1984 - Zhang Wuji

August 10, 1984

Baiyu Village, Henan

The year 1983 was one of terrible persecution for Christians throughout China. Unregistered house church believers were targeted as ‘spiritual pollution.’ Thousands of believers were arrested, tortured, and imprisoned. Many thousands more went into hiding, fleeing from the onslaught. A 49-year-old Christian man named Zhang Wuji lived in Baiyu Village in Henan Province. His sister, Zhang Ronghua, wrote a letter, later translated and published in Christianity Today, which outlined what happened to him:

“My brother had been persecuted many times for his belief. The last one began at noon, May 12, 1983, when the officers from the Public Security Bureau called him out from his home to outside the village…. In a fury these officers used an electric baton to hit him until he was lying unconscious. He was in their hands for over one month.

Later…under the guise of medical treatment, they forced him to drink a kind of medicine. Knowing that it was white arsenic, a poison, my brother refused. Then several officers pressed him, forcibly prying open his mouth and pouring the poison down his throat. But seeing that he did not die, the officers said in surprise, ‘It is weird; this guy is still alive!’ Again they pried open my brother’s mouth, inserting the baton into it. A finger-sized hole was burned into his tongue.”[1]

When they saw Zhang Wuji was at the point of death, the persecutors sent him home so that the authorities could claim he died with his family and not while in custody. Following some herbal treatments, Zhang’s health suddenly improved and he regained his speech. It was during this time of coherency that he gave the details of his experiences at the hands of the police. The poison had worked a destructive path, however, and his condition gradually deteriorated. On August 10, 1984, Zhang Wuji passed into eternity.