Liu Li (pseudonym), female, 30 years old, is a Christian of The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in the central province of Henan. In March 2021, she was released after completing her service in prison. She recounted how she was imprisoned for her belief.
On September 18, 2017, Liu Li was arrested by the CCP police for her faith in Almighty God, and two years later, she was sentenced to three years and six months in prison. During her detention, the police subjected her to torture and transformation through forced indoctrination in order to make her tell the information about the CAG and give up her belief.
The same day when Liu was arrested because of her faith, she was taken to the local police station, and then transferred to a forced indoctrination base. To extort the information about the CAG, the police cuffed her hands behind her back, and repeatedly pulled the cuffs upward. They also slapped her face and neck hard with a thick book and a slipper, forced her to do push-ups and squats. She was tortured in misery.
After she had been held in the detention house for two years, Liu Li was sentenced to three years and six months in prison on the charge of “organizing and using a xie jiao organization to undermine law enforcement,” and was then sent to a women’s prison to serve her terms.
During her service, the prison authorities arranged a double team to watch over and control her 24 hours a day, and subject her to forced indoctrination. To force her to give up her belief and sign the statement promising to renounce her belief, the double team mistreated and tormented her brutally. On several occasions, they seized her hair and gave her hard slaps on the face until she fainted and fell down, and then they gave kicks everywhere on her body. Moreover, they seized her head and knocked it on the frame of the iron bed, punched her stomach more than ten times, and beat her back and arms vigorously with a plastic clothes hanger. They forced her to pose as a terracotta warrior (keeping her back straight, putting her hands on her legs with all her fingers together), keeping squat motionless from 5 a.m. until midnight for four days in a row. During that time, she was forbidden to drink water, and only given a small bite of rice for each meal. She was also forbidden to use the toilet, causing her urinary incontinence. As she was punished to squat many times, Liu’ legs and feet became swollen and numb, and the tendons in her heels hurt as if they were broken. Such torture lasted for 9 months.
Torture has left Liu Li with serious sequelae to her body. So far, her legs feel sore and weak, and her knees hurt.
