TABLE OF CONTENTS
General Introduction
15 Cases of Death by Persecution
5 Cases of Torture Resulting in Disability
8 Cases of Imprisonment
General Introduction
The Origin and Development of The Church of Almighty God
The Church of Almighty God (CAG) is a Christian Church founded in China in 1991. The Church came into being due to the appearance of Almighty God—the second coming of the Lord Jesus—and the truths He expressed in The Word Appears in the Flesh, fulfilling the prophecy of the Lord Jesus, “For as the lightning comes out of the east, and shines even to the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew 24:27). Accordingly, the Church is referred to by various Christian denominations as “Eastern Lightning.” The name “Almighty God” fulfills the prophecy in the Book of Revelation, “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, said the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8).
Christian doctrine originates from the Bible. The doctrine of The Church of Almighty God originates from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, as well as The Word Appears in the Flesh expressed by Almighty God—the second coming of Lord Jesus. The Word Appears in the Flesh fulfills the prophecies of “the scroll opened by the lamb” (Revelation 5:1-5) and “what the Spirit said to the churches” (Revelation 2:7, 11; 3:6).
The missionary purpose of The Church of Almighty God is making people see that Almighty God is the second coming of Lord Jesus, who has already begun the work of “judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 peter 4:17) as prophesied in the Bible, so that all Protestants and Catholics who truly believe in God and love the truth can accept His words and work, and thus be taken up into heaven. This is also why The Church of Almighty God has been slandered and condemned by many religious leaders.
The Church of Almighty God officially commenced preaching the gospel to Christians of all denominations and sects in Mainland China in 1995. As of 2005, more than a million people from Christian house churches and underground Catholic churches have converted to Almighty God, including those from the Shouters sect (also known as the Local Church in the West), Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Born-Again Movement, the Sola Fide Movement, and the Great Praise sect, as well as some former non-believers. As of now, there are around 3.5 million The Church of Almighty God Christians in Mainland China.
Persecution Time Line
Since the CAG was founded in 1991, members of the Church have been arrested, imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) police for attending church meetings and preaching the gospel. The CCP has offered a reward for information leading to the capture of the CAG’s top-ranking executive leader, who is wanted for organizing church activities such as arranging meetings.
In 1995, the CCP released a document condemning Christian house churches such as the CAG, the Shouters, and the All Ranges Church as Xie Jiao,1 and then cruelly suppressed the CAG under the guise of “cracking down on Xie Jiao.”
In 1998, an internal document of the CCP Ministry of Public Security requested all areas to deploy secret forces to investigate the CAG.
In 1999, the CCP Ministry of Public Security issued another document, claiming that the CAG had continued to expand and demanding further strengthening of the investigation into the CAG.
In April 2000, the CCP Ministry of Public Security set out a list of Xie Jiao in notice No. 39, demanding the suppression and banning of 14 religious organizations including the CAG. Christian house churches comprised more than half of the list.
In August 2000, the CCP Ministry of Public Security held a secret meeting, during which it claimed that the CAG was growing at an alarming rate and set up “The Church of Almighty God Project.” Codenamed “Project 807,” the project provided a unified command within national borders to carry out special investigations and suppression against the CAG. Jia Chunwang, the Minister of Public Security at the time, said during the work meeting to “take them out without making a sound.” This document was released in 2002 by Freedom House, which also simultaneously released an additional 5 documents related to the suppression of the CAG.1
Since 2000, the CCP has conducted many secret meetings and launched special projects and operations in various provinces, cities and districts across the country to capture The Church of Almighty God Christians. For example: The Ministry of Public Security’s “Thunder No. 3” project in 2005; Guangdong’s “Thunder No. 3 0808” operation between 2008 and 2009; Shanxi’s “7·17” operation in 2009; Henan’s “Thunder No. 3 BDS301” project in 2011 (“Operation Windstorm”), which captured 14 leaders and many brothers and sisters of the CAG. Meeting materials revealed that the operation was preceded by 8 months of secret surveillance, analyses of more than 500 phone records, and more than 100 instances of tracking church members.
In late 2012, the CCP accused the CAG Christians of “propagating the end of the world,” and publicly arrested a large number of church members. Based on incomplete statistics, in the two short years between 2011 and 2013, at least 380,380 CAG Christians were arrested, detained, or sentenced to prison terms merely for participating in religious activities, 35,330 church members had their homes raided, at least 1 billion RMB was forcibly confiscated, 43,640 church members were subjected to various kinds of torture via kangaroo courts, and 17 people were persecuted to death.
