ICC Note: New details have emerged on the treatment of three Christians taken into custody in Shaanxi Province, China. One of the detained Christians, Feng Tiandong, was placed in a torture chair called a “tiger bench” and, according to his attorneys, still bears scars from his brutal initial arrest. The three believers have been detained for more than two months for “organizing an evil cult,” a charge commonly used in China to harass religious minorities.  
2/12/2014 China (ChinaAid) – After learning more details in the case of three Shaanxi believers, who have been detained for more than two months, their lawyers and family members persist in calling for their release.
Feng Tiandong, Zhang Baolin and Jiang Mao were taken into custody between Dec. 1 and Dec. 9 and charged with organizing and using an evil cult organization to obstruct the law. However, in an arrest notice issued for Feng Tiandong on Jan. 3, the charge was changed to gathering a crowd to assault a state official. Lawyers for Zhang and Jiang confirmed the same change in their charges as well.
Because of this change, the lawyers said, there is no basis for the Zizhou County Public Security Bureau to have requested that the provincial and municipal Public Security Bureaus form the “11-15” task force for the purpose of detaining individuals suspected of organizing and using an evil cult organization to obstruct the law, specifically members of Zhenzizhou Church.
Lawyers Lin Qilei, Xia Jun and Liang Jiangzhou, representing Feng, Zhang and Jiang, respectively, sent letters to the director of the Zizhou County Public Security Bureau and the head of the Domestic Security Protection Squad before the Chinese New Year, which began on Jan. 31.
Xia wrote in the letter that if the Christians were released from custody, the information contained in the letter wouldn’t be made public. However, all three men remain in prison.
In the letter, the lawyers said that on Nov. 15, Feng went to the Laojundian Police Station in Zizhou County to get back items that had been illegally seized by the Zizhou County Public Security Bureau on Jan. 3, 2011. Items seized included a pig’s head [used in Chinese cooking], pork and other daily necessities.
The lawyers said that Feng didn’t go to the police station with the purpose of assaulting state employees, nor did he commit this act.
Additionally, the letter said that on at 4 p.m. on Dec. 8, five police officers from the Zizhou County Public Security Bureau arrested Feng, intentionally using excessive force when handcuffing his wrists. This incident left Feng with five scars.
Throughout that night, Feng was tortured and made to sit on a tiger bench, a chair designed to maximize pain, from which he still bears marks.
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