, the director of the center said that Xu had suddenly passed out in the morning and died after a failed rescue attempt. The body was stationed in the Dali County Hospital mortuary.

When Xu’s family members rushed to the Dali County Hospital, two people from the City Procuratorate (a 50-year-old man about 1.65-meter tall and the other man was the chief about 40-plus years old and 1.8-meter tall) and 8 or 9 policemen from the detention center were guarding there. The police only allowed two family members to enter the mortuary to view the body. When Xu’s older brother-in-law and younger brother-in-law arrived at the mortuary, they saw Xu’s remains laid flat in front of the mortuary. His body was covered with clothes and completely naked underneath, his eyes tightly shut and covered with bruises. The expression on his face was contorted by pain. His right ear appeared greenish and there was a fist-sized bruise on his left chest. There were gangrened ulcerations on both ears. His right hand was held over the head and his left hand was placed on the navel. Seeing this tragic scene, the family members were certain that Xu was beaten to death. They proposed to take photos of the remains but the officials of the procuratorate rejected them on the ground that “The state has documents, not allowing to take photos.”

At about 9 a.m. on January 8, over 30 people went to the Dali County Detention Center in Weinan City, Shaanxi Province, to ask for the two young children of Xu to be permitted to view their father’s remains, but the Dali County Detention Center refused.

At around 12 noon on January 9, the police negotiated with the Xu family. The police said, “If this matter is settled in court, the detention center will not take responsibility of anything. If it is privately settled, it will pay you a compensation of 330,000 RMB. However, there is a condition. The family of the deceased must sign a compensation agreement acknowledging that the deceased died of illness. If the family of the deceased wants to claim the body, no compensation will be made.” The family members had no choice but to accept private compensation. The two parties reached an agreement and the police compensated the family for 330,000 RMB.

On January 10, 2013, Xu’s remains were cremated by coercion.

26. Christian Jian Zhixiang Dies After Intense Light Exposure During Chinese Communist Police Interrogation

Jian Zhixiang (alias Chen Fang), female, was born on February 4, 1953 and lived in Shengziping Village, Renheping Town in Hubei Province’s Wufeng Tujia Autonomous County located in Yichang City. She came to believe in the Lord Jesus in 1996 and joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in September of 2005.

A little past 8 p.m. on December 14, 2017, Jian Zhixiang and her husband were making dumplings at home when Zheng Libin, the village director, suddenly burst into their home along with the local police station chief Ye Bin and three other officers. Ye Bin showed a search warrant and said to Jian Zhixiang: “We’re from the Wufeng Public Security Bureau and we’re here to look into the issue of your faith.” The officers then searched every corner of every room in their house, from top to bottom, even looking in every jacket pocket. They found an MP5 player and a TF card, then took Jian Zhixiang away forcibly.

The police took Jian Zhixiang to the county Public Security Bureau after 10 p.m. that night.

That same day, two other Christians from that village, Xie Lin (alias) and Li Lin (alias) were also arrested by the police, one after the other.

Xie Lin revealed that around 3 a.m. on December 15 while she was in an interrogation room, she heard the sound of Jian Zhixiang’s angry voice carried through the hallway: “You don’t have to carry me like this, it’s not like I’m going to run.” From a crack in the doorway Xie Lin was able to see the shadow of one male and one female officer with Jian Zhixiang dragging her to the restroom.

Li Lin, another one of the Christians arrested, reported the following. At about 11 p.m. on December 15 she came out of the interrogation room and through the doorway of the interrogation room across the hall saw Jian Zhixiang leaning up against the wall and feebly saying to an officer: “Don’t drag me, I won’t run.” As Li Lin walked by Jian Zhixiang she saw that her face looked ashen and she seemed very physically uncomfortable. After that an officer put her into a car and left. Li Lin was also put into a car by the police. At the entrance to the county detention center while waiting for the door to be opened, Li Lin saw Jian Zhixiang very slowly kneel down and then start to tilt back as if she was about to fall. She was having difficulty breathing. Li Lin rushed over to put her hands on her back to support her. When Ye Bin had put Jian Zhixiang into the car she had already wet herself. After she was strapped into her seat in the car, she summoned all of her strength to stand up out of her seat, lift her arms up, throw her head back, and then she fainted after two big sighs. Li Lin saw that the color of her face looked off and dark. After the entrance to the detention center was opened, Jian Zhixiang was unable to speak; seeing something was wrong, Li Lin rushed to ask the police to send her to the hospital for emergency treatment. Only then did the two officers turn the car around to take her to the county People’s Hospital.

Very early in the morning of December 16, Jian Zhixiang’s two sons and their wives hurried to the hospital after hearing the news and saw her eyes shut tight, her face ashen, and her mouth open. Her sleeves and her shirt had been cut open. The emergency room doctors were pumping her chest, she had an IV in her and there were oxygen tubes going into her nostrils. The ECG showed a flat line. She had stopped breathing a while ago.

According to understanding, Jian Zhixiang is the primary worker in her household. The day before her arrest she was planting potatoes in the field, and the day of her arrest she was helping her son get his new house in order. No one imagined that she would suffer a sudden death just one day after being taken away by the police.

An insider revealed that the evening of December 14 after Jian Zhixiang was taken to the Public Security Bureau, they took her into a room with padded walls (which prevent a prisoner from committing suicide) in which there was a high-pressure, high-intensity light. These kinds of lights can be used in prisoners for long periods of time so that their consciousness fades and they suffer mental breakdowns. This is what the police used on Jian Zhixiang during interrogation. Before questioning her, she had told the police that she had a heart condition, but the officers did not care at all and still subjected her to 24 hours of continuous interrogation. This resulted in her having a heart attack and dying.

After undergoing many rounds of negotiation, the Public Security Bureau gave her family compensation of 200,000 RMB. Jian Zhixiang was buried on December 23, 2017.

27. 60-Year Old Christian Xu Xiaolian Has Brain Hemorrhage and Dies From Chinese Communist Police Persecution

Xu Xiaolian, female, born on April 13, 1945, lived in Baiyan Town, Pingyi County, Linyi City in Shandong Province. She joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) at the end of December 1999, and was always a kind and optimistic person. In May 2008, she was arrested and detained by the authorities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) because of her faith in Almighty God, and on June 15 was sentenced to one year of reeducation through labor. This was a blow to the once-optimistic Xu Xiaolian; she started crying right when she heard the sentence and became very downcast. The CCP police transferred her to the Ji’nan Women’s Labor Re-education Camp on June 20. She had a sudden brain hemorrhage in transit and was unable to speak by the time they arrived. The police got her out of the car, and she lay motionless on the ground. Because the officers transporting her did not send her for medical treatment in time but instead sent her back home from Ji'nan and delayed the therapy. Soon after, she left this world.

On May 31, 2008, officers from the Pingyi County urban district Public Security Bureau, led by Wen Mingchuan, went to Xu Xiaolian’s home to arrest her. They sent her to the local police station for interrogation. After that yielded no results she was transferred to the Pingyi County Detention Center. Jin Yuxiang, who was arrested on the same day with her, said that Xu Xiaolian believed that because of her advanced age she would be held for a few days and then let go. When the police read out her sentence and she heard she had been sentenced to reeducation through labor and would be sent to Ji’nan to serve her jail terms, this was a huge blow to her. She cried on the spot, and became very depressed.

Lin Yan, another Christian in the same cell as Xu Xiaolian, said that the morning of June 20 the police wouldn’t allow them to eat breakfast, saying they couldn’t eat until they were examined in Ji’nan. When they were about to be transferred to the labor camp Xu Xiaolian was kicking out her legs. At the time, Lin Yan thought Xu Xiaolian was tired from sitting in the vehicle for so long. When they arrived, Xu Xiaolian sat motionless in the car. After the police got her out of the car, she lay motionless on the ground, and her legs were stiff. Lin Yan called out to her, but Xu Xiaolian was completely unresponsive. When the officers saw that there was a problem they decided to send her back home. Three days later, she passed away.

Local Christians and her husband said that she had always been optimistic and healthy; she had never had any heart problems. She was arrested and sentenced to reeducation through labor only because of her belief in Almighty God. This was upsetting for her and also being deprived of all food that morning led to an unexpected brain hemorrhage while on her way to the labor camp. The police clearly knew she had experienced a medical issue but did not send her to the hospital in time, thus delaying her treatment. According to a doctor, it may not count as killing her if an immediate rescue was given upon her brain hemorrhage. However, due to lack of timely emergency treatment, Xu Xiaolian was sent to the hospital after she was sent home. Soon after, she left this world at the age of 63.

28. Christian Zhang Jianshe Dies After Brutal Beating by Chinese Communist Police

Zhang Jianshe, male, born 1966, resident of Tianmen Village, Kongdong Town, Kongdong District, Pingliang City, Gansu Province, started believing in the Lord Jesus in January 1995, and joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in August 2004. In 2008, Zhang Jianshe was arrested and tortured by the authorities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for believing in Almighty God. The police used an iron bar to roll from the ankles up to the torso and punched him on the chest, which led to internal injuries and thoracic pain. After being released, Zhang’s thoracic pain worsened by the day. He was diagnosed with ascites and was hospitalized for three times, followed by the administration of paracentesis in the hospital every week, twice a week when the conditions were severe, costing over 37,000 RMB. Eventually, his conditions deteriorated precipitously after medical treatment failed. He died on May 23, 2011, at the age of only 45 years old.

On November 2, 2008, at about 9 a.m., three policemen from Pingliang City, Gansu Province, broke into the home of Zhang Jianshe, seized his spiritual books, sermon discs, hymn discs, etc., and forcibly arrested him. During interrogation, the police inflicted him with inhuman torture in order to compel him to disclose the sources of the spiritual books, sermon discs, hymn discs, identities of church leaders and information of contact people, etc.

Before he died, Zhang Jianshe had personally revealed to four CAG Christians that he had been tortured and cruelly beaten by the police. He said that on the day of his arrest, the police forced him to kneel on shattered glass slivers, causing abrasions on his knees that turned red and swollen. They pressed and plucked him on the torture rack, subjecting him to excruciating pain in his hands, arms and legs until he passed out. They aroused him with cold water and drenched him all over.

During a second interrogation, the police tortured him again because he still refused to disclose any information about the church. The policeman laid him down on a long bench while two policemen standing on both sides used an iron bar to roll from the ankles to the chest, inflicting terribly pain on him with each impact. In particular, it was unbearably painful when the iron bar pressed his lower legs. They also used wooden sticks to fiercely whip him in the groin and chest to inflict maximum pain. Then they kicked and punched him, raining punches on his chest like he was a punching bag, resulting in visceral injuries that caused pain with each breath. The police did not allow him to wear any clothes. It caused him to contract a flu and experience shortness of breath when he coughed. In the end, the torture did not produce any result. The police transferred Zhang to the Qilidian Detention Center in Pingliang City (now known as Kongdong Detention Center of Kongdong Branch of Pingliang Public Security Bureau) where he was detained for 15 days. During his detention, Zhang continued to experience thoracic pain.

On the afternoon of November 18, Zhang Jianshe was released.

Zhang Jianshe’s thoracic pain persisted after he was released. In order to raise money for treatment, he dragged himself in illness to sell vegetables and shepherded sheep. Later, the pain and swelling in his chest became more and more severe, and his movement slowed down day by day. In the spring of 2009, diagnosis by the Pingliang Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital identified Zhang’s condition to be ascites. He was subsequently hospitalized for three times.

Around June and July of 2010, Zhang began to vomit thick and dark blood. The hematemesis continued for six months. He underwent paracentesis every week, twice a week when the conditions were severe. His torso and back were riddled with needle marks. It was really a woeful sight. Roughly estimating, Zhang had spent more than 37,000 RMB for medical treatment. However, the deteriorating conditions finally became untenable. He passed away on May 23, 2011, at the age of only 45 years old.

Tragically, Zhang Jianshe, a Christian who was originally in his prime and good health, was tortured and cruelly beaten to severe illness and subsequent death by the CCP police merely for believing in Almighty God.

29. Christian Meng Guangqun Dies From Injuries Caused by Chinese Communist Police Pursuit

Mr. Meng Guangqun, a native of Luoshan County, Xinyang City, Henan Province, a former member of the Great Praise Church, joined The Church Almighty God (CAG) in October 2000. The people around him all regarded him as a kind-hearted and honest person.

One day in December 2012, when Meng Guangqun and several other Christians were evangelizing in Xi County, Xinyang City, they were arrested by four police officers of the Xi County Public Security Bureau and taken to the bureau for interrogation. One of the Christians managed to escape the arrest. Later Meng was detained by the bureau for 15 days for “illegal preaching” and “disturbing social order.” After the detention term ended, he was released.

Subjected to Arrest Again and Brutal Torture for His Faith in God

At about 8 a.m. on July 15, 2017, Meng Guangqun was at home alone. Three police officers from Xi County Public Security Bureau came to Meng’s residence. Without giving any explanation or showing an arrest warrant, they forcibly escorted Meng to the public security bureau for interrogation.

