Arrested and Mistreated CAG Christian Feng Kaiju Hangs Himself due to CCP’s Years of Surveillance and Harassment After Release

Feng Kaiju, male, was born on July 6, 1943, and was from the Lieshan District of Huaibei City in Anhui Province. He joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) in 2003. In December 2012, Feng Kaiju, nearly 70 years old, was arrested by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) police while preaching the gospel and taken into custody. While in custody he was beaten, mistreated and abused by the police; he was cruelly tortured both physically and psychologically, leading him to develop emphysema and asthma. After his release the police frequently went to his home and harassed his family members; the elderly Feng Kaiju and his wife were forced to flee the region. However, the police frequently made harassing phone calls to his son, demanding to know his whereabouts. Unbearably suffering immense psychological stress from the CCP police’s long-term surveillance and harassment as well as the torment of his health conditions, he committed suicide on February 10, 2018 at the age of 75.

The morning of December 12, 2012, while Feng Kaiju and his wife were spreading the gospel, they were arrested by the police and taken to the Xihe Police Station in Suixi County. The police questioned him, trying to get him to disclose information on himself and the church. When he refused to answer, the police suspected him of being a church leader and transferred him to Suixi County Development Zone Detention Center. His wife was released at 2 am on the morning of December 13, 2012.

Because Feng Kaiju was a believer in Almighty God, he was charged with political crimes and the police at the detention center intentionally let him sleep alone on the frigid concrete floor for as much as 20-odd days. It was the dead of winter and the weather was extremely cold; this caused him to catch a chill. Feng Kaiju also frequently suffered from the CCP’s torture and humiliation. For each meal they only gave him one bowl of vegetable soup and a steamed bun and forced him to do manual labor. When he was unable to complete his tasks they would verbally abuse him with filthy language. They forced him to recite the facility rules. He was once unable to recite all of them, and then they punched him in the chest; this caused him severe pain and difficulty breathing.

Two weeks later, six officers burst into his home, and without displaying a search warrant wantonly ransacked the entire house. They didn’t find any evidence about faith at all. Upon returning to the detention center, an officer angrily kicked him down to the ground and said, “Next time we get you, you’ll do three years of time!”

A month later, Feng Kaiju was released and allowed to go home. He said to his family: “I’m afraid of being arrested again. The police said that if I continue believing in God, they’ll arrest me and sentence me to three years. I’m afraid of being starved, beaten, and verbally abused!” In order to avoid being arrested again, he and his wife had no choice but to rent a place elsewhere in hiding. However, the police were still conducting surveillance near his home and frequently calling his son, harassing him. They demanded that he bring Feng Kaiju to the police station. His son said: “The police called me every day. I blocked the police station phone number; I don’t know how they, but they would make video calls to me so that I was on tenterhooks every day.”

His wife said that she risked secretly returning home in the middle of the night twice in 2013; her neighbor told her not to come back anymore because the police repeatedly went to their houses inquiring about Feng Kaiju’s and his wife’s whereabouts, and they had arranged for eyes and ears to keep watch near their house. One fall evening in 2015, Feng’s wife snuck back home again, and before she had been there long two officers came knocking at the door asking where her husband was.

While on the run, Feng Kaiju’s cough grew worse and worse; a doctor’s diagnosis was that he had gotten a bad cold and chill, leading to emphysema and asthma. Every time he went out for treatment he was extremely cautious, afraid of being discovered by the police. In spite of being hospitalized, receiving injections, and taking medicine a number of times, his health steadily deteriorated.

For years, the CCP police kept up their surveillance and harassment, which caused Feng Kaiju to live in terror and anxiety for a long time. In late 2017, he started to show signs of psychological abnormalities. Whenever he heard a police car or heard the words “police station,” he would lose control of himself and run outside in fear.

On February 10, 2018, Feng Kaiju became completely unable to withstand the enormous mental stress and the torment of his illness; under extreme psychological pressure and suffering, he hanged himself to death. He was 75 years old.