Christian Tian Ji’an Dies After Brutal Beating by Chinese Communist Police

Tian Ji’an, male, born September 27, 1953, resident of Huafeng Township, Shizhu County, Chongqing Municipality, started his faith in Jesus Christ in 1997, and joined The Church of Almighty God (CAG) on June 8, 2002. After being arrested and brutally beaten by the Chinese Communist police on June 5, 2006, Tian was crippled from a lacerated lumbar vertebra, which resulted in his disability for work, and his cranium was fractured, and a fractured bone fragment was recessed into his brain. The blockage resulted from hardened blood coagulation led to his neurological disorders and impaired reasoning. After more than nine years of affliction, Tian died on April 2, 2016, at the age of 63.

On June 5, 2006, at 4 p.m., when Tian Ji’an’s wife, Jin Zhenghua, and two other Christians were preaching the gospel to four potential converts in their own house, the front door was suddenly rammed open. Led by Captain Sun Jianming, Director Liu Zhikui and Secretary Zhou Shicai of the National Security Brigade, Shizhu County, Chongqing Municipality, more than a dozen policemen broke into the house, placed the Christians under control, and beat Jin Zhenghua viciously. Immediately afterward, the police pressed Tian Ji’an on the floor, handcuffing him behind his back and throwing a burst of violent punches and kicks to him. A policeman stepped and treaded hard on Tian’s back and shoulders. Another policeman stepped and treaded hard on Tian’s back and waist while a third policeman stepped on Tian’s head. Some other plainclothes policemen in leather shoes kicked Tian hard on his body. They yelled as they were beating Tian, “Kill him! Dammit, kill him….” Tian shrieked in pain throughout the ordeal, powerless to resist. More than a dozen of young and strong policemen kept on battering him for more than an hour before they stopped. Tian Ji’an was beaten unconscious on the spot. He was close to death. His face was ashen and his lips blue.

After that, Zhou Shicai and two other policemen ransacked the house and seized four spiritual books, a pack of spiritual compact discs and other items. The police took Tian Ji’an, Jin Zhenghua and others into police cars respectively and escorted them to the Shizhu County National Security Brigade for interrogation. That night, seeing Tian Ji’an was seriously wounded and fearing that he might die at the National Security Brigade and bring trouble to them, the police sent him home. On the third day after returning home, Tian Ji’an felt his condition was worsening: he lost a lot of weights and felt it hard to swallow anything or sleep; he coughed and urinated with thin blood; and he even became incontinent. He was too weak to do anything.

On July 5, Jin Zhenghua was sentenced to one-year imprisonment on the charge of “disturbing public order,” serving her sentence outside prison. A month later, when she went home to dress Tian’s wounds with medicinal cream, she saw that his body was covered with bruises in the color of pig liver as a result of the police’s beatings. There was a fist-sized dented mark on his waist and a dumpling-sized cyst on his shoulder. On his head, there were two hairless spots about an inch by half-an-inch in size each and more than a dozen of smaller dumpling-sized hairless spots. He looked dazed and his speech was incoherent and hesitant. So Jin scraped together 1,000 RMB by borrowing from different people and took Tian to the Shizhu County Hospital. Upon examination by the physician, Tian Ji’an was suffering from many serious internal injuries. Blood stasis in his brain had pressed the nerves and blocked the cerebral blood vessels which led to a blood clot. The beatings had inflicted Tian Ji’an with a lacerated lumbar vertebra and fractured cranium with a bone fragment the size of a thumb being recessed into the brain. The blockage resulted from hardened blood coagulation led to neurological disorders and aberrant reasoning. The doctor said, “The part of the skull where the bone fragment is recessed in the brain is inoperable. To operate on it involves life-threatening risks. Without surgery, he can only live for six to seven years at most.”

Since then, Tian Ji’an who used to be healthy and strong had experienced severe pain in the lumbar spines, chest, and brain due to the Chinese police‘s violent beatings. He totally lost his ability to work and exhibited neurological disorders and impaired reasoning. He often wanted to walk around in the field, but he could not recognize his own field when he went there. On several occasions, he tremblingly weeded the fields of others. Sometimes, when he weeded his own land, he uprooted the seedlings instead.Because of their poor economic situation, Tian’s family couldn’t afford the medical treatment and just controlled his condition with medicine. Later, his condition was increasingly worsening. He became incontinent and completely lost his mind and the ability to take care of himself. Sometimes when he was extremely painful, he would beat and scold his wife, Jin Zhenghua.
On April 2, 2016, Tian Ji’an passed away.