Please pray for Pastor Gong Shengliang imprisoned in China.
 
 
TORTURED SOUTH CHINA LEADERS FEARS FOR HIS LIFE IN PRISON
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s04040053.htm
 
 
Wednesday, April 14, 2004

TORTURED SOUTH CHINA CHURCH LEADER FEARS FOR HIS LIFE IN PRISON
Pastor Gong Shengliang cries for help, human rights watch dog says

By Stefan J. Bos
Special Correspondent, ASSIST News Service

BEIJING, CHINA  (ANS) -- An apparently tortured leader of the reportedly persecuted South China Church has begged his family and other Christians to put pressure on Chinese authorities to get him transferred to another prison as he fears for his life, ASSIST News Service (ANS) monitored Wednesday, April 14.

Pastor Gong Shengliang has told relatives he may soon die in the feared Hongshan Prison in Wuhan City of Hubei Province, reported the well informed religious rights watchdog The Voice of the Martyrs (VOM), which investigates the plight of suffering Christians. "Otherwise just come and pick up my corpse," VOM quoted the pastor as telling his three sisters during a ten minute visit on Monday, April 12.

VOM said it had learned from unidentified sources that Pastor Gong had to be carried into the visiting hall of the prison facility by four other inmates, as he could no longer walk.

"When one of the sisters pressed the guard for an explanation of Gong’s injuries, the guard said the pastor fell while washing windows in the prison," VOM added in a statement seen by ANS. "According to the guard, Gong was washing the inside of the windows, yet somehow fell outside the building."

FALL "INCREDIBLE"

VOM stressed the explanation was hard to believe as the church leader "is accompanied everywhere he goes inside the prison by two guards, making the report of a fall out of a window even more incredible." He is apparently afraid to discuss his injuries openly.

"When Gong was asked about the injury, he first looked at the guard and then said reluctantly, "Yes, I fell,." " VOM said. The organization said the pastor also told his relatives he had stopped writing letters to those outside of prison as he does not have the strength to write. "When I pick up my pen, there are lots of troubles,” VOM quoted him as saying.

VOM added that the prison director, Sun Wenquan, explained to one of his sisters that although Pastor Gong was "a model prisoner in every respect" he 'unfortunately' refused to denounce his faith in Christ, and would not stop praying and preaching. "He is so into the Bible that he has lost touch with reality," the sisters were told, according to VOM.

U.N. INVESTIGATION

The report about his alleged torture came less than two weeks after other persecuted Chinese House Church officials, including sexually abused women, testified for the first time at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights amid claims that the Beijing government is increasing pressure on unregistered churches and active believers.

Analysts say Communist authorities appear concerned they may lose control over the rapidly increasing number of evangelical Christians in China, which is experiencing the fastest church growth in the world. The Chinese authorities have so not commented on the latest developments. But the Beijing Government has reportedly said it will allow the United Nations to carry out an investigation into cases of torture.

VOM has urged Christians to write to the Chinese government on Pastor Gong’s behalf, requesting a transfer of prisons. "The man in charge of the prison says this is a model prisoner," said Todd Nettleton, a spokesman for VOM. "Yet he has already spent 411 days with his arms and legs chained. Without God’s help, this innocent man is not likely to survive many more weeks in Hongshan Prison."

Christians were also requested to letters of encouragement to Pastor Gong at: Gong Shengliang Prison Section Four, Te Yi Hao, Hongshan Prison, Miaoshan Development Zone Jiangxia District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province, People’s Republic of China 430223.