In early 2014, the CCP further increased its suppression and persecution of the CAG. Internal CCP documents reveal that, as of May 2014, authorities in Guangdong province had arrested 990 CAG Christians and confiscated at least 2.5 million RMB in church assets within the span of 1 year and 4 months.
On June 16, 2014, using the Zhaoyuan McDonald’s murder as the reason, the CCP launched the “Hundred Days Battle” operation to openly suppress the CAG, offering rewards of 10 million RMB for information leading to the arrest of the CAG Christians.2 Concrete arrest numbers could not be tabulated due to the severity of the persecution. Despite some media accounts, the gap between reported arrests and the actual number of people arrested is significant. At least 500,000 Christians are estimated to have been forced to flee their homes, with a portion escaping overseas.
In 2017, the CCP increased its persecution of the CAG. At the start of the year, the CCP commenced a “Door-knocking Operation,”3 conducting a dragnet search for the CAG Christians, establishing a database, and making group arrests. According to the church statistics, at least 583 Christians were arrested in Zhejiang province from July 2 to July 10, 2017. As of early October of the same year, the number of people arrested had increased to 638. The majority of those arrested remain in detention. Precise details cannot be obtained as family visitations are prohibited.
As of January 2018, 38,457 CAG Christians have published their personal cases of arrest and persecution under aliases on the official CAG website.4 These cases are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the total number of the CAG Christians who have suffered persecution.
Here are some cases concerning the persecution of CAG, including 15 Cases of Death by Persecution, 5 Cases of Torture Resulting in Disability and 8 Cases of Imprisonment.
15 Cases of Death by Persecution:
Case 1:
Mr. Xie Yongjiang, 43 years old at that time, was from Wugou Town, Suixi County in Anhui Province’s Huaibei City. He was a member of the Local Church, and later on joined The Church of Almighty God in 1991. On April 30, 1997, after finishing the Church affairs, he and his son-in-law Mr. Gao (24 years old at the time) and Gao’s father (54 years old at the time) were stopped by some police officers of Wugou Town Police Station, near Wugou Town. 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. Xie’s son-in-law said, they were tortured in custody. On May 2, Xie Yongjiang’s family was notified that he had been dead at the police station at 2 a.m. that same morning. His family’s request to view his remains was denied. On May 10, the day Xie Yongjiang’s remains were cremated, his family was able to view his remains at the Suixi County Baishan Crematorium. His entire body was covered with wounds, and a welt, like a full circle, was around his neck. He was obviously tortured to death.
Case 2
Mr. Zhang Zhaoqi, from Qin County, Changzhi City, Shanxi Province, joined The Church of Almighty God in 2001. Just after 9 o’clock in the evening on September 8, 2005, Zhang Zhaoqi was forcibly captured by police officers whilst meeting at a Christian’s house in Jiaokou Town, Qinyuan County and later was escorted in handcuffs to Qinyuan County Detention Center. On the evening of September 9, during the interrogation, Zhang was tortured and beaten to death with a wooden stick, at 50 years of age by Director Hao Mingzhu of Qinyuan County Detention Center. The fourth day after Zhang’s death, the police notified Zhang’s family of his death, but made no mention of the cause of his death or the location of the body, etc. They just used 19,000 RMB to seal the matter with the deceased’s family. Zhang Zhaoqi’s relatives have never seen Zhang’s body. Several months later, murderer Hao Mingzhu was transferred from Qin County Detention Center to the National Security Brigade.
Case 3:
Mr. Wang Mingchi, was a native of Shen County in Liaocheng City in Shandong Province. He became a member of The Church of Almighty God in May 2002. One day in May 2006, while on his way to deliver Christian books for The Church of Almighty God in Yanggu County in the city of Liaocheng, he was captured by several police officers of National Security Brigade from Yangu County. He was sent to that County’s Public Security Bureau and interrogated and tortured for a confession. One after another, the police officers viciously slapped his ears and beat him up. For many days, they used all sorts of instruments of torture to torment Wang. During this time, Wang lost consciousness many times. The Yanggu County police charged Wang with the “crime of disrupting social order and scalping books” and sentenced him to 3 years of reeducation through labor. They sent him to a labor camp in Zibo City located in Shandong Province. His body was bruised and battered and his body was already extremely weak, yet he was forced to do heavy labor. Before long, he was bedridden with illness. His body weight fell from 90 kg to less than 50 kg. When the police saw that Wang was dying, they released him early on December 17, 2006, because they did not want to be blamed for his death. On the night of December 24, 2006, Wang unfortunately passed away due to his grave condition. At the time, he was 45 years old.