During the interrogation, the police forced Meng to provide the information of the Christian who escaped the arrest in December 2012, the whereabouts of the church leaders, and some other information of the church. Meng did not tell them. The police commanded him to strip naked and lie face down on the floor. Three officers then fiercely beat him on the back and buttocks with sticks and the soles of the leather shoes, and one of the sticks was even broken. Meng Guangqun was in excruciating pain and could not move. One of the officers kicked Meng’s legs so fiercely with his leather shoes that Meng’s left calf was lacerated and black and blue.

On July 18, Meng Guangqun was escorted back home by the armed police officers of Xi County Public Security Bureau. The police warned him, “You’d better think it over and tell us everything we want to know. Come and report to the bureau every Monday. If you’re caught for believing in God again, you’ll be beaten to death!” Meng Guangqun feared to be caught again by the police, so at that night he fled from home.

Chased in the Escape, Dead Due to Serious Injury

On July 19, Meng Guangqun quietly came to a Christian couple, Li couple’s house for hiding. He told this couple about his experience of being arrested and brutally beaten up by Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Seeing Meng’s buttock was so badly bruised and lacerated that he could not sit, and his hands were bruised too, the couple felt heart-broken. They hurried to cook a meal for him, but Meng could not eat. He said in tears, “I felt pain all over, felt heaviness and oppression in my heart, and I can’t eat. I’m so distressed. I just believe in God and do not steal or rob, but the CCP beat me up so badly.” At around 9:30 p.m., Meng Guangqun left the Li couple’s house for fear of involving them.

On July 23, Meng Guangqun risked going back home for having no place to hide. Around 8:30 p.m., when he was close to his home, he found a police car parked along the roadside not far away from his house. As soon as two police officers saw him, they jumped off their car and ran toward him. Meng was so scared that he hurried off on his bike. Unfortunately, he hit into a tree, the front and the tires of his bicycle were all crashed. He fell on the ground, with a large purple bump on his head, his whole body covered with water and mud. With great pain, he desperately ran into the woods. The police chased after him in the woods until late that night. Eventually he was forced to jump from a three-meter-high ridge into the paddy field under it, dying. The police saw this and then stopped hunting. After the police left, Meng hauled himself up and arrived at his aunt’s house at around 4:30 the next morning.

According to Meng Guangqun’s uncle, in early morning of July 24, when he opened the door, he saw that Meng Guangqun were fully covered with mud and water, pale and panic. He covered his head with his right hand, and there was a purple blood bump on his forehead. He wore a short-sleeved shirt. His arms, face, hands were covered with thorns. He had no shoes on his feet, but only a pair of broken socks. His pants were ripped and torn with a long cut. After learning that Meng was pursued by the police, his uncle hurried to clean the wound for him. Meng Guangqun said: “Uncle, please take me to see a doctor. I feel hurt and numb in my head. I’m worried to become a vegetable.” His uncle took him to a village clinic. Seeing that Meng was badly injured, the doctor gave him a simple dressing and told Meng’s uncle that Meng might suffer from brain injury and he’d better take him to a major hospital for treatment. Meng, however, worried that he might be found and recaptured by the police when he had to show his ID card to be hospitalized, so he decided to go back home. Since Meng had been unable to walk, his uncle drove him home on an electric tricycle at that noon.

After Meng returned home, he started to suffer somewhat mental disorder resulting from a bad injury, coupled with being severely terrified of the police coming to arrest him at any time. On July 27, Meng’s uncle visited him and saw him lying in bed, weak, his face in blue, very scary. When Meng saw his uncle, he suddenly sat up and said in horror, “Uncle, do not come again. The police are everywhere.” Meng’s elder brother said sadly, “Meng Guangqun has rarely eaten since he was back. He kept walking back and forth in the house, muttering ‘police, police.’ When I asked him about what had happened and what the police did to him, he just ignored me. He refuses to eat or drink, so skinny, like a dying person. My mom and I are crazily anxious about him.”

In the morning of August 5, 2017, Meng’s mother brought food to him and found him dead in bed. At that time, Meng was at the age of 52.

30. Christian Tian Ji’an Dies After Brutal Beating by Chinese Communist Police

 

Tian Ji’an, male, born September 27, 1953, resident of Huafeng Township, Shizhu County, Chongqing Municipality, joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) on June 8, 2002. After being arrested and brutally beaten by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on June 5, 2006, Tian was crippled from a lacerated lumbar vertebra, which resulted in his disability for work, and his cranium was fractured, and a fractured bone fragment was recessed into his brain. The blockage resulted from hardened blood coagulation led to his neurological disorders and impaired reasoning. After more than nine years of affliction, Tian died on February 25, 2016, at the age of 63.

On June 5, 2006, at 4 p.m., when Tian Ji’an’s wife, Jin Zhenghua, and two other Christians were preaching the gospel to four potential converts in their house, the front door was suddenly rammed open. Led by Captain Sun Jianming, and Director Liu Zhikui and Secretary Zhou Shicai of the National Security Brigade, Shizhu County, Chongqing Municipality, more than a dozen policemen broke into the house, placed the Christians under control, and beat Jin Zhenghua viciously. Immediately afterward, the police handcuffed Tian Ji’an from behind and pressed him on the floor. A policeman stepped and treaded hard on Tian’s back and shoulders. Another policeman stepped and treaded hard on Tian’s back and waist while a third policeman stepped on Tian Ji’an’s head. Three or four plainclothes policemen kicked Tian on his body. When the first group of policemen was tired, another group took over. When the second group was tired, another group rushed over and kicked Tian viciously on the head with leather shoes. They yelled as they were beating Tian, “Kill him! Dammit, kill him….” Tian shrieked in pain throughout the ordeal. The police kept on battering him for more than an hour before they stopped. Tian Ji’an was beaten unconscious on the spot. He was close to death. His face was ashen and his lips blue.

After that, Zhou Shicai and two other policemen ransacked the house and seized four spiritual books, a pack of spiritual compact discs and other items. The police took Tian Ji’an, Jin Zhenghua and others into police cars respectively and escorted them to the Shizhu County National Security Brigade for interrogation. That night, seeing Tian Ji’an was seriously wounded and fearing that he might die at the National Security Brigade and bring trouble to them, the police sent him home. Tian Ji’an was injured so seriously that he was screaming in bed. Later, Christians from the church bought medication for him.

On July 5, Jin Zhenghua was sentenced to one-year imprisonment by the police on the charge of “disturbing public order,” to be served outside of prison. A month later, when she went home to dress Tian Ji’an’s wounds with medicinal cream, she saw that Tian Ji’an’s body was covered with bruises like the color of pig liver as a result of the police’s beating. There was a fist-sized dented mark on his waist and a dumpling-sized cyst on his shoulder. On his head, there were two hairless spots about an inch by half-an-inch in size each and more than a dozen of smaller dumpling-sized hairless spots. He looked dazed and his speech was incoherent and hesitant. So Jin scraped together a thousand yuan by borrowing from different people and took Tian to the Shizhu County Hospital. Upon examination by the physician, the police’s beating had inflicted Tian Ji’an with a lacerated lumbar vertebra and fractured cranium with a bone fragment the size of a thumb being recessed into the brain. The blockage resulted from hardened blood coagulation led to neurological disorders and aberrant reasoning. The doctor said, “The part of the skull where the bone fragment is recessed in the brain is inoperable. To operate on it involves life-threatening risks. Without surgery, he can only live for six to seven years at most.”

Since then, Tian Ji’an had experienced severe pain in the lumbar spine, chest, and brain. He lost his ability to work and exhibited neurological disorders and impaired reasoning. He often wanted to walk around in the field, but he could not recognize his own field when he went there. On several occasions, he tremblingly weeded the fields of others. Sometimes, when he weeded his own land, he uprooted the seedlings instead. When the weather changed, and Tian Ji’an’s lumbar spine, chest, and brain were aching, he would beat and scold his wife Jin. It seemed that only by beating and scolding others could his pain be lessened. This continued for more than nine years until February 25, 2016 when Tian Ji’an passed away.

31. Christian Ye Jianjun Dies After Persecution by Chinese Communist Police Until Mental Collapse

 

Ye Jianjun, male, born on December 9, 1950 in the Longkou Economic Development Zone in Longkou City, Shandong Province. He was an ordinary worker in the city’s glass factory. Ye Jianjun first believed in the Lord Jesus in 1987, and then in 1998 joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG). He is honest, well-behaved, served enthusiastically, and enjoyed spreading the gospel, and frequently went to the Shandong cities of Penglai and Yantai to do so. In 1999 when he was out sharing the gospel, he was arrested by the Chinese Communist Government and was brutally tortured to the point that he had a schizophrenic break. Thirteen years later he departed this world, his name still not cleared.

According to the recollections of Ye Jianjun’s wife Ju Hua (alias), on one day in May 1999, Ye Jianjun took a taxi back home after having been away for more than ten days. He had a dull look in his eyes and didn’t have a single penny on him. Ju Hua led him into the house after paying his fare. When she saw that he had thinned to the point that he was a bag of bones and he seemed very absent-minded, she questioned him and discovered that he had been arrested while spreading the gospel. The police had tied him to a metal chair and brutally boxed his ears, swiftly alternating sides. They didn’t stop until his hearing was impaired. During the interrogation and torture, they deprived him of food and water for five days.

When Ju Hua learned that her husband still had not eaten she rushed to prepare some rice gruel. When eating, after Ye Jianjun had taken a few sips, he started to stare blankly, walked into the middle of the courtyard with the bowl, and poured out the food bit by bit. After it was empty, he suddenly let go of the bowl and it broke into pieces. Ju Hua prepared water to wash his feet and urged him several times, but he would not wash. Instead he kicked the basin over and beat Ju Hua. This was when she finally realized that he had become mentally unstable. Ye Jianjun’s family took him to the Shandong Province Longkou City Huangshan Psychiatric Hospital, and he was given a diagnosis of schizophrenia. In the following few years, Ju Hua sold the family home to pay for his treatment, paying a total of over 30,000 RMB. However, there was no improvement at all.

In spite of his mental illness, the scars on Ye Jianjun’s soul and the grievances left behind from the brutal torture he had endured could not be erased. In 2009, Ye Jianjun would frequently say that he wanted to go to Beijing to make an appeal, and in May of that year he left home. Over ten days later, a call came from a shelter in Liaoning asking for Ye Jianjun’s family to go pick him up. After he returned home, he said that he wanted to go to Beijing to make a report but became ill when he got to Liaoning. He was saved by an elderly person who sent him to the shelter.

From the time that Ye Jianjun began suffering mental health problems from his arrest and brutal torture by the police, he suffered discrimination and coldness from other people. In February of 2012, he passed away at the age of 63 without having his name cleared.

32. Christian Hou Kequan Suffers Mental Illness and Dies After Brutal Beatings by Chinese Communist Police

Hou Kequan, male, born May 18, 1949, resident of Tanghe County, Henan Province, started believing in the Lord Jesus in 1994, and joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in October 2002. On May 18, 2003, Hou was arrested by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for believing in Almighty God. He was imprisoned for one year and nine months. During his incarceration, he was brutally tortured by the CCP police whereby he sustained two fractured ribs, spinal fractures and loss of all his teeth. After his release on February 8, 2005, Hou became mentally ill and died in August 2011, at the age of 62.

On May 18, 2003 at about 7 p.m., when Hou Kequan was listening to the sermon at home, Yan Zhenhua, director of the village security force, suddenly entered Hou’s home with two policemen from the Huyang Town Police Station. The police seized VCDs and spiritual CDs from the house and escorted Hou to the Huyang Town Police Station.

At the police station, the police interrogated Hou Kequan unsuccessfully about matters of belief in God. Hou was escorted to the Tanghe Detention Center and subsequently transferred to the Xuchang Prison. During interrogation, when the police saw that Hou remain reticent, three policemen struck him randomly on his body, with batons, steel bars, and electric whips. They also violently struck his face with their soles. His head and face were severely swollen, and he sustained two broken ribs.

In early July of the same year, Hou Kequan was sentenced to one year and nine months of re-education through labor and was transferred to the Xuchang Labor Camp.

On February 8, 2005, Hou Kequan was released. When he returned home, his wife was startled when she saw him. He was unkempt and skinny, his hair messy and all gray, his face yellowish with a pair of collapsed eye sockets, and his walk was difficult. His puckered mouth made him look like a 70-year-old man while he was only in his 50s. According to Hou Kequan, the police brutally tortured him. They whipped him with a chain, struck his face with their soles and knocked out all his teeth. They also beat him forcefully on his back with a thick stick until the stick snapped and his spine fractured. In the labor camp, the police often instigated other prisoners to beat him, and forced him to get up early every day to manufacture wigs until late at night.

