Xin Zhuo was a Christian from a house church in Wudan town of Ongnuid Banner in Chifeng city, Inner Mongolia. He became a believer in 1998 and attracted the attention of the local police because of his frequent preaching. He was arrested but continued to preach, narrowly avoiding arrests on several occasions.
One morning in May 2012, the Wudan town police charged into Xin Zhuo’s home and took him to a police station. According to an informed source, during the few days when Xin Zhuo was in custody, police beat him violently and interrogated him using torture to the extent that he suffered serious injuries. A few days into the interrogation, seeing the severity of the condition of Xin Zhuo’s injuries and fearing that his death in the police station may cause them trouble, the police asked that Xin Zhuo’s family paid a fine of 1,500 RMB in exchange for his release. When he was released, Xin Zhuo had a bloody nose, and his face was swollen; he became absent-minded, often staring blankly into space, and seemed to be a completely different person.
After Xin Zhuo returned home, he just laid on his kang (bed-stove) all the time, never getting up – not eating, not drinking, and only speaking incoherently, sometimes even suddenly standing up while in the middle of sleeping, and shouting repeatedly, “People from the public security bureau have come to get me again; quick, hide me, I’m scared!” Seeing the condition of Xin Zhuo, his family, relatives, and friends were all extremely distraught, unable to imagine what type of torture he must have suffered when detained.
When members of Xin Zhuo’s church found out that he had been released, they came to visit him; however, by that time Xin Zhuo’s mind had already been muddled, and when he saw people had come to visit, he would begin to shout. Over ten days later, Xin Zhuo tragically passed away at the age of 67. An insider said, “He (Xin Zhuo) was tortured to death by the police, and that’s that!”
