• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer
  • HOME
  • ABOUT CHINA
    • NEWS
    • TESTIMONIES
    • OP-EDS
    • FEATURED
    • GLOSSARY
    • CHINA PERSECUTION MAP
  • FROM THE WORLD
    • NEWS GLOBAL
    • TESTIMONIES GLOBAL
    • OP-EDS GLOBAL
    • FEATURED GLOBAL
  • INTERVIEWS
  • DOCUMENTS AND TRANSLATIONS
    • DOCUMENTS
    • THE TAI JI MEN CASE
    • TRANSLATIONS
    • EVENTS
  • ABOUT
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • TOPICS

Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

three friends of winter
Home / China / Testimonies China

Believers Brutally Tortured for Their Faith

11/20/2019Xin Lu |

Members of The Church of Almighty God share horrific experiences of being starved, deprived of sleep, beaten, subjected to other forms of torture during detention.

Darkened burn marks are still visible on the feet of the CAG member, who was subjected to electric shock torture.
Darkened burn marks are still visible on the feet of the CAG member, who was subjected to electric shock torture.

by Xin Lu 

The Church of Almighty God (CAG) is the most persecuted single religious movement in China whose members are often tortured during detention, the police forcing them to disclose information about the Church or sign statements renouncing their faith.

Starved for 82 days

“I felt that I was dying from starvation, often dreamt at night that I was eating. If the walls were not covered with soft materials, I would have sought death by knocking my head against them,” a CAG member from the central province of Henan recounted to Bitter Winter her sufferings in prison.

Seven years ago, 21 years old at the time, she was arrested and later sentenced to four years in prison, charged with “organizing and using a xie jiao organization to undermine law enforcement.”

Article 300 of the Chinese Criminal Code states that being active in a xie jiao organization may result in a prison sentence of three to seven years. The article is often used to convict members of religious groups that have been included in the list of the xie jiao.

During her detention, the woman refused to wear a tag that specified her conviction because she believed it to be blasphemous. Angered prison guards ordered her cellmates to strip the believer naked, and then they locked her up in a small cell used to torture detainees. The walls and floor inside are specially designed to prevent prisoners from committing suicide when they can no longer bear torture-inflicted pain.

“Every day, I was given only a steamed bun slightly bigger than an egg and a scoop of soup with some vegetables to eat. Guards would just dump the food instead of giving it to me,” the woman remembered, adding that she felt so hungry that she would rummage through rubbish bins looking for food, but guards would not permit that.

Starved and exhausted, she had to endure intensive physical punishments throughout the day. Guards would force her to stand at attention, march in military-style goose steps, do squats, or torture her otherwise. They also instructed other inmates to beat and abuse her.

After 82 days of malnutrition, the woman lost a lot of weight and stopped having her periods. She continued to feel anemic even after her release from prison.

Viciously beaten, subjected to electric shock torture

“Your membership in The Church of Almighty God means breaking the law. If you don’t admit this, we’ll beat you to death,” a CAG member from Chongqing, a municipality in southwest China directly administered by the central government, remembered how the police threatened him during an interrogation in May last year.

He was detained at a secret interrogation center in a desolate and uninhabited area for more than two months. The police beat and kicked him, slapped him on the face, and struck him with a stick until it broke into pieces.

Unable to bear extreme pain, he knocked his head against the bed, attempting to end his life. But police officers ignored his agony and continued beating him until he passed out.

His whole body was covered in cuts and wounds, and his feet were so swollen that he could not put on his shoes. Regardless, he was confined to a tiger bench – an iron torture device on which victims are forced to sit with their knees tied together – for three days and nights, not being allowed to close his eyes and forced to watch propaganda videos slandering the CAG.

The man still suffers from the trauma of torture. He often wakes up from nightmares, and his memory has deteriorated.