Before Hou Kequan was arrested, he was in good health and free from illness. He used to do all the farm work at home. He was in good spiritual and physical shape. He greeted everyone with a smile, and the neighbors liked his company. After being released, Hou was suffering from brain dysfunction and mental disorder. Occasionally, he was very frightened, and he cried bitterly. Sometimes he would walk off abruptly and run around. No one could stop him. He had an insatiable appetite. As soon as dinner was finished, he would have snacks like a child. At night, he ran around with a miner’s lamp and a bamboo stick in his hands until 2 or 3 a.m., occasionally until 3 or 4 a.m. Sometimes he slept for two days in a row.

Due to the CCP’s arrest and torture, Hou Kequan had become insane and lost his normal life. He died on August 21, 2011.

33. Christian Li Guoyan Tortured to Death by Chinese Communist Police

In September 2003, Li Guoyan, a Christian from The Church of Almighty God (CAG) was arrested by the authorities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During the period of unlawful detention, he was tortured by the CCP police for a protracted period of time, resulting in swelling on both feet and aggravated heart problems. Fearing that they would be held responsible for Li’s death in prison, the CCP police released him. After returning home, Li died on February 19, 2004, at the age of 42, after medical treatments had failed.

Li Guoyan, male, born October 14, 1962, resided in Laocheng Town, Xichuan County, Nanyang City; started believing in the Lord Jesus in 1980 after his parents, joined CAG in April 2001.

On or about September 2, 2003, at around 12 at noon, when Li Guoyan returned home, he saw three policemen from the Xichuan County Police Station and the director of the Xichuan County Religious Bureau Zhou Lianzhao sitting in the room. Zhou Lianzhao said, “Li Guoyan, you have gone astray in believing in ‘Eastern Lightning.’” Li Guoyan and his family stood by and dared not say anything. Afterwards, Zhou Lianzhao and others searched around the house and seized two spiritual books and a scrolled picture. The church’s book distribution records were written on the back of the picture. The police then went to the house of Li’s parents (only 20 meters away) and seized Li’s father’s transcribed copy. Two policemen twisted Li’s arms and pushed him into the police car and took him to the Chengjiawa Detention Center in Xichuan County.

At that time, people in the village were too scared to speak. Zhou Lianzhao warned the villagers, “If anyone finds Xiaoxiao (Li Guoyan’s younger sister, also a CAG Christian) and Liu Peng (an alias, a CAG Christian) from this village, report it quickly. There’s a reward of 2,000 RMB for grabbing one of them, and 4,000 RMB for both. Grab them as soon as they return.” After that, Li Guoyan’s younger and elder sisters (both were CAG Christians at that time) were forced to leave home and stayed in hiding.

In the detention center, the police abused Li Guoyan and interrogated him for the source of the books on God’s Word. Before his death, Li Guoyan personally disclosed to a Christian that the policemen in prison made him “spread scorpion” (a kind of torture that makes the prisoner spread their arms on the wall while kneeling with both legs tilted upward and his face pressed against the wall) and didn’t allow him to move. They yelled at him whenever he made the slightest move. The food at the detention center was extremely poor. For each meal, there was only a small steamed roll and a bowl of corn soup so thin that one could see his own reflection in it. The prolonged torture and food deprivation made Li’s feet puffy and his body debilitated.

After being illegally detained for 20 days, Li was reduced to barebones. His face was puffy and his feet were so swollen that he was unable to walk. Fearing that Li would die in the detention center, the police sent words to his wife to bring ransom money to take him home. In the end, Li’s wife borrowed 2,000 RMB and handed it over to the police. Li was released afterward.

After returning home, Li Guoyan underwent continued treatment for his heart conditions and swollen feet in a nearby clinic. Due to the severity of his illness, he did not show any improvement regardless of the medicine he took.

On the morning of February 19, 2004, Li Guoyan died during the operation of intravenous injection.

Since Li Guoyan always honored his parents, he was afraid that his parents would be upset if he told them about what happened at the detention center. He had never mentioned it to them before his death. His parents were afraid to ask about the incident lest it cause him physical and mental pains, so they did not ask any questions. Hence it is impossible to know how much torture Li Guoyan had suffered during his detention.

Li Guoyan’s mother said mournfully, “Before Guoyan was arrested, although he had a mild rheumatic heart disease, he was able to perform normal physical work. I couldn’t imagine the police would torture him to death with such vicious means.”

Unable to withstand the blow of losing his own son, Li Guoyan’s father fell ill from emotional depression. He also passed away two years later.

34. Christian Zhang Mengling Suffers Serious Illness and Death From Forced Hard Labor

The Church of Almighty God (CAG) Christian Mr. Zhang Mengling was unlawfully arrested, tortured and imprisoned by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for believing in God and preaching the gospel. During incarceration, he was denied medical attention when he fell seriously ill. Less than five months after being released from prison, he died of illness at the age of 53.

Mr. Zhang Mengling (alias Zhou Ping), born in 1963, was a native of Siyangzhai Village, Taiqinggong Town, Luyi County, Zhoukou City, Henan Province. He started believing in the Lord Jesus in 1993, and accepted the work of Almighty God in the last days in 1999. He was an honest and dutiful person who loved to help people. When he was alive, he was happy to witness for God and preach the gospel.

In August 2012, Zhang Mengling went to preach the gospel in Sichuan Province.

On April 2, 2013, at about 7 p.m., when Zhang was at the home of Christian Wang Zhongzhi (alias, male) in Beishan Village, Hualong Sub-district Office, Shuanghe Town, Huaying City, Sichuan Province, nine policemen broke into the house, arrested Zhang and conducted a search on the premises, confiscating books about believing in God, evangelical materials, two SD cards, mobile phones, etc. Immediately after, the police handcuffed Zhang and brought him along with Wang Zhongzhi to the Huaying City Public Security Bureau.

On arrival at the Huaying City Public Security Bureau, the police ordered Zhang to sit on an iron chair and cuffed his hands and feet inside the iron rings on the upper and lower parts of the iron chair. The city’s state security brigade policeman Hu Yong and policeman Deng Jie (both male in their 30s with Deng Jie being the captain of the traffic police brigade and Hu Yong a regular policeman) interrogated Zhang twice without success.

On April 3, Hu Yong and Deng Jie escorted Zhang to the forced conversion base in Wusheng County, Sichuan Province.

During that period, Hu Yong and Deng Jie slapped Zhang on the face, gave him a punch in the chest and cuffed his hands asymmetrically behind his back. They interrogated Zhang four times, including questioning him about the number of people Zhang had preached the gospel to in Sichuan, who those people were, where they lived, and how to contact them. Zhang refused to answer.

When Hu Yong and Deng Jie saw that they could not get any information from Zhang, they dragged him to an iron chair, restrained his feet in shackles, and tightly cuffed his hands behind the back of the chair with a pair of handcuffs. The handcuffs sank deeply into his flesh, causing Zhang’s fingers to swell rigidly and unable to bend. His feet were so swollen that he could not put on shoes.

Zhang was cuffed on the iron chair for more than half a month, during which the police did not let him sleep. His body was extremely debilitated.

Deng Jie threatened Zhang, “As long as you tell us the names of the people here that you have preached to, how to contact them, who your leaders are, we will immediately let you go home. If you keep refusing to tell us, your suffering will be even greater!” Hu Yong also threatened Zhang, “You don’t have to speak. But I tell you, even with zero confession, you’ll still be sentenced!”

On the afternoon of May 10, Hu Yong and Deng Jie transferred Zhang to the Huaying City Detention Center, confining him in No. 21 cell.

On June 14, Zhang was formally arrested and transferred to No. 15 prison cell on the same day. In the prison, he mopped the floor, cleaned the toilets and so on every day. He was hungry all day long. For breakfast, he was only given a dilute rice soup so thin that he could see his own shadow in it. Both lunch and dinner were a small scoop of steamed rice with a spoonful of vegetable consisting of a few leaves and mostly water. Zhang was often dizzy from hunger. When the conditions were serious, he could not get up, and he needed two people to carry him to the toilet. Even so, he still had to be on work duties for two hours every night. One night, Zhang passed out while on duty. He was unconscious for more than four hours before coming to.

On September 9, the Huaying City Court heard Zhang’s case. Zhang refused to admit that his belief in God was against the law. No sentence was imposed on that day.

On November 18, 2013, Zhang was taken outside the gate of the Huaying City Detention Center. A policeman read out the verdict to him directly: Pursuant to Article 300 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, Zhang Mengling is sentenced to three years in prison on the charge of “sabotaging the implementation of the laws by utilizing evil religious organizations.”

On December 18, Zhang was sent to the Jiazhou Prison’s Fifth Prison Unit in Leshan City, Sichuan Province for imprisonment and labor reform. During the period of labor reform, Zhang not only had to endure heavy labor, he also suffered from the verbal abuse of prison guards, which exacerbated his illness. On one occasion, he collapsed after a surge of blood pressure. He was sent to the hospital where he stayed unconscious for 24 hours. When he regained consciousness, he was taken back to work by prison guards.

When Zhang’s wife learned about his conditions, she sent medication to him. However, the prison did not allow medicine sent from outside the prison. His family could only send money for him to buy drugs to control the disease. A total of 15,000 RMB was sent in three years. During that period, his family had visited him twice. He had obviously lost much weight and aged a lot.

On May 9, 2016, Zhang was released upon completing his sentence.

On that day, Zhang’s wife, son and village party secretary picked him up from prison. On the way home, Zhang’s blood pressure was so high that he could not walk. Dizziness caused him to vomit three times in the taxi. He stayed on medication after returning home, but his blood pressure never dropped.

On September 22, Zhang suffered a cerebral vascular rupture (cerebral aneurysm) due to high blood pressure. He was sent to the First People’s Hospital of Shangqiu City for emergency treatment. Since medical treatment was ineffective and he died on October 5, 2016.

35. Christian Chen Jun Ravaged and Dies from Chinese Communist Government’s Re-Education Through Labor

On March 27, 1991, Chen Jun and 13 other Christians from Henan Province went to the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province for a gathering. They were arrested on their way back and were held in the Henan Labor Camp for two years. Chen Jun was brutally tortured by the police in the labor camp resulting in a serious medical condition, but they would not allow him medical treatment. After his release, he was arrested twice more, and his condition grew worse and worse. In September 1996, Chen Jun was brutalized to death by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at just 46 years old.

The victim Chen Jun was male, from Mangshan Town in Henan’s Yongcheng City. He started believing in the Lord Jesus in 1987. He was originally a coworker in the recovery denomination and in 1991 he joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG). The facts of Chen Jun’s story of being persecuted to death by the Chinese Communist Government are below.

Condemned as Counterrevolutionary for Believing in God—Arrested, Tortured, and Paraded Through the Streets

On March 27, 1991, Chen Jun and 13 other Christians went to Yongyuan Town in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province to attend a one-week gathering. Chen Jun was carrying about 200 copies of spiritual books on the return journey when he was arrested by the police at the train station and sent to a local detention center.

At the time it was only 4 or 5 degrees Celsius (about 40 degrees Fahrenheit) in Heilongjiang, but the police put tall rubber boots on Chen Jun, handcuffed his arms behind his back on a cement column and continually poured cold water over his head, body, and into his boots. They forced him to sit cross-legged on a cold wood floor for 33 days in a row and didn’t allow him to move. When he moved even a little bit, they would punch and kick him, and even instructed other prisoners to beat him, leaving the skin of his ankles peeling off.

On April 8, 1991, the government of Yongyuan Town in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province hung signs on Chen Jun and the other thirteen Christians and paraded them through the streets for the crimes of “being anti-Party, counterrevolutionary, anti-humanity, anti-government, and attempting to overthrow the regime,” subsequently proceeding with detaining them. Thirty-three days later, Chen Jun was transferred to the Yongcheng City Public Security Bureau in Henan Province and the other 13 were sent to a local facility for detention.

In late June 1991, Public Security Bureau staff tried to blackmail Chen Jun’s family for 7,000 RMB, but they barely had enough to make ends meet and could not come up with the money.

On July 6, 1991, two officers of the Yongcheng National Security Brigade took Chen Jun back home. His wife saw her husband’s face was pale and gaunt, and he even lacked the strength to walk. The officers exploited that chance to extort 350 RMB from her and told her: “If you continue to believe in God your children will suffer. They won’t be able to join the military or get into college in future.” She had no choice but to give the two children’s tuition and all of their living expenses to the police (she was not given a receipt). But after taking the money, they took Chen Jun back to the Yongcheng Public Security Bureau.

Incredible Torture over Two Years of Labor

On July 7, 1991, the Yongcheng Public Security Bureau sentenced Chen Jun to two years of hard labor for “disrupting social order, being counterrevolutionary, anti-Party, anti-government, and subverting state power.” They used a coal truck to secretly take him to the labor re-education camp in Henan Province’s Shangqiu City; his family was not aware. His wife did not find out until late August.

The guards in the labor camp frequently told the other prisoners to punch and kick Chen Jun and snatch his food. He became unbearably hungry. He had to salvage others’ leftover steamed buns from trashcans to take the edge off his hunger. On top of that, he was forced to do very hard labor such as carrying cement. Over time, carrying such heavy loads caused him to become extremely weak.

