“Come this way”, I was told. “We’re gonna have to ask you some questions.”
As I was being led into a nondescript single story building at the back of the large police complex, I felt my first twinge of real fear. Standing around in a parking lot is one thing, but being locked in an interrogation room, or potentially in a prison cell, is quite another.
My heart began to beat a bit harder and I thought to myself, “Oh, please don’t put me behind bars…”
It was almost dark outside when I was led through the door and into a hallway with rooms on either side and a cell block visible in the shadows at the far end. The first few rooms seemed to be offices, with desks and computers and monitors (probably to keep tabs of what goes on in the back). A bit further down, on the right, I was led into my room, which seemed bright compared to the unlighted hallway. I was immediately relieved to see that it was only an interrogation room, not a cell.
In the Hot Seat
I was instructed to take a seat in the chair in the back left corner of the room. As I quickly sat down, I began to take in my surroundings. There was a large desk, with a computer, just a few feet in front of me (to the left as you come in the door), and a few scattered chairs, facing in my general direction. Hanging on the wall between me and the desk was a large screen.
A few officers accompanied me into the room, including some new faces I hadn’t seen earlier in the evening. I tried to make myself comfortable in my special chair. It reminded me of a public school desk, with a small area that could be used for writing on a solid surface. It also had some sort of chain or locking mechanism, where criminals could be subdued. They never used that capability on me. How nice of them. For the next 6-7 hours, only broken up by a handful of trips to the latrine at the end of the hall, this was to be my only personal space. I squirmed in place, pulling at my baggy shorts and OKC Thunder t-shirt like a teenager who couldn’t wait for the bell to ring, but knew that class was only just getting started.
The police had lured me out of my house in the early evening, when the sun was still up and the air was warm. But outside at the police station, I started to get chilly as the daylight faded and the wind swirled between the buildings. I was finally warming up in the interrogation room, but I was very thirsty. My mouth gets dry when I’m nervous, and even more so when I do a lot of talking. I was happy when someone actually brought me a bit of water, and then the questions began.
“What’s your name?”
I referred them to my passport, refraining from revealing to them any of my pseudonyms.
“Where are you living?”
They knew where I lived. As you will see, many of these initial questions were just a formality.
“How long have you been here?”
A bit more complicated. I had most recently entered China just a month or so earlier, but I had been in and out of the city regularly for nearly 4 years (not once registering with the local police, as the Chinese law requires all foreigners to do). They didn’t like that.
“Do you know why we have detained you?”
Yes and no. I knew that evangelism is technically prohibited, but I wasn’t yet sure how I had been caught. Turns out, a surveillance camera in a small village that we had visited (I am pretty sure I know which one, although there are literally millions of possibilities) captured the license plate of the rental van on camera, giving the police a much needed clue. In a region of nearly four million people, they tracked the van to the alley where they laid the trap for my arrest.
(The following quote from a recent article might shed light on why the police, especially officials from Religious Affairs, tracked us so diligently in 2018 compared to previous years: “In April 2018..the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department formally took control of the State Bureau of Religious Affairs — meaning that the party now directly oversees policy for religious affairs, not the government.”)
“Where all have you traveled in the past week or two?”
I was forced to “reveal” all the areas we had gone to distribute Bibles and tracts at night, while one of the officers cross-checked my answers with a printout of all the places our rental van had been “seen” in the regional highway surveillance system. Even if I had refused, they already knew where we had been! The only thing I made sure to do was “play dumb” with my knowledge of the roads and place names, so that they wouldn’t be suspicious at my extensive knowledge of the region.
What “Thick File”?
One interesting note from the initial line of “basic questioning” is that the police genuinely didn’t know that much about me. I didn’t have a long record or “file” to show they had been spying on me for years. I have often heard it said by certain folks that the police have a “thick file” on all foreigners where all the details about their life and activities are recorded.
For instance, one friend reported: “the local authorities showed them a thick file, containing the transcripts of all emails, phone calls and text messages they had sent to friends and supporters for years…Their private messages were used as evidence against them as they were unceremoniously expelled from the country they love.”
This didn’t prove to be true in my case at all. In fact, when I wrongly assumed that they knew about a previous run-in I had with the police a few years before in a neighboring region, the police looked surprised and went scrambling to try and find some record of that encounter. Whoops, should’ve kept my mouth shut!
Suppertime
Not long after the questions began, a lady officer in plain clothes, who along with a few others had been called in especially for my case, asked me if I was hungry and wanted to eat. I really wasn’t hungry (too much nerves and adrenaline flowing), but knew that I shouldn’t turn down a chance to eat. When they asked me what I wanted, I was tempted to say, “Big Mac and fries, please”, since one of our city’s only McDonalds was just a few blocks away. But I restrained myself.
“Shenme dou keyi,” (Anything is fine) I answered, slightly worried that I might regret it.
They ended up bringing me a typical Chinese plate of rice and stir-fried pork and veggies (somewhat spicy). I sat there in my chair, styrofoam plate in one hand and wooden chopsticks in the other, picking at my food and slowly eating while also continuing to answer a few of the questions I was still being peppered with. I had to force myself to finish, counting my blessings, knowing I wouldn’t get anything else for the rest of the night.
