Electric torture in China

Evangelical Times | July 20, 2005

There are reports that a prominent Beijing House church leader, Pastor Zhuohua Cai, has been severely tortured with electric cattle prods by his interrogators for ‘confessions’ that he was ‘illegally managing a printing business and illegally profited 200,000RMB’ (£15,000). An eyewitness report speaks of pastor Cai being physically wounded and spiritually depressed. The 34-year-old minister was arrested in September 2004 by security officers in the Chinese capital Beijing for printing ‘illegal religious literature’. Cai’s wife Yunfei Xiao along with her brother Gaowen Xiao and sister-in-law Jinyun Hu were also arrested. The Cais’ five-year-old son is in the care of his grandmother, who has been constantly harassed by the police.

Bob Fu, president of the China Aid Association, condemned the torture: ‘To torture an innocent pastor like Cai for false confessions is a direct violation of the international human rights law. We urge people of all faiths to take action to protest … and demand Pastor Cai and his wife’s immediate release’.