From July to early August 2026, police in the cities of Wuhan, Xianning, Jingmen, Yichang, and Xiangyang, Hubei Province, launched a large-scale arrest operation targeting Christians from The Church of Almighty God (CAG). According to incomplete statistics, at least 23 CAG Christians were arrested in Wuhan, at least 29 in Xianning, at least 11 in Jingmen, at least 38 in Yichang, and at least 17 in Xiangyang. Among those arrested in Yichang, 15 church members were over the age of 70, including five who were over 80. The oldest was 86. Most of those arrested in Xiangyang were individuals over 60, with the oldest being 80. The coordinated arrest operation also targeted minors and breastfeeding mothers, and even family members of CAG Christians who did not share their faith were taken away. Most of those arrested were sent to brainwashing facilities established by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the respective areas in Hubei. There, they were subjected to forced brainwashing and transformation and pressured to sign the “Three Statements” renouncing their faith. Some church members were sent to a pilot brainwashing facility established by the CCP in Shanxi Province for forced brainwashing and transformation.
According to an individual familiar with the police, before the arrests, police in Hubei had conducted surveillance operations over a period of time, even for several years, using surveillance cameras, tracking devices, cellphone location tracking, and other methods to locate CAG Christians.
CAG Christians in Yichang, Xiangyang, and Jingmen Arrested in Successive Raids
According to the information currently available, among the 38 CAG members arrested in Yichang, most were sent to brainwashing facilities, where they were held and subjected to forced brainwashing. According to Christians who were later released, detainees were subjected to prolonged indoctrination in atheism and repeatedly pressured to undergo so-called “educational transformation.” Some were mistreated through measures such as being forced to stand for long periods, having their food rations reduced, and being deprived of sleep, while some were subjected to torture. Christian Liu Xinhong (female, 74) recalled: “On July 7, I was attending a gathering with three brothers and sisters when four police officers suddenly pried open the door and broke in. I quickly hid in a place where the police did not find me. After the police left, I returned to my residence. Not long afterward, the police arrived and arrested me and took me to the police station.” During her interrogation, Liu Xinhong overheard that the police had begun investigating and monitoring CAG members six months earlier and had gathered information about many of them. She was subsequently released temporarily after becoming ill during the interrogation, as police had been unable to find evidence against her.
According to Christian Cheng Si (female, 67) from Xiangyang, when she returned home from a gathering on the afternoon of July 7, she saw the village public-security director and six or seven public-security officers were about to leave. They were carrying a computer tower and cellphones searched out from her home. Upon seeing her, they immediately arrested her and took her to the Public Security Bureau. She was subjected to a body search and interrogation and was not released until 7 a.m. the following morning.
According to the husband of Christian Fang Jie (female, 69) from Jingmen, Fang Jie left home on the morning of July 31 and did not return. He did not learn that Fang Jie had been arrested until after dinner, when an officer from the local police station called and asked him to bring her a change of clothes and some daily necessities. When Fang Jie’s husband arrived at the police station, an officer reportedly told him: “We knew several years ago that Fang Jie believed in God. Why didn’t we arrest her at home? We were waiting for her to gather with other fellow believers so we could arrest them together and have evidence. Our superiors told us to do this. We also know that they’re just believers in God and have never broken any laws, but there’s nothing we can do. We can’t go against the state.”
Reportedly, three of the 11 CAG Christians arrested in Jingmen remain out of contact.
CAG Christians in Wuhan and Xianning Face Continued Arrests
On July 27, at around 10:30 a.m., only three days after CAG member Li Yun (female, in her 30s) had completed her first month of postpartum confinement, village officials brought five police officers to break into her home. Despite finding no evidence, they forcibly took Li Yun to the Public Security Bureau for questioning. Reportedly, Li Yun’s older sister was also taken away during the arrest operation and was sent to a brainwashing facility in Shanxi Province.
At around 1 p.m. that afternoon, Christian Liu Gang (male, in his 40s) saw six plainclothes police officers kick open the door of another CAG member’s home and forcibly arrest four Christians who were gathering there. Liu Gang said, “None of the police officers who came were from the local area.”
At 5 p.m., seven police officers broke into another CAG member’s home and forcibly arrested all five CAG Christians there. At the same time, Christian Sun Lin was arrested at her rented apartment. After learning of her arrest, her husband went to the apartment the following morning and found the place in complete disarray after the police search. Food was still on the cutting board, and the rice cooker was still plugged in. At 8 a.m., Sun Lin’s husband went to the Public Security Bureau to inquire about her arrest. He was told that she had already been sent to a brainwashing facility in Shanxi Province.
A little after 6 p.m., four police officers—three men and one woman—knocked on the door of Christian An Lina (female, in her 40s). As soon as they entered, they searched the home, even going through bags of garbage that had already been tied up. They then forcibly took An Lina to the police station and confiscated the key to her rented apartment. She was released only after 10 days in detention. When she later asked the police for the key to her apartment, she was told that the apartment had been sealed and that the key had been confiscated. An Lina recalled, “A few days before I was arrested, on July 18, Lin Jie (a church leader) and I discovered that tracking devices had been installed on our electric bicycles. We never expected that we would both be arrested a few days later.” Reportedly, Lin Jie has already been sent to a brainwashing facility.
At a little after 9 p.m. that night, the husband of Liu Jiahui (female, a church leader in her 50s), received a call from the local police station informing him that she had been arrested. The police told him that they had followed her for some time before arresting her. They forced him to sign a consent form authorizing her transfer to a brainwashing facility.
At 9:30 p.m., the police knocked on the door of Christian Wang Yu (female, 70), claiming that water was leaking from the house. As soon as they entered, they conducted an extensive search without explanation and then took Wang Yu and her son, who was not a Christian, to the police station. During interrogation, a police officer showed Wang Yu photographs of her fellow believers and demanded that she identify them. When Wang Yu said she did not know them, the police said something blaspheming God, kicked her forcefully twice, and struck her on the head. At around 4 a.m. the following day, Wang Yu suffered a heart attack. Police released her because they feared being held accountable for her condition.
According to witnesses, on the morning of July 27, four plainclothes officers arrived covertly on the floor of a building, where a CAG Christian lived, and monitored the area. Two ordinary cars arrived one after another, followed by a police vehicle carrying more than a dozen plainclothes officers. Shortly after noon, police arrested four CAG Christians. Reportedly, the police had begun monitoring the location through cellphone tracking a month earlier.
Among the 52 CAG Christians arrested in the cities of Wuhan and Xianning, most were sent to brainwashing facilities in Shanxi Province. Because arrests have been carried out so frequently and the CCP has tightly restricted information, some church members have lost contact with the outside world after their arrests.
Reportedly, the brainwashing facilities in Shanxi Province are CCP-established pilot facilities intended to serve as a “model.” Their administrators also train personnel who are subsequently sent by the CCP to establish brainwashing facilities in other provinces, including Henan, Jiangsu, Hubei, and Hebei. To force CAG Christians to deny God and betray their fellow church members, these facilities use various abusive methods to indoctrinate detainees and subject them to inhumane forms of torture.
Note: All names in this report are pseudonyms.
