CCP authorities arrested four women in Shaanxi Province for organizing religious classes for 32 young Christians and later locked them up to torture in prison cells intended for male death row inmates.
A “Sunday School” is traditionally organized at a church or another place, before or after the Sunday service. In China, Christians from various house churches willingly send their children to such schools to receive religious education, but the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has classified this as illegal behavior.
On February 11, 2015, four female Christians from the Life Church were holding a congregation for 32 young Christians when the local police entered the premises. On the grounds that they were “illegally hosting a private congregation for children,” the police seized the four organizers and handcuffed them before escorting them to the local police station for questioning.
Since the interrogations had yielded no results, the police then charged the four women with “illegal organization of a congregation, instilling underage children with religious beliefs, and disrupting public order.” The women were sent to a jail, where they were locked up in prison cells for male murderers and death row inmates.
According to the four Christians, during their detention, the prison guards hinted to the ringleader of prisoners that the four believed in God and that they should “be taken good care of.” As a result, some prisoners used various methods to torture them. Sometimes, they didn’t let the women eat all day, or only gave them very little food. Once the other prisoners were full, the ringleader would pour the remaining food into a urinal, and have the prisoners press the women’s heads next to it, saying: “Eat it; here’s your food!” The women were released after seven days.
Reported by Yao Zhangjin
