Two Christians from The Church of Almighty God in Jiangsu Province were arrested and given more than 7 years’ imprisonment. Some Christians revealed that they were subjected to brutal torture during detention.
Ma Chunlan (pseudonym Hu Yang), female, was born on September 28, 1970 in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province. She came to have faith in the Lord Jesus in 1992 and joined The Church of Almighty God in 2012. At her arrest she was in charge of the logistical work of the church, including distributing faith-related materials to church members.
Wang Ruiling (pseudonym Zhao Ling), female, was born on August 8, 1971 in Xuzhou City, Jiangsu Province. She joined The Church of Almighty God in 2016. At her arrest she was in charge of the logistical work of the church, including distributing faith-related materials to church members.
Around 8 a.m. on August 31, 2017, seven or eight plainclothes police officers from Xuzhou City Pei County Public Security Bureau and Zizhuang Town Police Station broke into a Christian’s home in Xuzhou City, where Ma Chunlan, Wang Ruiling and four other Christians were dealing with church affairs. Without showing any documents, they handcuffed the Christians and kept them under control in the house.
The police then made a search wantonly, turning the entire house upside down, and leaving no stone untouched. A 1 square meter or so pit was dug up in the bathroom, and the ground of the yard was excavated. The police plundered RMB 13,227 (USD $1,850) of church money, RMB 17,000 (USD $2,377) of personal money, 4 computers, 2 hard drives, 200 TF cards, 275 faith-related books, and more than 2,000 copies of other faith-related materials, 5 electric vehicles and other properties. They didn’t stop the search until over 12 at noon. After the naked inspections by the police, the six Christians including Ma Chunlan and Wang Ruiling were taken to Pei County Public Security Bureau. The police said they had monitored them for more than half a year.
That night, the police went to search Ma Chunlan and other Christian’s homes, confiscating items like an uncounted number of TF cards containing faith-related information and a MP5 player in Ma’s home. Wang Ruiling’s personal bank card with RMB 39,900 (USD $ 5,580) was taken away by the CCP. And they lined their own pockets with another Christian’s cash of RMB 5,000 for the children’s living expenses.
According to another Christian arrested together, Wang Ruiling was beaten into screaming heartbreakingly by the police in the interrogation room, being tortured for a whole night. On September 1, she saw Wang unable to walk.
That night, she heard her piercing screams of pain again. On the morning of September 2, she saw that the police forced Wang to divulge information on the church by ordering her to keep kneeling on the ground, even at her meal time.
On September 12, 2017, Ma Chunlan, Wang Ruiling and several other Christians were criminally detained by the Xuzhou City Pei County Public Security Bureau on suspicion of “organizing and using a xie jiao organization to undermine the enforcement of the law” and were then held at the Xuzhou Detention Center.
On April 23, 2019, Ma Chunlan was sentenced to 7 years and 6 months in prison (from September 12, 2017 to March 11, 2025) on the charge of “using a xie jiao organization to undermine the enforcement of the law” by the Gulou District People’s Court of Xuzhou City, and fined RMB 20,000 (USD $2,600), while Wang Ruiling was sentenced to 7 years in prison (from September 12, 2017 to September 11, 2024), and fined RMB 20,000 (USD $2,600).
On May 14, 2019, Ma Chunlan and Wang Ruiling were escorted to the Nantong Women’s Prison in Jiangsu Province to serve their terms.