One day in August 1992 when Chen Jun’s wife went to see him she saw that his face was looking jaundiced, even his eyes. His face and body were swollen. He told her that he could no longer carry cement because he had gotten enteritis, so the police forced him to peel garlic every day. If he didn’t complete a certain amount he wasn’t allowed to eat or sleep. Layers of skin came off his fingers, but he had no choice but to tolerate the pain and continue working….

In late August 1993, Chen Jun’s sentence was up and he was released. A medical exam showed that he had gotten hepatitis with jaundice. Because he had not received timely treatment in prison, after returning home there was serious swelling in his entire body, he was lacking strength, and had completely lost the ability to do any labor. However, the police still required him to report to the Mangshan Town government once a month and he was also forced to undergo brainwashing. His condition grew much more serious during that time; his family sold all of their valuable possessions to pay for his treatment and borrowed over 8,000 RMB from others. They were in dire straits.

Repeated Arrests and Persecuted to Death

At past 12 a.m. one day in March 1994, three officers from the Mangshan Police Station suddenly came to Chen Jun’s home and without showing any paperwork wantonly searched the house. They came up empty-handed, but they arrested Chen Jun again with the excuse that someone had reported he had been spreading the gospel. They detained him in a local detention facility. While he was locked up the police extorted over 100 RMB from his family. After 17 days they saw that his condition had become serious and feared being held responsible, and only then released him.

One day in March 1995, at past 12 a.m., two officers from the Mangshan Police Station jumped over a wall to enter the courtyard of the Chen family’s home and forcibly took the seriously weakened Chen Jun to the station. The next morning, they saw that he was incurably ill and could die at any moment, and only then agreed to send him home, warning him not to practice his faith any longer.

In late 1995, Chen Jun became bedridden from illness because of the Chinese Communist Party’s unrelenting persecution. He passed away on September 19, 1996 at the age of just 46.

36. Christian Ma Fading Dies After Chinese Communist Government’s Torture and Re-Education Through Labor

Ma Fading, male, was born in 1955 in Chengguan Town, Xichuan County, Nanyang City, Henan Province. He joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 2002.

At around 10 p.m. on September 28, 2005, five police officers, headed by Captain Ma Huamin of Xichuan County National Security Brigade, raided the home of Ma Fading and his wife. After confiscating a dozen faith books and other spiritual items, they bundled the couple into a police van and took them to the Public Security Bureau of Xichuan County.

The police interrogated them separately that night.

As a result of refusing to provide any information about Christians in The Church of Almighty God, at 12 p.m. the next day they were taken to the Chengwa Detention Center in Xichuan County.

At the detention center, they were interrogated a further three times. During the third interrogation, Ma was taken to the detention center’s courtyard and questioned directly by officers from the Henan Province Public Security Department. As before, he revealed nothing. Next, Ma’s wife was also taken to the courtyard for questioning. On the ground she saw a photo of her husband, who had been beaten almost senseless by the police and left in a wretched state. She hardly recognized him. As she recalls, prior to his arrest he had been hale and healthy—but now, after the abuse, he didn’t even look human. He had clearly been tortured by the police. But despite the threats of the officers, Ma’s wife still refused to give them any information about other Christians from The Church of Almighty God.

On the afternoon of November 9, 2005, the police sentenced Ma to a year of hard labor, and his wife to a year and a half of hard labor, on the charge of “disrupting public order as a result of belief in Almighty God.” They were immediately taken to the Nanyang City Detention House.

During the two weeks that they spent there, Ma and his wife were forced to labor long hours, leading to a sharp decrease in their bodyweights. Ma’s wife saw with her own eyes how her husband grew so thin that he looked like a bag of bones. He spoke weakly, his face was pale and shrunken; he had lost at least twenty pounds.

On November 24, 2005, the police sent Ma to Xuchang Labor Camp for a year. At the labor camp, he was assigned to making hairpieces. If he couldn’t complete his quota, he would be subjected to a form of torture called “scratching the scorpion” (where the person has his arms stretched out, his face rubbing against the wall, and has to stand on tip-toe and cannot move) or be beaten. Making hairpieces involves protracted exposure to toxic chemicals, causing considerable harm to Ma’s body.

Eight months later, Ma’s wife was released after her family used their connections and paid a bribe. After getting out, she went to the labor camp to visit her husband, who told her, “Incited by the police, prisoners in here often curse and beat me.” The next time she went to see him, Ma started to cry as he picked up the microphone. Seeing how distressed her husband looked, Ma’s wife had no doubt how much mistreatment he had suffered at the labor camp.

On September 28, 2006, after a year of hard labor, Ma was released. After returning home, he spent all day distracted and morose. He had low energy and would often catch a cold. By the beginning of August 2007, his physical condition was worsening. He had trouble walking, was wracked by coughing and fevers all day long, and taking medicine or going on an IV drip seemed to have no effect. After being sent to Xichuan County Hospital for an examination, tests revealed he had leukemia. Despite attempts at treatment, Ma died two weeks later. He was 52.

Afterward, to avoid being re-arrested by the Chinese Communist Government, Ma’s wife was forced to leave her home and her young child. The persecution of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had torn apart an entire family.

37. Christian Wang Mingchi Dies After Chinese Communist Government’s Brutal Beatings and Re-Education Through Labor

Wang Mingchi (alias Chen Hao), male, from Mazhai Village, Yandian Town, Shen County in Liaocheng City located in China’s Shandong Province, accepted Almighty God’s gospel of the last days in May of 2002. He was arrested by the Chinese police in 2006 because of his belief in Almighty God, and during his imprisonment was ruthlessly beaten and tortured. Due to the severity of his injuries, the police released him early for fear of being held responsible. Wang Mingchi then took his last breath at the age of 45.

One day in May of 2006, Wang Mingchi was reported while delivering books of God’s words to Christians from The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in Liaocheng’s Yanggu County. As he was walking through the area, he was arrested by several Yanggu County National Security Brigade officers who had been constantly surveilling him.

According to Wang Mingchi’s account while he was still alive, after he was brought to the Yanggu County Public Security Bureau, several officers took turns beating him, viciously boxing his ears, punching and kicking him, and used all sorts of instruments to brutally torture him for several days. They would only stop when they became tired from beating him. They interrogated him about his personal information and his belief in God, and when he wouldn’t talk they beat and tortured him even more fiercely. During this time, he was tortured to the point that he lost consciousness several times, but he still did not breathe a word of information about the church.

The Yanggu County police sentenced Wang Mingchi to three years of re-education through labor for the crimes of “undermining law and order and scalping books” in spite of a complete lack of evidence. They then detained him in the Zibo City Labor Camp in Shandong Province. He was already suffering from multiple wounds and was greatly weakened physically, but he was required to perform extra hard labor. Before long, he was bedridden with illness.

On December 15, 2006, the police in the Zibo City Labor Camp hurried to get in touch with his family to have them take him home out of fear of being held responsible for his death. They even forced his family to pay a fine of 20,000 RMB with the excuse that his sentence was not yet up. Wang Mingchi’s family was very poor and were unable to get enough money together in spite of their efforts to borrow and scrape up as much as possible.

The next day, the labor camp police saw that Wang Mingchi was on his last legs; they had no choice but to call his family and tell them to pick him up without paying the fine.

On the 17th, the Mazhai Village secretary and Wang Mingchi’s family rushed to the Zibo City Labor Camp and were all utterly shocked when they saw him. In just a little over six months’ time, he had gone from being a 1.8-meter tall, over 90-kg strong Shandong man with a plump face and a strong constitution to a sickly, frail person under 50 kgs, with a sallow and thin face and a blank look in his eyes. What grieved his family even further was that it was in the middle of the harsh northern winter, but Wang Mingchi was wearing a summer T-shirt, and his emaciated body was shivering in the fierce cold.

At a little past 9 p.m. on December 24, 2006 on the eighth day after Wang Mingchi returned home, he was overcome by the severity of his injuries and took his last breath.

38. Christian Yu Futing Dies After Chinese Communist Government’s Re-Education Through Labor

Yu Futing, male, from Longhe Town in Chongqing’s Changshou District, joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 2005.

The morning of September 10, 2009, Yu Futing went to the home of another Christian Liu, for a gathering. A little past 11 a.m., four people including the Hexing Chief of Police Zhang Biao and officers with the Changshou Duzhou Police Station burst into Liu’s home along with seven village cadres. After wantonly searching the premises, the police performed illegal arrests on Yu and Liu, bringing them to the Duzhou Police Station.

At 4 p.m., a plainclothes officer and officers with the United Front Work Department went to search Yu Futing’s home. They found a receipt for 16,000 RMB of contributions to the church.

Based on what was written by Yu Futing during his lifetime, the police questioned him and Liu about the receipt they had found in his house, and when he wouldn’t talk, they kicked him while wearing leather shoes and hit him with an electric baton. They also threatened him, saying: “Even if you don’t talk, we’ll still say that you believe in a Xie Jiao and give you a sentence!”

In the end, they sentenced Yu Futing to a year of re-education through labor for the crimes of “involvement in a Xie Jiao organization and disrupting social order.”

On September 30, 2009, Yu Futing was sent to the Fuling Jiangdong Labor Camp.

While he was still alive, Yu Futing wrote this about his memories of the labor camp: “Life in the labor camp was really terrible. Generally, I just had a little bit of vegetables, and sometimes not even that—it would only be chili*. I only got a bit of tomato and egg soup when officials were coming to the prison for inspections. That was the best that life got. When the food came every day, I wasn’t allowed to eat until I had finished reading the prison rules, so by the time I could eat, the food had already gotten cold. It was like this all four seasons.”

In the labor camp, the police instructed other prisoners to torture him. In the middle of a harsh winter, only because Yu Futing bathed without requesting leave, he was disciplined twice by the other prisoners—they used a basin to dump cold water over his head, and then set up a fan to blow on him. From then on he began to fall ill. Before his incarceration, he had always been in very good health and he was the primary source of labor in the family.

Since he lacked the money to get medical attention, coupled with the hard labor, Yu Futing’s illness worsened by the day. However, the police did not ease up on his torture because of his illness. One time when he was heading out to work, one of the prison guards kicked him viciously because he was walking slowly, leaving his backside visibly bruised. He also beat him with a wooden stick, hitting his legs until they were black and blue, and terribly swollen. At the time, Yu Futing just cried. Later on, he wasn’t even able to climb stairs, but the prison guards still did not allow him to get medical attention.

On April 24, 2010, the police saw that Yu Futing was even incapable of walking and was also unable to work. They felt that he had become useless, so they called his wife to have his family pick him up. When his son-in-law brought him back home, his entire body was swollen—his head was very swollen, and even his stomach was swollen and there were also hard lumps in it. The police had tortured him to the point that he didn’t even look human anymore.

After more than a month, Yu Futing was transferred to the Chongqing Xi’nan Hospital for treatment. The examination results were late-stage liver cancer. Since medical treatment was ineffective, he passed away on October 5, 2010 at 63 years old.

*Yu Futing did not eat spicy food at home.

39. Christian Liu Jixia Dies From Extremely Hard Forced Labor

Liu Jixia, female, born on May 19, 1965, resident of Daiwan North Village, Daiwan Township, Linqing City, Liaocheng Prefecture, Shandong Province; honestly and kindly disposed, joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 1999, later became a CAG church leader. In 2007, while preaching the gospel in Guan County, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province, Liu Jixia was arrested and sentenced by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). During incarceration, Liu contracted nephritis. Not only was she denied medical treatment by the prison authorities, she was even forced to do high intensity labor. After she was released from prison, the police ransacked her home, causing her to live in constant fear. As a result, her medical conditions deteriorated into chronic renal failure. She died in August 2012 at the age of 47.

The following is the true story of Liu Jixia’s arrest and persecution to death by the CCP police:

On September 9, 2007, while preaching the gospel in Xiaoguozhuang Village, Beiguantao Town, Guan County, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province, Liu Jixia and another Christian were arrested by three plainclothes policemen. Without producing any official credentials, the police forcibly took the two persons to the Beiguantao Town Police Station in Guan County. They were taken into custody by the Guan County Public Security Bureau that day, and detained at the Guan County Detention Center.

According to insiders, the police interrogated Liu Jixia on where the books in faith had come from, who had instructed her to preach the gospel, how she had met the other Christian and where they had gathered. Nothing resulted from the interrogation.

A month later, Liu Jixia was sentenced by the police to eighteen months of re-education through labor and a fine of 300 RMB on the charge of “sabotaging the enforcement of laws by utilizing cult organizations” and sent to the Ji’nan Women’s Labor Re-education Camp.

