China is continuing and intensifying its campaign against the Christian underground. The intensifying persecution is pervasive, though uneven in degree of brutality. Public Security Bureau police have tortured a number of underground Christians over the past year, including brutal beatings that have maimed and even killed, binding detainees in excruciating positions, hanging detainees from their limbs, tormenting them with electric batons and other implements, and crushing the feet and ankles of Christians while they are forced to kneel. China's persistent and intensifying persecution of Chinese Christians is a direct result of China's policy that all Christian worship must occur within government-sanctioned organizations. Both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics who choose to worship independently are stating that this is the worse period of persecution for them since the catastrophic Cultural Revolution.
China has more Christian prisoners and detainees than any other country in the world.
Protestants are being arrested and tortured for holding prayer meetings, preaching, and distributing Bibles without state approval. Roman Catholic priests, including ten bishops, are currently imprisoned, under some form of house arrest or have been disappeared for celebrating Mass and administering the sacraments without official authorization. Christian prisoners are often held in deplorable prison conditions, with some being forced to work as veritable slaves of the state in labor camps throughout the country. Detailed and credible reports document that three evangelicals and one Catholic priest have been beaten to death by police over the past year because of their independent religious activities. Bibles and other property of unregistered Christians have been arbitrarily confiscated and steep fines imposed on their owners.