for handing out Bibles in southwest China’s Guizhou province, BosNewsLife learned Monday, July 5.
The French News Agency (AFP) quoted China’s state run Legal Daily newspaper as saying that police in Guizhou’s Tongzi county arrested Jiang Zongxiu, a farmer, on June 18 on suspicion of "spreading rumors and inciting to disturb social order."
They had planned to detain her for 15 days, the report said, alleging Jiang died in police custody the afternoon she was arrested.
Her mother-in-law, Tan Dewei, who was arrested with Jiang but later released, told reporters police kicked Jiang repeatedly during interrogation AFP reported. Police later informed Jiang’s family she had died of a sudden illness and turned over her body to the family, but relatives saw she was covered with bruises and blood stains, the report alleged.It is at least the second published killing of a Christian by Chinese police in as many months, although human rights watchdogs believe torture of Christians and dissidents is wide spread in the Communist nation.
In a letter received by the BosNewsLife news service last month Gu Xiangyan said her brother Gu Xianggao, 28, who was falsely accused of murder, had been tortured to death in April after police raided his 500-thousand strong house church movement known as "Three Grades Servants" in Heilongjiang Province, northeast China.
Like Gu, Jiang was apparently healthy before the police detention began. AFP quoted Jiang’s husband and other villagers in neighboring Chongqing municipality where Jiang lived as saying that she was in good health before the arrests "and was responsible for doing most of the family’s farm work."
PUBLIC OUTCRY
Chinese police officials have refused to comment on the case. An operator manning the phones at the Guizhou police station said she was "not aware of the incident", AFP reported. The unprecedented report on the attack by state media is seen as a sign of public disgust with police tactics and China’s continuing crackdown on religious practitioners.
In recent weeks more than 100 evangelical leaders are known to have been detained, and recently the Vatican expressed concern over the whereabouts of several bishops. Besides church leaders even Bible owners are targeted and several of them have reportedly been send to labor camps for "re-education."
Bibles are banned from book stores and are not easy to obtain, AFP reported from China. Human rights organizations say the Communist authorities have recently given a "secret directive" to police forces to crackdown on the rapidly growing underground churches, also known as the house church movement, which the government sees as a threat to the Communist ideology and Atheism.
Only observing religion in state churches is allowed. Despite the difficulties, China is experiencing the largest church growth in the world, analysts say.