During incarceration, Liu Jixia was assigned to make toy horses. She was forced to work for 17 hours a day, even 20 hours when there was overtime. In addition, the prison food was very poor. It was mainly cornmeal, dried steamed roll, salted and dried radish, and salted cabbage most of the time. The long-term, high-intensity manual labor, coupled with malnutrition, caused Liu Jixia to develop nephritis (urine protein plus) shortly after entering the labor camp, but the prison guards still forced Liu Jixia to work in sickness.

According to Liu Jixia’s husband Chang, who said that when he visited his wife in 2008, he noticed that her face was yellowish and her body weakened. That was when he learned that Liu Jixia was sick, but she was denied treatment by the prison authorities. He also said that Liu Jixia was very healthy without any history of kidney disease before incarceration. Rarely did she have colds or other health problems.

On February 9, 2009, when Liu Jixia was released from prison, her face was grayish. She was debilitated, emaciated and morbid.

On October 14 of the same year, Liu Jixia’s husband brought her to the Liaocheng Second People’s Hospital (now known as Huamei Hospital). Her diagnosis turned out to be nephritis and edema of the lower extremities. After staying on medication for a few months, Liu Jixia’s conditions were under control and her lower limbs were no longer swollen. During treatment, according to a Chinese medicine practitioner in Linxi County, Xingtai City, Hebei Province, Liu Jixia’s illness was caused by fatigue and excessive fright.

Until July and August of 2010, three policemen from the Daiwan Township Police Station in Linqing City burst into Liu Jixia’s home and forcibly ransacked the place without producing any credentials. At that time, only Liu’s daughter was at home. After seizing some books in faith, the police threatened Liu’s daughter to tell Liu that she had to report to the local police station when she got home.

Upon hearing the news, Liu Jixia was terrified, and her conditions worsened. She began to develop edema in the lower limbs and symptoms of palpitation, fatigue, chest tightness, shortness of breath and nausea, and she was unable to lie on her back. Her husband took her to several hospitals in succession, but her conditions still had not improved.

On July 18, 2011, Liu Jixia’s conditions continued to deteriorate. She was diagnosed with renal failure at the Second People’s Hospital of Liaocheng, but she did not respond to medical treatment. She was transferred to Weifang Nephrology Hospital where she stayed for 58 days. She underwent 2-3 hemodialysis every week in the hospital, but her conditions did not improve at all.

On August 20, 2012, Liu Jixia died in the Linqing First People’s Hospital.

It was understood that Liu Jixia’s family had spent a total of 150,000 RMB on treating her illness. After Liu’s death, her husband Chang was extremely stricken. To date, he still chokes up and loses his word at the mere mention of his wife’s death.

40. Christian Xuan Junling Dies After Continuous Intimidation by Chinese Communist Police

Xuan Junling, female, was born on May 28, 1951 in Lintong District, Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province. She started believing in the Lord in 1994 and joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 1998.

At 9:40 p.m. on September 22, 2015, Xuan Junling and her husband were looking after their grandson when six police officers from the Xiquan Police Station of Xi’an City Public Security Bureau Lintong Branch, led by Zhang Guangcheng, burst into their home. Without presenting any documentation, they restrained the couple and searched their apartment. After spiritual books were found, Xuan and her husband were taken to the police station.

Upon arrival, the police placed them in separate cells. At 10 a.m. the next day, they were interrogated about their belief in God and the source of the books. At 11 p.m. that night when the interrogation yielded no results, the police took Xuan and her husband to the Lintong District Detention Center, where they were to be held for a month on the charge of “believing in an evil cult.”

On October 23, a month had passed—but Xuan and her husband had yet to be released. At 12 p.m. that day, the police transferred them to the Legal Education and Training Center in Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province, where they underwent 23 days of forced conversion. Each day they were indoctrinated with atheist ideology and coerced into renouncing their beliefs. They were finally released on November 16.

As Xuan Junling’s husband recalls, having someone watching over them 24 hours a day, getting no chance to pray, and being forced to read atheist materials each day, which created a huge amount of mental stress, and Xuan Junling often looked ashen when she returned home. Several days after they were released, Xuan’s blood pressure was at 200 mm Hg.

Yet there was no respite from the government’s surveillance. A week after getting home, the police instructed four or five people comprising the local mayor and relatives and neighbors from the village to keep a close eye on Xuan Junling and her husband. People even followed and monitored them when they were walking along the street.

On the afternoons of January 23, 2016, March 14, 2016, and May 10, 2016, the police from the Xiquan Police Station went to Xuan Junling’s home three times respectively to make video recordings in which the police asked whether she and her husband believed in God and who they’d had contacted with, which caused even more mental stress for Xuan Junling. During this time, when a Christian from Xuan Junling’s church called Xueli (an alias) met Xuan Junling, she observed that Xuan looked ashen, her complexion particularly sallow under her temples. She was under a lot of stress and clearly frightened.

At about 10 a.m. of June 16, 2016, a police officer from the Xiquan Police Station again came to Xuan Junling’s home and forced Xuan Junling and her husband to go to the station to sign a form. At 11 a.m., Xuan Junling and her husband arrived at the police station, where police forcibly made them to add their fingerprints to a form that had already been filled out (prints were taken from each finger; the form had been filled in by the police) and collected their blood samples. Later on, they were asked to stand on a machine to measure their height, weight, and have their photograph taken. Xuan Junling’s legs were trembling, she had trouble balancing, and her face had gone white. Psychologically, she was in a very bad way and could only stand on the machine supported by her husband.

At 6 a.m. of June 17, Xuan Junling started feeling dizzy and uncomfortable. She couldn’t even put her shoes on as she sat on the sofa. She only regained lucidity after being hurriedly taken to Lintong District People’s Hospital for an urgent rescue by her family. The doctor asked her family if anything had been causing her stress recently. When they replied that she had just returned from the police station the day before, the doctor told them that the two could be connected and said she could be suffering from an anxiety disorder.

At about 12 p.m. on June 18, Xuan Junling’s condition deteriorated and she was transferred to Tangdu Hospital of the Fourth Military Medical University in Xi’an. After an angiography, the hospital confirmed cerebral artery stenosis. At 7 p.m. that night, despite efforts to save her, Xuan Junling died.

According to Xuan Junling’s family and other coworkers of the church, before her arrest she had been physically healthy, her blood pressure was normal (between 90-120 mm Hg) and she was in a good mental state. she had never suffered from dizzy spells whilst performing the work of the church. The prolonged harassment and persecution by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) caused mental anxiety and elevated Xuan’s blood pressure, leading to her sudden death from cerebral artery stenosis.

41. Christian Liu Jinhua Brutally Murdered by Chinese Communist Police

Victim Liu Jinhua, female, born on June 18, 1987, resident of Pingchong Village, Ronghuan Town, Hengdong County, Hengyang City, Hunan Province; joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in September 2012. In August 2014, when Liu Jinhua was copying faith materials in a rental house at No. 61 Hengyue South Road, Chengguan Town, Hengdong County, Hengyang City, she was spotted and reported by the landlord Hu Ermei. Afterward, the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) surreptitiously stalked and monitored Liu. On the early morning of February 12, 2015, Liu Jinhua died tragically in the yard of her rental house. She was only 28 years old.

According to an informed person Chen Hui (alias), on February 11, 2015, she came to Liu Jinhua’s rental house to discuss with Liu about belief in God, and she stayed overnight. On the following day (12th), at 6:05 before dawn, Liu Jinhua got up, went outside to the bathroom and never returned. At 8:05 in the morning, when Chen Hui got up and went outside to the bathroom, she saw Liu Jinhua lying on her back breathless, her limbs stretched out into a “spread eagle” shape. There was a small violet-black bruise beneath her left eye corner, and blood stain on her left nostril. When Chen Hui screamed in fear, four policemen from the Chengguan Town Police Station, He Jianheng, Tang Jing, Yan Qiao, etc., who had been hiding in ambush nearby, suddenly rushed forward. Without presenting any credentials, they arrested Chen Hui and escorted her to the Hengdong County Public Security Bureau for interrogation. Policeman Tang Jing kept pressing Chen about her relationship with the deceased, and pinned this case on Chen Hui, claiming that the deceased was killed by her.

Cover-Up by CCP Police Exposed

According to Liu Jinhua’s mother, Liu’s uncle rushed to her and her husband at 11:30 a.m. on February 12, 2015 and said, “The police just called and told the village secretary that Jinhua had committed suicide by jumping off a building. Her body was sent to the Hengdong County Crematorium!” On hearing this, Liu’s mother rushed to the funeral home in Hengdong County. In front of the mortuary refrigerator No. 1, Liu’s mother saw an egg-sized hole on top of Liu Jinhua’s head, and the scalp was gone. The cranial bones had collapsed, apparently caused by a blunt instrument like a hammer. Liu’s mother cried as she said, “This is not suicide. It is homicide!”

After the incident was exposed, He Jianheng, a policeman from the Chengguan Town Police Station in Hengdong County, seized upon Liu Jinhua’s belief in Almighty God and threatened Liu’s mother, “We have been asking around for two or three months. Liu Jinhua believed in Almighty God. The state proscribes belief in Almighty God! We heard several people talking in her rental house a few days ago. So we surrounded the house at 5 o’clock this morning and finally caught her!” They further threatened, “Believing in Almighty God is against the Party and society. It is prohibited by the state. Any believer will be arrested. We will even arrest you if you believe in Almighty God!”

After looking at the crime scene, the Liu family found that the window in Liu Jinhua’s room was reinforced with steel bars. It was simply impossible for her to jump out. When questioned by Liu’s father, the police couldn’t answer. They then lied that Liu Jinhua had attempted to commit suicide by swallowing Dichlorvos, but she later jumped off the roof because she could not stand the unbearable discomfort. The Liu family did not believe a word of the police. The standoff continued until 4 o’clock in the afternoon. In order to ascertain whether his daughter had taken poison, they reluctantly demanded an autopsy.

At 6 o’clock in the afternoon, four forensic experts including Chen Jingquan and Zeng De of the Hengdong County Public Security Bureau conducted a craniotomy and laparotomy on Liu Jinhua’s cadaver. During the postmortem, Liu’s father did not smell any pesticide odor. He noticed a large bruise mark on Liu Jinhua’s left thigh and a small bruise on her lower left leg. At a glance, it was obvious that she had been beaten before her death. Liu Jinhua’s husband discovered that Liu’s trousers were torn on the outside of the right leg from the thigh to the knee. After the autopsy, the Hengdong County Public Security Bureau kept delaying without producing any autopsy report.

On March 2, Liu’s father went to investigate the crime scene with a dozen or so relatives. They noticed two dried pools of blood at the entrance of the first floor where Liu Jinhua used to live. There were blood stains on the stairs from the first floor to the fourth floor. On the rooftop, there were two pot-sized blood stains covered with sand. After viewing the crime scene, the Liu family was absolutely convinced that Liu Jinhua had not died from self-inflicted poisoning, let alone committing suicide by jumping off a building! Instead, she was dragged from the entrance of the first floor to the fourth floor by the murderers and pushed down from the top of the building.

Police Carried out Assassination, Tried to Evade Culpability Under Guilty Conscience Through Smoke and Mirrors

In the face of so many factual proofs, the police knew that they were in the wrong and their position was indefensible. In order to cover up their criminal acts, they produced a false video to hoodwink the Liu family. On March 15, the Hengdong County Public Security Bureau police called and asked Liu’s father to come with several people to watch the video that showed the scene of Liu Jinhua’s death.

Liu’s father watched the entire video and found that the police were falsifying and deceiving. He was extremely angry and questioned, “How did she get a hole in her head from jumping off a building? How was there blood stain from the first floor to the fourth floor? She absolutely did not die from jumping off the roof. She was beaten to death!” The forensic expert Chen Jingquan argued, “But no murder weapon was found on the scene! How could you claim she was beaten to death?” Then, Chen Jingquan produced a falsified certificate stating that Liu had died from swallowing Dichlorvos, but he did not announce the postmortem results of the craniotomy.

When the Liu family saw the police deny everything, they found the help of Kang, a relative who worked in the Hengdong County government. Later, Kang said, “I asked Bin Jianfeng, the captain of the Hengdong County criminal police brigade. He said, ‘Had we known that she was your relative, we wouldn’t have killed her. We wouldn’t have beaten her so hard as we did.’” Kang then reproached Liu’s father, “Your daughter believed in Almighty God. The state arrests believers in Almighty God. What else do you have to say? There is nothing I can do about it.”

On March 18, 2015, Liu’s family went to Hengdong County Public Security Bureau again to inquire about Liu Jinhua’s cause of death. The Public Security Bureau police unanimously said that Liu Jinhua killed herself by taking poison. Having nowhere to voice their grievances, the Liu family had to give up and leave helplessly.

On the same day (18th), the Liu family cremated the body of Liu Jinhua.

42. Christian Jiang Chundi Persecuted to Death by Chinese Communist Government

Jiang Chundi, female, 63 years old at the time, from Yongping Village, Xinba Town in Jiangsu Province’s Yangzhong City, she joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 2008, and was a regular Christian affiliated with the Church. Below is the story of Jiang Chundi being persecuted to death by the Chinese Communist Party police.

