Yang Yi (pseudonym), female, born in 1960, from the eastern province of Zhejiang, is a Christian of The Church of Almighty God (CAG). She was arrested by the police in July 2017 for her belief, and later sentenced to two years and six months in prison. During her sentence term, because she refused to give up her belief, she was subjected to various tortures and insults, causing her serious physical aftereffects.
Arrested for religious belief
On July 2, 2017, the Zhejiang provincial government carried out a unified arrest operation targeting CAG Christians, resulting in arrests of nearly 700 people, among whom was Yang Yi.
In December 2018, nearly one and a half years after Yang Yi was sent to a detention house, she was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and fined 6,000 RMB (about $ 840) on the charge of “using a xie jiao organization to undermine law enforcement.”
Subjected to violent indoctrination
After Yang Yi was imprisoned, prison authorities arranged a triple team [inmates most sinister and vicious in the prison, used often by CCP to surveil and transform prisons of conscience] to take charge of transforming her through indoctrination. Every day, the triple team forced her to watch videos that blaspheme and defame the CAG, and when she finished watching, they forced her to sign a statement promising to give up her belief. As Yang refused, the triple team beat her violently on the head and in the face, until she was beaten black and blue and her mouth was filled with blood. The team also pressed her on a stool, pulled her hair hard, and twisted her left hand behind her back and pulled it upward. They then pressed her right hand and forced her to sign. As Yang Yi clenched her fist and struggled desperately, they used the tip of the pen to pierce underneath her fingernails until three of her fingers were bloody.
To force her to give up her belief, the triple team tormented her with various measures. They forced her to stand straight, and put a thick book between each of her palms and her thighs, and they would beat her if she crooked her fingers to hold a book or a book fell down; they took water from the urine bucket and forced it into her mouth; they lifted her body and threw it on the floor, causing her severe pain in the spine and tailbone; they wrote blasphemous words on her face, the backs of her hands, and her soles; they put sharp walnut shells into her shoes, and ordered her to put on her shoes before stepping and trampling on her feet, and as a result, the walnut shells pierced into her soles, giving her so much pain that she screamed and suffered extremely.
Inhuman sexual abuse
To destroy Yang Yi’s will, the triple team stripped her of padded clothes in the deep of winter. They also put essential balm in her panties and applied cooling ointment inside and outside her private parts before giving hard kicks at her private parts and anus. They seized and pulled her nipples hard, and even used iron clips to nip her nipples and forcibly turned the clips, so that she screamed with extreme pain. Her nipples were nearly nipped to shreds, and her underwear fronts were soaked with blood. After taking down the clips, the triple team sprayed disinfectants on her wounds. It felt like that countless needles pierced into her breasts, causing her unbearable pain. They tormented her that way about ten hours on each of four consecutive days. They also put chili powder or disinfectants into her eyes, nose, and mouth, which caused piercing pain in her eyes.
On top of inhuman mistreatment, Yang Yi was deprived of food and sleep. She was given a little food every third day, and sometimes she was not given any drink during several days. She was woken up by the triple team every ten minutes at night. Within only half a month, she was so tormented that she became terribly skinny, had blood in the urine, and lost 20 kgs in weight.
In January 2020, Yang Yi was released after completing her sentence term. As inhuman tortures caused her serious physical aftereffects, her eyes were inflamed for a long time, itchy and painful, and her vision was blurred, incurable.
