Zhou Youjing (55), a member of The Church of Almighty God, a Christian new religious movement, is from the Pukou District of the city of Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. In October 2016, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) police arrested her when she was on the way to the home of a church member. The CCP police drugged her with ecstasy and subjected her to brutal interrogation in an effort to force her to reveal information on fellow believers. They broke three of her ribs; she is now unable to care for herself.
At about 6 p.m. on October 25, 2016, Zhou Youjing was passing through Xi’er Road of the Longshan Community on Tangquan Sub-District in Nanjing’s Pukou District when she was surrounded by officers from the Nanjing Public Security Bureau. They handcuffed her hands behind her back, put a black plastic bag over her head, and took her to a basement room in the Shixing Hotel on Haidu Road, Jiangpu Sub-District in the Pukou District for interrogation.
In the basement room, the police forced Zhou Youjing to stand motionless with her face pressed against the wall. They would smack, punch, and kick her if she moved even a little bit. After a long period of standing her feet swelled up like balloons. Over the following few days, the Pukou District National Security Brigade officers sent her three meals a day, but after eating, she would feel drowsy and dazed and became unable to distinguish day from night. She started to experience hallucinations: closed down houses; her daughter-in-law, grandchildren, mother-in-law, and other relatives either crushed to death by bulldozers or shot dead. The police tried to take advantage of her disorientation to get information about the Church. She continued to have hallucinations, sometimes auditory hallucinations of police sirens sounding, people yelling at her to run outside, if she did not, she would be taken away. These hallucinations drove her to try to run out of the building, after which the officers smacked her head, hitting her until her face was red and swollen, blood coming from the corners of her mouth. An officer kicked her down, kneeled on her back, and handcuffed her in a very painful position for the hands. He then grabbed her head, hauled her up, and slammed her head back into the wall. Physically weakened, Zhou Youjing was tortured until her head was swollen and in pain, and she was short of breath. All she could do was resist the pain, kneeling back down to the ground. Because of her disoriented state and hallucinations, she was unable to clearly remember what kind of torture she endured after that. During that time, the police searched her home and took a tablet, two MP5 players, a mobile phone, and some books on the faith in God.
On November 9, a female officer with the National Security Brigade questioned Zhou Youjing once again. She was on the brink of death; she was at her last gasp. Worried that she would die in the hotel and cause problems for the police, the officer sent her to the Pukou Central Hospital. An examination showed that she had dislocation fractures from left ribs six to eight, partial fractures in right rib four and left rib five, and gastric fluid accumulation. While in the hospital, officers from the National Security Brigade once again tried to gently entice her to reveal information on Church members and sign a statement of guarantee that she would no longer believe in God, but she would not comply. One officer grabbed her hand to put her thumbprint on the statement and then had her husband sign a document for bail, pending trial, then released her the following day.
Zhou Youjing was unable to care for herself after the hospital. The National Security Brigade officers never truly left her in peace; they told her daughter-in-law that Zhou’s belief in God would impact her grandchildren’s opportunity to go to college or join the military and tricked her husband into saying that her injuries were from tripping and falling. This has caused her family to oppose her faith and treat her derisively and mockingly, which caused even more physical and emotional pain.