According to informed sources, Jiang Chundi was a law-abiding, well-behaved rural woman who lived with her daughter Zhang Qun (40 years old). When they had finished their own farm work they would frequently go to the neighboring villages to spread the gospel.

Around 2 p.m. on December 13, 2012, Jiang Chundi and her daughter Zhang Qun along with several other Christians from the same village left the Senior Activity Center where they had been sharing the gospel. They were intercepted by a police vehicle from the Yangzhong City Xinba Police Station, and then a Yangzhong City National Police Brigade car arrived very shortly after. They were arrested by the police and taken to the Xinba Police Station.

They were all interrogated separately at the police station. According to another Christian who was arrested along with Jiang Chundi: “I was interrogated nonstop from 4 p.m. on the day I was arrested until 3 a.m. the following day. One of the National Security Brigade officers (around 40 years old and slightly chubby) put handcuffs and leg cuffs on me, then viciously kicked me and stomped on me. He kept on trying to force me to reveal information on spreading the gospel. I was tortured to the point that my entire body was in unbearable pain.” Another informed source revealed that Jiang Chundi was also interrogated until early morning of the following day. After the police had threatened and intimidated her, they forcibly escorted her back home to raid her house. When they were not far from her house, the elderly woman sat down on the ground and refused to move, so they forcibly hoisted her back up and brought her home. They confiscated four MP5 players, four flash memory cards, and several of her daughter Zhang Qun’s notebooks.

On December 17, Jiang Chundi’s neighbor stumbled upon a corpse floating face-down in the river behind her home. She rushed to call the police, and the body was identified as Jiang Chundi.

Zhang Qun was released early because of her mother’s death so that she could handle the funeral arrangements.

Jiang Chundi’s daughter Zhang Qun said: “On December 18, the day after I was released from the detention center I saw my mother’s body at the mortuary…. That evening, Wang Dehong, the village head, brought the deputy police chief and someone who claimed to be a medical examiner to my home for an unexpected visit. The so-called medical examiner was holding some sort of instrument (something that could take audio and video recordings) and kept it pointed at me. The deputy police chief said to me with a stern look and a forceful tone: ‘A death is a major event, but your mother committed suicide. She was not killed!’ After that he stared at me intensely. Then he asked me: ‘Do you have any opinions on what happened?’ At the time, I thought of the fact that there was still a box of books on believing in God in the house and I was afraid they would conduct another search, so I said I didn’t. When they heard my answer, their expressions all immediately relaxed and their tones became much more congenial. In fact, they were coming to figure out whether or not I wanted to pursue holding the police accountable. After that they were still afraid that I would go back on that so they sent someone to accompany me when I was handling my mother’s death certificate.”

Zhang Qun is filled with grief and indignation when her mother’s death comes up. She said: “My mother was a very resolute person. She suffered many misfortunes and blows in her life, but she never entertained the notion of taking her own life. When she was sick, even though the pain from the illness was tortuous and she became weak, she never wished for death. Even though my older sister’s death was an enormous blow for her, she never wanted to commit suicide. How could someone like that just up and kill herself? The explanation from the police was just absurd. Seeing my mother’s tragic death, all I could do was swallow my tears because in a country under the rule of the Communist Party, I have nowhere to go for redress!”

43. Christian Hong Zhaowen’s Cancer Recurs Then Dies From Chinese Communist Police Torture

On December 11, 2012, when Hong Zhaowen, a Christian from The Church of Almighty God (CAG), was spreading the gospel in Tanshang Village, Tianmushan Town in Zhejiang Province’s Lin’an City, she was arrested by policemen from the Yuqian Town Police Station. They forcefully cuffed her hands behind her back causing a serious strain on the wound on her left side from her breast cancer surgery. Her cancer recurred after that and she died on July 2, 2013 at the age of 50.

The victim, Hong Zhaowen, female, born on March 28, 1964, was from Tanshang Village, Tianmushan Town in Zhejiang Province’s Lin’an City. She accepted Almighty God’s work of the last days in 2008 and after that was chosen to be a coworker in the church. She was a kind-hearted, hard-working homemaker and got along harmoniously with her family and neighbors. She was never one to cause trouble and was always praised by those around her.

In late January of 2009, Hong Zhaowen was diagnosed with breast cancer and then underwent a left mastectomy and chemotherapy. Six months later in July of the same year, she had regained her health and was discharged from the hospital. When discharged, her doctor repeatedly warned her not to do any heavy work, that she absolutely could not lift anything over 2.5 kg with her left arm, could not do strenuous exercise, and should not catch a cold. Because after the operation Hong Zhaowen was very frail and her immune system was compromised, any of those things could trigger a recurrence of her cancer, and it would be untreatable. After returning home she recovered quite well. She was able to ride her scooter to the meeting place for gatherings and take people out to spread the gospel. She quickly resumed her normal life, and generally people couldn’t tell that she was a cancer patient who had undergone surgery and many times of chemotherapy.

Wound Seriously Strained When Arrested by the CCP Police for Spreading the Gospel

Around 11:30 a.m. on December 11, 2012, when Hong Zhaowen and two other Christians were sharing the gospel at a local’s home in Tanshang Village, Tianmushan Town in Zhejiang Province’s Lin’an City, they were arrested by two policemen from the Lin’an City Yuqian Town Police Station. The police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forcefully yanked Hong Zhaowen’s arms back, and cuffed her hands behind her back. She was continually crying out in pain. Those present who were aware of the situation shouted at the policemen: “She just had surgery for cancer! You can’t handcuff her that way!” “She’s ill, you can’t arrest her!” But the two policemen didn’t listen at all and they forcefully took her away.

After getting to the Yuqian Town Police Station, the policemen forced the three Christians to be strip searched and locked up in a confinement room. There, Hong Zhaowen told another Christian: “After being handcuffed my surgery site started hurting.”

Half an hour later the policemen started interrogating the three in turn. After her interrogation, Hong Zhaowen started experiencing intense pain at her surgery site and her whole body was trembling nonstop. She clutched her hands to her chest and squatted on the floor crying. The two other Christians knew that she was a very tough person and generally would never mention feeling pain, and particularly would not cry. They rushed to inquire. Shaking, she said: “My chest hurts so much, and I feel so cold.” She was wearing very warm clothing, with a down jacket—normally she would not have felt cold.

In the end the police sentenced Hong Zhaowen to 10 days of detention on the charge of “disrupting social order,” and around 6 p.m. that evening she was sent to the Lin’an City Detention Center.

That same evening, Hong Zhaowen’s elder sister got her released on bail with someone else’s help and her family picked her up from the detention center at past 8 p.m.

Wound Damaged and Cancer Recurred—Died After Treatment Proved Ineffective

After Hong Zhaowen was released and taken back home, her surgical wound was in constant pain from the serious strain from being handcuffed. She was unable to lift her arms. Before being arrested, she had been able to take other people on her scooter, but then she couldn’t even sit on it without being supported by someone else. The slightest vibrations were very painful.

In February of 2013, Hong Zhaowen’s condition grew more and more serious. She had a persistent fever and was constantly vomiting. On April 5, 2013, she was sent to the Lin’an City People’s Hospital for treatment.

On June 5, 2013, the doctor told her husband that her cancer was late-stage and she didn’t have much time left to live, and had him take her back home. All he could do was bring her home for hospice care.

After being discharged she was unable to speak, and by June 26 was barely able to make some feeble sounds.

Around 4 a.m. on July 2, Hong Zhaowen passed away at home.

Her remains were cremated on July 4 at the Lin’an City Linglong Crematorium.

Because her family was not powerful they had no way to negotiate with the police, they couldn’t make an appeal, and they certainly received no compensation.

44. Christian He Shuiyin Dies After Police Intentionally Delay Medical Treatment While in Custody

He Shuiyin, female, born on October 19, 1967, aged 46, resident of Village No.5, Longmen Town, Fuyang District, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province; joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 2008.

In June 2009, He Shuiyin was diagnosed with malignant gastric lymphoma. After receiving chemotherapy and pharmaceutical treatment, her conditions were basically stablized. Around April 2010, when she was discharged from the hospital, the physician explained to her family that she needed to properly convalesce and continue to take Chinese herbal medicine at home. After returning home, she managed to perform housework and ride a scooter to participate in gatherings and gospel preaching. Her physical condition was relatively good.

In December 2012, He Shuiyin was arrested and detained for 15 days by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for preaching the gospel. During detention, the police knew that she was suffering from malignant gastric lymphoma, but deprived her of medication. Coupled with the poor and inadequate food of the detention center, her originally stable conditions deteriorated as a result. By the time she was released, her cancer cells had spread beyond treatment. On November 9, 2013, she died at the age of 46. The following is the story of He Shuiyin’s fatal persecution:

On the afternoon of December 16, 2012, while preaching the gospel in Village No.5, Longmen Town, Fuyang District, He Shuiyin and another Christian were arrested by two policemen from the Longmen Town Police Station and escorted to the Longmen Town Police Station.

At the police station, they were forcibly searched, photographed and interrogated by the police. The police clearly knew that He Shuiyin had cancer and needed medication daily, yet in the end they still sentenced her to detention for 15 days for “disrupting public order.” In the early morning of December 17, she was escorted to the Qiufeng Detention Center in Fuyang District.

The food at the detention center was poor. Breakfast was a thin rice soup and a little mixed vegetable. Lunch and dinner were some yellowish coarse rice, stale meat and braised radish with a strong muttony odor. The radish was laced with mud and the vegetable overcooked without oil. Some of the eggs in the so-called tomato egg-drop soup were already spoiled. She was malnourished. The cold and damp of the prison room, coupled with the thin and dirty blanket, made her unable to sleep at night because of the chill. Her body resistance rapidly deteriorated. She became increasingly weak. The lymph nodes on her neck and waist became inflamed and swollen.

On the seventh or eighth day of her detention, He Shuiyin’s husband visited her and discovered that there were numerous lymph nodes on her neck. Her husband left some western medicine with the prison guards for He Shuiyin, but the prison guards never gave it to her.

On December 24, He Shuiyin told her cellmate, a Christian named Jiang Xingchen, that she was having a malignant gastric lymphoma attack and experiencing severe pain. She also said that her husband and elder sister had given her medical report to the prisoner, but the prison guard still insisted on detaining her for the entire 15 days. When Jiang pressed the bell for the medicine to be brought to He Shuiyin, the prison guard came in and said fiercely, “What medicine? Die when it is time to die!”

In the following days, He Shuiyin’s condition became increasingly worse. The lymph nodes on her neck and waist grew to the size of a quail egg. She really could not stand the pain. So she reclined on the wide bed. Two or three minutes later, the prison guard said fiercely, “Get up and fold the blanket! You are a prisoner. Who gave such freedom? You just lie down when you want to lie down?!” He Shuiyin had no choice but to get up quickly while bearing the pain.

Due to malnutrition and deprivation of medication by the prison guards, He Shuiyin’s conditions deteriorated rapidly. The swellness of the lymph nodes on her neck and waist did not subside. She was tormented by illness every day and unable to sleep at night. She endured and struggled with the pain until the release date.

On January 1, 2013, He Shuiyin was released from prison. Her husband immediately took her to the Fuyang City People’s Hospital for examination. After the examination, the physician said that the cancer cells had spread beyond cure. There was no need for chemotherapy. She stayed in the hospital on intravenous infusion for two weeks, but the swelling of the lymph did not subside. The only thing she could do was to go home with some medicine. While she was on medication, her body became weaker and weaker. She could only take several mouthfuls of liquid food each day.

By July 2013, He Shuiyin’s physical condition was already very serious. The lymph nodes under her armpits and inner thighs were swollen to fist-size. The lymph nodes below her cheeks also swelled beyond the grasp of one hand.

On November 9, 2013, He Shuiyin died of illness at the age of 46.

45. Christian Liu Jinsheng Falls Ill and Dies After Being Ravaged Body and Mind by Chinese Communist Government

Liu Jinsheng, male, born on October 17, 1940, lived in Wanzai County in Yichun City, Jiangxi Province. He joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 2004. He had worked in traumatology as a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor, had an outgoing personality, and was in good health.

In September 2009, after police with the Wanzai County Public Security Bureau learned that Liu Jinsheng was the custodian of 160,000 RMB of church’s money, they went to his home twice to conduct random searches and took all of his savings, putting him into serious financial straits. At the advanced age of 69, he was forced to do hard labor to make ends meet as well as endure his neighbors’ mockery. He became depressed from the psychological strain and the manual labor, and developed liver cancer. He passed away on September 16, 2011. The story of Liu Jinsheng’s search, arrest, and persecution to the point of death by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is below.

Two Police Searches and Seizure of a 70-Year Old Christian’s Life Savings

After 9 p.m. one evening in September 2009, five Jiangxi Province police officers from three different areas burst into Liu Jinsheng’s home and conducted a random search without showing any paperwork. The officers from the Pingxiang City National Security Brigade, together with those from the Yichun City Public Security Bureau and Wanzai County Public Security Bureau, part of its intercity alliance, found some spiritual books as well as 30,000 RMB. He pleaded with the officers not to take his hard-earned life savings, but they didn’t pay him any mind and continued to ransack his home.

