Shouted down
A 2012 raid on a Bible study group in rural Henan province has resulted in the jailing of seven participants for being members of an "evil cult". More than a year after the incident, those convicted and their families are still looking for answers, writes Xu Donghuan. Pictures by Simon Song
''You are all surrounded," heard Wen Yanzhao, with a start. He had just finished lunch and was sitting on the roof of a farmhouse, in the shade of a large tree, playing with his mobile phone. He watched in amazement as dozens of police officers in plain clothes, each wielding a baton, broke into the courtyard.
"All the Christian brothers were taking a nap inside. They were dragged by their hair, one by one, out of their beds and were made to squat at the centre of the courtyard," he recalls, clearly still angry about the event, which took place on April 14, last year.
Wen scurried to a side room to hide but was chased out by a policeman with a baton. "I was very scared and had no idea what was going on," the 25-year-old says.
Having come from a neighbouring town to visit his sister and year-old niece, in Daying village, in Henan province's Ye county, nearly 800 kilometres south of Beijing, Wen had joined a Bible study group.
After being subdued, he and a dozen other men from the study group were escorted to a bus parked on the main road outside the village and driven to a local primary school. They were led to a small classroom with a dirty, wet floor and were given "smelly" food to eat.
Female members of the study group were being held elsewhere at the school, among them Wen's sister, who was joined later by the baby daughter she needed to breastfeed.
The next day, the two groups, 54 people in all - who had been picked up from three Daying courtyard houses, two of which were used only as lodgings - were taken to the village's animal quarantine station for questioning. Before he was released, at the end of the day, Wen was made to write a pledge saying he'd never again attend such a gathering. Two officials from his town came to pick him up. After having taken him home, they asked Wen's mother to give them 200 yuan (HK$250) for their trouble. They left without offering her a receipt.