Wang Hongli, female, was born on December 18, 1975, and lived in Xiangyun County in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture located in Yunnan Province. She joined The Church of Almighty God in 2011. On August 20, 2014, she was arrested by the Chinese Communist Party police because of her belief in Almighty God, and on March 24, 2015, she was sentenced to five years in prison. While serving her sentence, she was forced to carry out intense labor all year round; her weight dropped from 55 kilograms (121 pounds) to just 32 kilograms (71 pounds). Her face became so thin that she couldn’t fully close her lips over her teeth, her skin was yellowed, and her eyes were sunken in. In August 2017 Wang Hongli suffered from a continuous high fever, was unable to eat, and when working didn’t even have the strength to pick up a pair of scissors. She was only able to lean against the sewing machine with her eyes closed or sit on the floor, leaning against something. In spite of this, the prison guards didn’t allow her a single day of rest. On October 1, 2017, Wang Hongli died from overwork during her prison time at just 42 years of age.
On August 20, 2014 at about 8:00 a.m., Wang Hongli was at another Christian’s home discussing the work of the church with some other Christians when they were arrested by more than ten officers with the Xiangyun County Public Security Bureau, the Xiangyun County National Security Brigade, and the Shalong Town Police Station, where they were then taken. After 1:00 p.m., over ten officers with the Xiangcheng Town Police Station in Xiangyun County went over a wall to enter Wang Hongli’s home and search it. They seized thousands of yuan of church offerings. That evening after 7:00 p.m., Wang Hongli was detained in the Xiaguan Town Detention Center in Dali City on suspicion of “using a Xie Jiao organization to undermine the enforcement of the law.”
On March 9, 2015, the Xiangyun County People’s Court in Yunnan Province sentenced Wang Hongli to five years’ imprisonment on the charge of “using a Xie Jiao organization to undermine the enforcement of the law” (her family didn’t receive any notification of the hearing or the verdict). She was then transferred to the Yunnan No. 1 Women’s Prison to serve out her sentence.
On December 30, 2015 when her family went to visit her in prison, Wang Hongli told them that she had been doing the work of packing up jeans and stitching hems nonstop, and when she was unable to fulfill her quota she would be punished with extra work.
On December 30, 2016, Wang Hongli was transferred to the Qujing Women’s Prison in Yunnan Province to continue serving her sentence.
On May 30, 2017, her family once again went to visit her in prison. They saw that her face was yellowed, her eyes were sunken in, and she was emaciated. Her face was so thin that her lips couldn’t close over her teeth, and her collarbones were jutting out. They inquired and learned that her weight had fallen from 55 kilograms (121 pounds) to just 32 kilograms (71 pounds). When she saw her family members, she cried and said: “I can’t hold on any longer.”
According to Yang Qian (pseudonym), another Christian who was in the same workshop as Wang Hongli, sometime around August 2017, Wang Hongli had a persistent high fever, became unable to eat, and suffered from general weakness. Subsequently, when working she didn’t even have the strength to hold a pair of scissors; all she could do was lean against the sewing machine with her eyes closed or sit on the floor leaning against something. In spite of this, the prison guards didn’t allow her to rest for a single day. As usual, she had to go to the workshop for work in the morning and stopped along with the other prisoners in the afternoon.
On September 26, 2017, Wang Hongli’s family were notified that she was seriously ill. On September 30, they rushed to the Qujing Women’s Prison but were unable to see her that day.
The afternoon of October 1, the police told Wang Hongli’s family that an examination revealed that she had severe myocardial ischemia, a cerebral infarction, and a lung infection. She was bedridden. That evening around 9:00 p.m., Wang Hongli died because her conditions had not been treated. She was only 42 years old.
Her family said that prior to her arrest, she had always been in good health with no history of myocardial ischemia or cerebral infarction.