One officer used a hook to rip open a new quilt and broke apart cabinets and wooden boxes. When he couldn’t find the church’s money, he angrily demanded of Liu Jinsheng and his wife: “Tell me, where is the church’s 160,000 RMB?” They were so terrified that they were shaking; his wife fainted from fear and couldn’t speak. In spite of his fear, Liu Jinsheng resolutely would not sell out the church.

A little past midnight an officer took away the 30,000 RMB and spiritual books they had found along with the flashlights and a few yuan they had dug up from inside of food bags in their home. The entire place had been looted, and Liu Jinsheng himself was also taken to the Wanzai County Public Security Bureau.

Around 9 a.m. the next morning three officers once again burst into their home to conduct a search and took the last 1,000 RMB they had left to live on. They asked his wife about the whereabouts of the deposit slips for the church’s money and only left after they couldn’t get any information from her.

Enduring Mockery and Suffering, Hard Labor Ends in Illness and Death

The police originally intended to send Liu Jinsheng to a labor camp, but they were afraid of bearing responsibility for any consequences because of his advanced age. After holding him for three days, they forced his family to pay 6,000 RMB as a ransom for his release.

After going back home Liu Jinsheng suffered incredibly: every last bit of his savings had been taken by the police; his spiritual books had been confiscated; his relatives, friends, and neighbors all looked at him differently, and mocked him; even the neighbors’ three- and four-year old children chased him with little whips. Before the search and arrest he would eat two bowls of food for every meal, he was in robust health, and was very outgoing. After his release he was always in low spirits, became quiet and withdrawn, and could barely get a small bowl of food down, and sometimes he couldn’t eat or sleep at all, and would secretly cry all alone. He became physically frail. A month later he started losing weight rapidly and even the skin on his face was sagging.

After that Liu Jinsheng had no choice but to farm and sell the vegetables in order to get by; he sometimes went into the hills to collect cedar branches in exchange for cash. Having never done hard labor before, he was frequently utterly exhausted. The CCP police had plundered every bit of his money so he didn’t have any extra funds for medical treatment; when he felt stomach pains he would just grit his teeth and get to work in order to save money.

By July of 2011 his stomach pains became so severe that he could no longer bear them and finally went to the hospital. He was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer—it was untreatable.

On September 16 of 2011, Liu Jinsheng left this world at the age of 71.

46. Christian Wei Xiuxiang’s Condition Worsens After Chinese Communist Police Torturing, Then Dies

Wei Xiuxiang, female, was born on September 26, 1965 in Nanfen District, Benxi City, Liaoning Province. She joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 2004. In October 2012, Wei Xiuxiang was diagnosed with micronodular cirrhosis of the liver. After being treated in hospital, her condition stabilized, and she had ever since been hosting Christians in the church. On June 22, 2013, Wei was arrested by the authorities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) because of her belief in Almighty God. Following her arrest—and despite being well aware of her serious illness—the police refused her food and forced her to sit on a tiger bench as they tortured her for three days and two nights. By the end of it, Wei’s face was bruised, she had two black eyes, her whole body was swollen, and her legs were so swollen that she couldn’t walk. Fearing they would be held responsible for her death, the police released Wei in the middle of the night on June 24. But after letting her go, they continued to follow her and keep her under surveillance. As a result, she lived in perennial fear, which stunted her recovery and ultimately caused her illness to deteriorate. In 2015, she died at the age of 50. Below are the details of the process that led to Wei Xiuxiang’s death.

After Being Arrested, Cirrhosis Sufferer Wei Xiuxiang Was Interrogated for Three Days and Two Nights

At 8 o’clock on the morning of June 22, 2013, there was an urgent knocking on Wei Xiuxiang’s door by someone claiming to be collecting public hygiene fees. Suspicious, she did not open the door. Half an hour later, the peephole in Wei’s door was smashed, leaving a 3 cm hole there—the shock of which caused her to suffer a heart attack on the spot. Immediately afterward, six or seven police officials shouldered their way in and arrested Wei and two other female Christians that were also present. Without producing any documents, they searched Wei’s home and took anything of value.

Wei Xiuxiang was taken to the Hexi police station in Benxi City’s Xihu District, where she was handcuffed to a tiger bench and brutally interrogated. During questioning, Wei learned from the police that they had already been following her for more than four months. That was when she recognized them: They had been masquerading as the owners of a BBQ stall at the foot of her building. The police interrogated Wei, who was suffering from cirrhosis, for three days and two nights, during which they denied her any food. She was left with her face bruised, two black eyes, and her whole body swollen. Her legs were so swollen that she couldn’t walk. Fearing they’d be held responsible for Wei’s death, the police released her in the middle of the night on June 24, 2013. Wei left the police station disoriented and only managed to get a taxi home with great difficulty.

Wei Was Then Constantly Followed, Monitored, and Harassed by the Police for Years, Causing a Long-time Fleeing and Deterioration of Her Illness, and Ultimately Leading to Her Death

In July 2013, as Wei was doing her exercises on the balcony, she suddenly noticed someone in the opposite building watching her with binoculars. Only then did she realize she was still being monitored by the police.

In August 2013, Wei Xiuxiang returned to her mother’s family in Nanfen District, Benxi City for more than two weeks. During this period, officers from Nanfen community and the Nanfen District Police Station came to her mother’s house to check their residence cards.

At the end of September 2013, Wei moved to Guojiapu in the hope of avoiding any more surveillance or arrests by the police. The police soon discovered her whereabouts and installed a camera opposite the window of the apartment she was renting. They also stationed personnel in the building opposite to keep watch on her. Discovering she was still under surveillance placed great physical and mental stress on Wei, and she subsequently fled to Anhui Province and other places.

On the afternoon of July 23, 2014, Wei Xiuxiang began vomiting blood and was taken to hospital. She was in a coma for five days before being rescued. While she was seriously ill in hospital, officers from the police station and the community found a locksmith and tried to force entry into the apartment she rented in Guojiapu. When the locksmith refused to open the door, the police made the landlord ring Wei’s elder sister, requiring to enter Wei Xiuxiang’s apartment, and also ask her about Wei Xiuxiang.

On January 22, 2015, Wei was taken to hospital again after vomiting blood. When she was discharged in the beginning of March 2015, she returned home to discover that the lock of the door had been pried and the electric power switch was turned off. It was clear someone had forced their way in.

For two years, Wei was constantly followed, monitored, and investigated by the police. Despite her fragile state, she’d had no choice but to move house seven times during this period, each time causing a decline in her physical condition. She was sullen all day long, spending her days in fear. The constant fear, persecution, and attempts to avoid the police caused a drastic deterioration in Wei’s condition, which ultimately turned into late-stage liver cirrhosis.

On November 29, 2015, Wei Xiuxiang died in hospital at the age of 50.

47. Christian Zhang Guohua’s Condition Worsens After Chinese Communist Police Persecuting, Then Dies

Zhang Guohua, male, born September 17, 1959, resident of Zhoushang Village, Zhangjiashan Street, Zhangshu City, Jiangxi Province; believed in the Lord Jesus in 2003, joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in April 2009.

On the morning of December 12, 2012, when Zhang Guohua and four other Christians were preaching the gospel at the Xin Street Farmer’s Market in Gao’an City, Jiangxi Province, they were arrested by the police and forcibly escorted to the Xin Street Police Station.

At the police station, the police forcefully searched Zhang Guohua, seizing a cell phone and medicines for treating hypertension, and subjecting him to interrogation.

After the interrogation, when the police conducted a physical examination on Zhang, they discovered that Zhang’s blood pressure was as high as 180mmHg, and his physical condition was dangerous, but they still took him to the Gao’an City Detention Center. Zhang Guohua had had a previous history of hypertension for two years which had been controlled by drugs. During the time of incarceration, the police only gave him the cheapest hypertensive drug—nitrendipine tablets that could not control the condition very well.

On April 26, 2013, Zhang Guohua was sentenced to criminal detention for five months by the Gao’an City Court on the charge of “sabotaging the enforcement of laws by utilizing cult organizations.” He was returned to Gao’an City Detention Center for incarceration.

On April 28, the scorching sun was high in the sky and the temperature was over 30 degrees Celsius. The air outside the prison was extremely dry and hot. The director of the Gao’an City Detention Center, Cao, asked Zhang and other prisoners to hoe the vegetable patch along the outer prison wall. Around 1:30 p.m., Zhang’s blood pressure started to rise after working for about an hour. He began to feel dizzy, nauseous and staggering. The director of the detention center ignored Zhang’s condition. After 7 o’clock in the evening, Zhang’s condition worsened; he felt dizzy and kept drooling. Prisoners in the same room quickly reported to the prison guard on duty. Since Zhang Guohua became ill to serious condition, the police had ignored his condition. Until he was sent to the Gao’an People’s Hospital by two prison guards, he was already in a comatose state. Diagnosis showed that Zhang had suffered from a large area of cerebral infarction on the right side with Grade-3 hypertensive condition. He was in a high-risk state. Due to the seriousness of his illness, he was transferred to the Jiangxi Provincial People’s Hospital on the next day.

After Zhang was hospitalized for more than twenty days, the detention center was eager to shirk responsibility and evade the high medical expenses. Two policemen wrote a release certificate directly on a sheet of letter paper at the hospital and let Zhang sign it. Afterward, the police left Zhang behind in the hospital. The doctor told Zhang’s son that due to delayed treatment, it would be difficult for Zhang to recover from the resulting sequela.

On June 14, 2013, after 48 days of treatment, Zhang Guohua was discharged from the hospital. Although he had survived, he was disabled and paralyzed on the left side. He was unable to take care of himself. His hearing was severely degraded, his speech was blurred, his memory was severely degraded, and his body functions were greatly damaged. The treatment cost Zhang’s son nearly 60,000 RMB. The high medical expenses made it worse for the poor family.

After leaving the hospital, Zhang Guohua’s family had been spending money taking care of him. Later, Zhang’s physical conditions became worse and worse. On February 17, 2018, he suffered from a hypertensive attack. He died on February 21 at age 59 after all available remedies had been exhausted.

48. Christian Zhou Chengyin Dies After Years-Long Intimidation and Torture by Chinese Communist Government

Zhou Chengyin, male, born December 30, 1938, resident of Gantian Village, Huangjin Town, Zhong County, Chongqing City; once worked at Qinghai Bureau of Culture and Education, permanently worked as farmer afterward; believed in the Lord Jesus in June 2000, joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in May 2001. His house was searched three times and he himself was arrested and interrogated under torture by the Chinese Communist Government after believing in Almighty God. On May 5, 2015, he was threatened by the police even in sickbed at home, resulting in rapid deterioration of medical conditions and death in three days.

Arrested for Believing in Almighty God, Zhou Chengyin Interrogated Under Torture Three Full Days

On an evening of early March in 2002 at about 8 p.m., Zhou Chengyin was transcribing the word of Almighty God on the upper floor of his own house when four policemen from the Ganjing Town Police Station in Zhong County, Chongqing City, knocked on the door and entered. A policeman flashed his badge and said, “Someone reported that you believe in Almighty God!” After saying that, the four men immediately proceeded upstairs to search the house, seizing some copper currencies, copper coins, coins, and four or five sheets of paper transcribed with Almighty God’s word. At 10 o’clock in the evening, the police took Zhou Chengyin to the Ganjing Town Police Station of Zhong County in Chongqing City.

At the police station, the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) deprived Zhou of food and water for three days and nights, and suspended him above the floor for six hours (with his toes barely touching the floor) in order to obtain information about other Christians from him. When Zhou refused to answer, the police viciously kicked his legs and tortured the 64-year-old Zhou near death. Seeing that the interrogation did not yield any result, the police feared that Zhou might die in the police station and bring trouble to them. So they fined him 200 RMB and released him.

The CCP Police Again Broke in and Searched Zhou’s House, Couple Forced to Flee

On April 5, 2013 at about 9 a.m., the village mayor Lei Xiaohua came to Zhou Chengyin’s house with six officers from the Huangjin Town Police Station in Zhong County, Chongqing City. The police broke into the house and ransacked the upper and lower floors, seizing an MP4 player, a TF card, and about 10 sets of spiritual materials. Then they took out a piece of paper and forced Zhou Chengyin’s wife Zhou Zhen (an alias) to sign. She refused. The police threatened, “Both you and Zhou Chengyin need to come to the Huangjin Town Police Station on the morning of April 18. If you don’t come, we will not be treating you nicely like this!” When Zhou Chengyin returned home and learned of the incident, the couple hid in the bamboo forest behind the house for three days and nights, living on a bit of biscuits and water every day. In order to avoid being arrested by the police again, the Zhou couple had to leave home to escape and lead their lives in apprehensiveness.