Case 4:
Ms. Zhang Huanfu, was from Zhuyang Town, Jiangjin District, Chongqing City, and originally a co-worker of a faction. She joined The Church of Almighty God in May 2000. On August 18, 2008, Zhang Huanfu hosted a Christian gathering because of her faith and was thus captured by Chongqing Municipality Yongchuan District Public Security Bureau and sentenced to re-education through labor; she served her sentence at Shimahe Women’s Re-education Through Labor Camp, Jiangbei District, Chongqing City. The first time her husband Mr. Cao went to visit her, he saw that Zhang had been beaten so much that her nose was bruised and her face swollen and deformed. During her prison term, Zhang Huanfu was forced to work 15 hours each day of overloaded labor and was often punished physically, not allowed to go to the toilet, having to urinate or defecate in her trousers and not allowed to eat. Sometimes Zhang fainted as she was so hungry, but the team leader said she was feigning madness and acting like an idiot, punched and kicked her and even the prisoners who helped Zhang suffered physical punishment. Zhang Huanfu was physically and mentally tortured and she committed suicide in prison one day in April 2009 at the age of 50 years old.
Case 5:
Ms. Shen Xiurong, 42 years of age, from Pingyuan County, Dezhou City, Shandong Province, joined The Church of Almighty God in 1998. She was a church leader. At noon on March 6, 2008, three police officers from Pingyuan County Public Security Bureau National Security Brigade, Dezhou City came to Shen’s home and captured her without showing any credentials and took her to Pingyuan County Public Security Bureau National Security Brigade for interrogation. The police forced her to disclose the situation of other Christians. When she refused, the police threatened to detain her. At around 4 o’clock in the afternoon that day, Shen’s husband learned that Shen had fallen to her death from a Public Security Bureau building. The police said that Shen had committed suicide by jumping from a building. The suspicious part is that Shen fell from the toilet’s window on the third floor with her head facing downward and crashed into a trash container. The circumstance of her death could not have been suicide. Shen’s true cause of death cannot be known. On March 10, Shen’s remains were cremated. The Public Security Bureau of Pingyuan County paid Shen’s family 220,000 RMB in compensation to keep this incident private and threatened them not to investigate this matter further.
Case 6:
Mr. Yu Futing, was a native of Longhe Township, Changshou District, Chongqing City. He joined The Church of Almighty God in 2005. On September 10, 2009, when gathering at a Christian’s home, Yu was caught and taken to Changshou District Duzhou Police Station for interrogation by Chief Zhang Biao of the Hexing Police Station in Liangping County, policemen of the Changshou District Duzhou Police Station and village cadres, totaling more than 10 people. The police beat him with an electric baton during the interrogation. Later, the court sentenced him to a year of labor re-education on charge of “participating in a Xie jiao organization and disrupting social order.” According to Yu when he was still alive, he was mistreated and tortured by police at the labor re-education camp because of his belief in Almighty God. In winter, the prison guards instigated other prisoners to pour cold water on his head and blew cold air at him with a fan. He became ill afterward. His illness worsened day by day due to the long-term heavy manual labor, and prison guards still continued to beat and abuse him. On April 24, 2010, only when Yu was persecuted so badly that he could no longer walk or work did the police let Yu’s family pick him up. When he was released, Yu’s entire body was swollen, especially his head, and his abdomen was also swollen with hard lumps. Yu was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer after returning home. He died on October 5, 2010 despite treatment.
Case 7:
Ms. Wang Fengtian, from Zuoshan Town, Changyi City, Weifang, Shandong Province, was a Christian from The Church of Almighty God. At around 7 p.m. on January 16, 2009, Wang was caught at home by police from Zuoshan Street Police Station and taken to the local police station. She was later taken to Weifang City Detention Center and locked up. During this time, the police forced her to reveal where the Church’s money was kept as well as whereabouts of other Christians, but were refused. Wang was interrogated four times. When Wang was being interrogated, Christian Hai’ou who was also detained there had heard her cry. She also saw extremely heavy shackles put on Wang so that she was not able to stand up and could not straighten her back to walk. After one month, the police could not get any evidence for her conviction and then escorted three people including Wang to a hotel to set up a clandestine tribunal and extract confession through torture. According to Hai’ou, during her forced confessions, she heard the roar of the police coming from the next room and the sound of smashing and Wang’s screams. She also heard the police say that Wang was already beaten black-and-blue for refusing to confess. Half a month of forced confession later (the beginning of March), Wang was tortured to death by the police at the age of 39. Because Wang was beaten beyond recognition, too horribly to look at, the police gave her make-ups before informing her family of her death. When Wang’s younger sister went to identify the body, she saw bruises all over her sister’s back. It was obvious that she had been subject to inhuman torture and abuse before she died!
To be continued
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