LONDON — China’s most famous house church prisoner, Mr. Xu Yongze, is free. The 58-year-old founder of the Born Again movement was released May 16, after serving a three-year “re-education through labor” sentence for establishing an illegal organization in China.
Xu revealed that he was tortured during interrogation sessions. Three weeks after his release, he told a friend in Beijing that once he had each arm handcuffed to an iron gate and when the gates were opened he was stretched up off the ground in a gruesome crucifix position.
Xu was originally arrested March 15, 1997, when police raided a meeting of house church leaders in central China. Initially, no word was heard of him and Christians worldwide began to fear the worst.
Then Chinese authorities intended to give him a 10-year sentence, but international pressure built up to such an extent that he instead received a four-year sentence, which was decreased to three years in December 1997.
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