Repeated Intimidation by the CCP Police Caused Zhou Chengyin’s Death in Serious Illness

Living under long-term chronic depression and fear caused Zhou to suffer from high blood pressure, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. He experienced difficulty in breathing at each onset and required someone to press hard on his chest like performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

In February 2015, Zhou Chengyin’s condition worsened. His body began to swell and he was confined to bed.

On May 4, 2015, when two CAG Christians went to Zhou Chengyin’s house, they were spotted by Zhou’s neighbor who reported it to the Huangjin Town Police Station.

On the morning of May 5, at about 8 o’clock, the village secretary rushed to Zhou’s home with four policemen from the Huangjin Town Police Station. At that time, Zhou was sick in bed, his entire body was deformed from swelling. Completely oblivious to his illness, the police asked Zhou loudly, “What kinds of people have been coming to your house? How often do they come? Where are you hiding the people of believing in Almighty God?” Zhou said, “Where can I hide someone when I am sick like this!” The police shook a pair of handcuffs in front of Zhou, making them rattle loudly, and threatened, “You old fart! Whom have you been communicating with? If you don’t hand over those two people, we will take you away and sentence you to prison for years!” Seeing that they couldn’t get any information, the police ransacked the upper and lower floors, seizing eight sets of spiritual materials. They didn’t leave until 11 a.m. After the police left, Zhou Chengyin was petrified sitting on the bed. Afterward, his conditions worsened day by day. Three days later (May 8, 2015), he suddenly died at the age of 77.

49. Christian Liu Limei Suffers Nervous Breakdown After Long-Term Chinese Communist Government’s Surveillance and Intimidation, Jumps into River to Take Own Life

On November 16, 2014, due to five years of unbearable surveillance, intimidation and harassment by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Ms. Liu Limei (alias Li Jing), a Christian of The Church of Almighty God eventually committed suicide by jumping into a river in Lüliang City, Shanxi Province, at 44 years of age.

Ms. Liu Limei, before her death, resided at the residence community of Pingshuo China National Coal Group Corporation, Shuozhou City, Shanxi Province and was a medical worker. She joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in April 2006 and warmheartedly hosted brothers and sisters. According to her friends and colleagues, Liu Limei was warmhearted and generous, lively and cheerful.

Liu Limei Was Illegally Arrested

On the evening of July 17, 2009, Liu Limei and her husband were on the way home when they were intercepted by more than a dozen police officers who were watching in the green belt. They were led by Qiao Riwen, Head of National Security Brigade of Shuozhou City Public Security Bureau (PSB), Shanxi Province and Mr. Xie, the division chief of Shuozhou City PSB. Before Liu Limei reacted, two police officers rushed forward and held both her arms respectively. Another police officer held her tightly by the neck from behind and forced her into a car and escorted her to the underground trial room of Shuozhou City PSB.

Xie showed a search warrant to Liu’s husband and rushed to Liu’s home to ransack the house and confiscate her property along with Qiao Riwen, and several other police officers. They confiscated two laptops, one DVD player, two computer cases, 2 MP3 players, more than 10 spiritual books and more than 60 spiritual CDs.

According to police insiders, they had monitored Liu by telephone and learned that she had hosted senior leaders of the Church.

In order to obtain information about the church leaders’ information and internal information of The Church of Almighty God, Qiao Riwen and female police officers Gao Rihua and Zhang Lingjuan and others continuously interrogated her for two days and three nights. During this time, the police officers did not allow Liu to sleep and subjected her to punishment in the form of half-squatting for a long time. Liu Limei was too weak physically to stand it and collapsed to the ground several times due to suffering from illnesses including an irregular pulse, gastritis and lumbar disc protrusion. The police officers saw what happened but dismissed it and verbally insulted her personality, and said many things to slander and blaspheme against Almighty God and attack The Church of Almighty God to do forced conversion of her. They further threatened Liu Limei with her children’s future and her elderly parents to make her tell them the Church information. They interrogated her for nine days from start to finish with no result.

On July 26, at the request of Liu’s family, Shuozhou Public Security Bureau processed the formalities to release Liu Limei on bail and transferred the case to Xinkai Branch of Shuozhou PSB and took the opportunity to extort 50,000 RMB from Liu’s family. According to the police, Liu Limei was suspected of the “crime of sabotaging the enforcement of laws by utilizing evil religious organizations” because she believed in Almighty God. During the investigation of the case, Liu was not allowed to leave the local city. She was asked to regularly report to the Xinkai Branch of Shuozhou PSB and write ideological reports and be on call at all times.

Police Had Monitored Liu Limei Closely for Five Years

Before her death, Liu Limei noted in her devotional notes that after her release she was always monitored closely by the police officers from the Xinkai Branch of Shuozhou City PSB. All the cellphones of Liu Limei’s family had been monitored all year round, and Liu Limei often saw strange cars in different colors parked near her house and a car would trail her every time she went out. In her workplace, she often saw suspicious people wandering around outside her office and they would immediately hastily get out of the way when she came out of the office. For the next six months, Wang Junwu, director of Xinkai Branch of Shuozhou City PSB, and police officer Liu Runfang routinely went to Liu Limei’s workplace to interrogate her about whether or not she was in contact with other Christians, and ordered Liu Limei to immediately report it to them if anyone contacted her. Wang Junwu also instigated Liu Limei’s superiors to put pressure on her, resulting in Liu often being reprimanded by her superiors and ridiculed by her colleagues because of her faith in God. She suffered extreme mental pressure and six months later was forced to resign from the role of Emergency Department Director.

Ten months later, the police installed a surveillance camera on the wall of Liu Limei’s neighbor’s home, monitoring Liu for 24 hours a day. In the following 2 to 3 years, police officers Gao Rihua and Liu Runfang from Xinkai Branch of Shuozhou City PSB often broke into Liu Limei’s house for various reasons and interrogated her about her faith and her recent whereabouts. They also warned her not to believe in God anymore, or else she would be arrested again! This caused Liu Limei’s family to live under a tense atmosphere. In order to evade police arrest, she was forced to go out and hide every few days.

Due to the prolonged period of high tension and depression, Liu Limei suffered from severe insomnia, and she became reticent and reserved from being cheerful and extraverted as she had been before. Coupled with police abuse during her arrest, Liu’s mental health and physical condition worsened increasingly. Two years later, Liu Limei became ill and had to take sick leave.

Liu Limei Was Backed Into a Corner and Committed Suicide

According to Liu Limei’s husband, in June 2014, the Chinese Communist government executed another big round of unified arrests of The Church of Almighty God Christians. After hearing the news, Liu Limei left her home again on the 22nd of that month, and hid in a small house of less than 60 square meters in Shanyin County, Shuozhou City.

After discovering that Liu Limei had left home, Gao Rihua interrogated Liu’s husband many times about her whereabouts, and also incited his leaders in his work unit to put pressure on him. In order to protect Liu Limei from persecution, her husband never disclosed where she had gone.

Liu Limei suffered extreme mental pressures after hearing this, and felt fearful and restless. She did not dare to go out during the day or turn on the lights at night. She even did not dare to cook for fear that she would be found in the room and be reported. Liu Limei’s husband did not dare to readily go and see his wife either because he worried about being tracked by the police. He could only take advantage of rainy weather or his lunch breaks and nighttime to take a taxi and secretly give Liu Limei some daily necessities, each time only staying for around two hours at most. Thus, Liu Limei hid in the small house alone with no one talking to her. She suffered torment, helplessness and fear, which made her emotionally unstable. Due to the prolonged period of fear, Liu Limei turned extremely thin, and it was difficult for her to swallow the food.

Eventually, Liu Limei could not stand the tremendous mental pressure. On November 16, 2014, Liu Limei committed suicide by jumping into a river in Lüliang City, Shanxi Province.

Just a month before Liu Limei’s death, officers of the Xinkai Branch of Shuozhou City PSB asked her to report to them, and to write an ideological report and pressed her to give up her faith. And so, a 44-year-old Christian was hounded to her death by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

50. Christian Bai Yonglian Commits Suicide After Long-Term Psychological Stress From Chinese Communist Government Oppression

Bai Yonglian (alias: Xiaozheng), female, born August 5, 1979, resident of Weiyuan Town, Huzhu Tu Nationality Autonomous County, Qinghai Province; started believing in the Lord Jesus in 2005, joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in October 2010. In 2012, Bai was arrested by the police of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and detained 39 days for preaching the gospel. She was released on bail pending trial after her parents and relatives had given gifts and money to the authorities. She was later sentenced to three years imprisonment with a probation of four years. After being released, Bai Yonglian was closely monitored by the CCP for a long period of time. Compounded with her family members’ constant sneers and insults, she was forced to divorce her religious husband. Bai succumbed to the crushing pressure and committed suicide in 2016, at the age of 37 only. The following is the account of how Bai Yonglian was persecuted to death by the CCP:

On December 13, 2012, at around 3 p.m., Bai Yonglian was monitored and tracked by the CCP police when she called a Christian about gospel preaching as she was withdrawing money from the savings bank of the Chengdong Agricultural Bank of Huzhu County. Four plainclothes policemen led by the Huzhu County Public Security Bureau chief Yu Yuankui rushed to the front door of the bank, arrested Bai forcibly (without producing any credentials), and escorted her to the Huzhu County Criminal Police Brigade.

Around 7 o’clock that evening, Captain Zan Hongkui and two policemen of the National Security Brigade interrogated her without success about gospel preaching matters. Zan scared her with a whip and threatened to go to her daughter’s school and tell all the teachers about her and her husband’s arrest for believing in God so that her daughter would not be able to raise her head in front of people. On the morning of December 14, at 7 o’clock, Bai was forced to admit that she and her family were preaching the gospel.

On the same night, Bai Yonglian was transferred to the Huzhu County Detention Center. On December 15, she was placed under criminal detention on suspicion of “sabotaging the enforcement of laws by organizing and utilizing cult organizations.” On December 31, without producing any credentials, the police seized and confiscated more than 20 spiritual books, over 50 sets of gospel preaching materials and other items temporarily kept in her parents’ house.

On the evening of January 21, 2013, Bai was released on bail. On January 22, she was ordered by the Huzhu County Public Security Bureau to post a security fund of 5,000 RMB (only 1,000 RMB was returned later, the remaining 4,000 RMB was confiscated as “fine”).

One day in late June 2013, the police of the National Security Brigade summoned Bai Yonglian and told her that she would be sentenced. To prevent her from being sentenced to imprisonment, Bai’s parents and relatives were forced to pay 6,000 RMB as hospitality expenses and sent 15,000 RMB to the court. On December 5, 2013, the Huzhu County Court sentenced Bai to three years’ imprisonment with four years’ probation for “sabotaging the enforcement of laws by utilizing cult organizations.” The police ordered Bai to submit an ideological report to the judiciary in Weiyuan Town once a month, report to the police station once a week, keep her mobile phone on at all times and remain on call. If she missed the reporting date, the police would call her.

Since then, Bai’s mobile phone had been monitored by the police. Her whereabouts were under the police’s control. At one time, when the CCP police learned that a Christian had gone to Bai’s home, a policewoman (Bai’s former classmate) with the Huzhu County Security Brigade asked Bai’s relatives to warn her that any Christian found in her home would be arrested and sentenced to prison. It made Bai very afraid. Later, the police often sent WeChat messages to monitor her. The CCP police’s constant close monitoring caused Bai to live under an atmosphere of tension and fear. It was very painful for her.

According to Bai’s mother-in-law, when she asked her daughter-in-law to cook dinner at home together in order to comfort her, Bai said that she was very tired in her heart and didn’t want to do it. Then she said, “I don’t know how to write these things they make me write (referring to the ideological reports). I even have to write them on time.” Sometimes when she and her daughter-in-law went to the post office to mail something to her son who was serving his prison sentence (Bai’s husband was sentenced to three years for believing in God), her daughter-in-law told her that she was being monitored by the police. Bai was so ashamed that she couldn’t lift her head as she walked.

Ever since Bai Yonglian and her husband were arrested and sentenced for believing in God and preaching the gospel, her non-believing parents and relatives often sneered at and insulted her. People around her also discriminated against her. Fearing that Bai would be arrested again for believing in God, her mother kept Bai under watch by letting her work in the kindergarten ran by her younger sister. She even forced Bai to divorce her husband. The crushing pressure caused Bai to live in pain permanently. She told the Christians around her, “I am being monitored by the police. Every time the police call me, my heart pounds terribly. Don’t come to me lest you be arrested. Now my mother looks down on me. My parents and relatives reproach me. Even my former classmate working at the Public Security Bureau scolds me. My acquaintances also scold me. My heart is dead.”

The CCP’s long-term close monitoring and the sneers and insults of family members and people around overwhelmed Bai Yonglian. She committed suicide by swallowing pesticide on July 13, 2016. She was only 37 years old when she died.

Previous: 2017 Annual Report on the Chinese Communist Government’s Persecution of The Church of Almighty God

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