Even elderly CAG members are not spared. In October, a nearly 60-year-old CAG believer from the eastern province of Jiangsu was subjected to electric shock torture. The police used electric batons to shock her armpits, legs, and feet. The woman was in so much pain that she screamed, and her body trembled all over. Police officers then strapped her mouth with a strip of cloth and continued to torture her.

Tagged With: The Church of Almighty God, Torture

bw-profile
Xin Lu

Uses a pseudonym for security reasons.

Related articles

  • Chi Jie: Death of Tibetan Activist in Jail Confirmed After Six Years

    Chi Jie: Death of Tibetan Activist in Jail Confirmed After Six Years

  • More than 10,000 Church of Almighty God Members Were Arrested in 2022

    More than 10,000 Church of Almighty God Members Were Arrested in 2022

  • Church of Almighty God: False Demonstrations in Korea—Again

    Church of Almighty God: False Demonstrations in Korea—Again

  • How China and Russia Manipulate the George Floyd Case: A Uyghur View

    How China and Russia Manipulate the George Floyd Case: A Uyghur View

Keep Reading

  • Southern Mongolia: The CCP Mobilizes Traditional Culture Against Religion 
    Southern Mongolia: The CCP Mobilizes Traditional Culture Against Religion 

    The Chinese appropriation and “Sinicization” of Mongolian cultural heritage is a well-known phenomenon. Now, shows are used to indoctrinate Mongolians against “illegal” religion. 

  • Church of Almighty God Refugees: A Letter to the President of South Korea
    Church of Almighty God Refugees: A Letter to the President of South Korea

    The Church of Almighty God is the most persecuted religious movement in China. Its members who are in South Korea should not be deported back there.

  • Post-COVID Purge: Over 2,100 Church of Almighty God Members Arrested in Two Provinces
    Post-COVID Purge: Over 2,100 Church of Almighty God Members Arrested in Two Provinces

    In Anhui and Jiangsu, as soon as COVID quarantines ceased, the banned church’s devotees started being persecuted again. Two died.

  • Death of a Radio Host: Falun Gong Practitioner Pang Xun Beaten to Death in Jail
    Death of a Radio Host: Falun Gong Practitioner Pang Xun Beaten to Death in Jail

    A smuggled video appeared on social media in mid-February and documented yet another extrajudicial killing of a dissident in Chinese prisons.

Primary Sidebar

Support Bitter Winter

Learn More

Follow us

Newsletter

MOST READ

  • Why the Unification Church Should Not Be Dissolved. 1. A General Outline by Tatsuki Nakayama
  • Gansu: World-Famous Xiguan Mosque Is Also “Sinicized” by Ma Wenyan
  • Why the Unification Church Should Not Be Dissolved. 2. Dissolving Would Be Contrary to the Law by Tatsuki Nakayama
  • China’s Strange Battle Against Buddhists Releasing Mineral Water into Rivers by Gladys Kwok
  • Why the Unification Church Should Not Be Dissolved. 3. The Truth About “Spiritual Sales” and “Excessive Donations” by Tatsuki Nakayama
  • China Promotes a “Confucianized” Approach to the Holy Quran by Ma Wenyan
  • Can Religious Liberty Bring Taiwan to Build an Alternative International Diplomacy? by Marco Respinti

CHINA PERSECUTION MAP -SEARCH NEWS BY REGION

clickable geographical map of china, with regions

Footer

EDITORIAL BOARD

Editor-in-Chief

MASSIMO INTROVIGNE

Director-in-Charge

MARCO RESPINTI

ADDRESS

CESNUR

Via Confienza 19,

10121 Turin, Italy,

Phone: 39-011-541950

E-MAIL

We welcome submission of unpublished contributions, news, and photographs. Each submission implies the authorization for us to edit and publish texts and photographs. We reserve the right to decide which submissions are suitable for publication. Please, write to INFO@BITTERWINTER.ORG Thank you.

Newsletter

LINKS

orlir-logo hrwf-logo cesnur-logo

Copyright © 2023 · Bitter Winter · PRIVACY POLICY· COOKIE POLICY