You Have the Right to Edit Your Confession
From the beginning, I noticed that all of the questions, along with my answers, were being typed into the computer by an officer sitting at the desk about six feet in front of me, and that the monitor on the wall beside me was an extension of the computer screen, so that I could see and verify in real-time that everything was being recorded correctly.
I didn’t mind this set-up, and eventually noticed a few minor mistakes which they readily changed. I should also note that 99% of the conversations I had with the police during this whole ordeal were in Chinese. The only exception was when someone would ask me (out of curiosity) how to say a word in English. Early on in the interrogation, one of the officers asked me if I needed a translator, but it was obvious that the answer was no.
So many questions were asked that night! Many of them I cannot recall, and definitely not in the order they were asked. Most queries, especially the “standard” ones, were asked, answered, then quickly forgotten. Also, there were some “sensitive” questions, whose true answers I cannot share publicly, as they could possibly (if by chance this story fell into the wrong hands) put myself at greater risk of not being able to return to China again.
Certain key parts of the interrogation, however, were etched into my mind forever, and I have shared them many times over the past two years. It is these portions of the interrogation that I want to focus on most in the coming paragraphs.
Things Get Serious After Supper
Not long after I finished my food, the interrogation began in earnest, with a rotation of officers (“good cop, bad cop” style) taking turns asking me questions (often the same ones over again, as if fishing for a different answer) long into the night.
One of the first serious questions they asked me was about my phone (a well-worn iPhone 4), which was sitting in a plastic baggy on the desk across the room, next to my other documents (passport, drivers license, rental car registration and keys).
“Did you tell anyone that we arrested you?”
An officer pointed down at my phone, which was still on (albeit locked with a 4-digit passcode), and read out loud in heavily accented English:
“Are you ok? We’re praying for you!”
“Uh oh”, I thought, realizing they were reading messages off my phone’s lock screen. Thinking that it was surely my wife who had asked our friends to pray, I stammered:
“My wife knows I am here with you, and I am sure she is worried about me and has told some people.”
They seemed content with my answer in the moment, and dropped the subject. I was still worried, though, mentally kicking myself for being so dumb, not knowing what other messages might pop up on the screen. However, any new messages must’ve been uninteresting, and rotated off the screen quickly, because the police never made an effort to read or translate them. Instead, they shifted to a slightly different line of questioning:
“Tell us the password to your phone”, said an officer sternly.
Awkward silence. Head bowed. “N..no”, I managed to respond.
“You must tell us the password to your phone!”
More silence, then I spoke softly but firmly: “No, I’m not saying.”
“Why won’t you cooperate? Tell us the password to your phone!”
This time I almost laughed, and responded incredulously, talking with my hands as much as with my raised voice:
“No American, in their right mind, would ever tell you the password to their personal phone! I would have to be crazy to give you access to everyone I know!”
They seemed frustrated, and dropped that line of questioning for a while, only to circle back around to it a few more times later in the night.
At one point, I remember seeing the same senior officer who was in charge of my initial arrest, come in and whisper to his subordinates sitting across from me:
“We need his phone password. Get it!”
Not So Deadly Threats
That is what eventually brought about their greatest attempt to threaten me that night, although it really wasn’t much of a threat at all. (Not that true threats of bodily harm would have helped either, though. Some things are simply not negotiable.)
“You are going to be here until you unlock your phone for us. As long as it takes!”
“Ok”, I shrugged, guessing (rightly) that they were bluffing. They wanted to go home just about as bad as I did. But even so, did they really think I would give in so easily and trade hundreds of my friends’ personal info (not to mention their freedom and safety) in order to avoid being kept in custody for a few days (or even weeks)? No way, Jose!
They continued, supposedly ratcheting up the threats into a “gotcha” moment:
“If you don’t cooperate with all of our questions, we will even cancel your wife’s student visa!”
I almost laughed out loud. (Even now I am smiling, as I write.) I knew that the chances of our family remaining in China after all this would be extremely slim no matter what. (In fact, as I prayed silently in my interrogation chair that night, pondering our future, it was already becoming clear to me that our family should use this opportunity to spend more time in Peru. Which is precisely what we have done.) So threatening to cancel my wife’s visa was about as bad as telling someone standing outside a closed restaurant that they won’t be able to come in and order a meal.
Instead of laughing out loud, I merely shrugged, “whatever”, while smirking on the inside.
Not Saying
Besides my phone passcode, there were quite a few other questions that I also refused to answer, either by shaking my head “no”, or repeating the phrase “bu shuo” over and over in Chinese. “Bu shuo” basically translates as “not saying”.
“What are the names of the others who were with you?”
“Not saying.”
“Where have the others (who were with you) been staying?”
“Not saying.”
“How many of them are there? How many males or females?”
“Not saying.”
“Are they still here in the city?”
“Not saying.”
I think you get the picture.
It was clear from the beginning that they really wanted to know who my accomplices were so they could track them down as well! And I watched them actively try to do so, especially during the first few hours of the interrogation. I saw them using computers to search hotel records and other surveillance info to try and pinpoint both the number of people and their location, so they could arrest them as well.
What they didn’t know was that my number one priority during the interrogation was precisely to keep the others safe (so they could return to China again), even if it meant I had to suffer. This was where the primary battle raged that night, and it was quite something to experience:
“You might as well just tell us who they are, because we will find them anyways. There’s no way they will be able to leave this city unnoticed. We are watching all of the train and bus stations.”
“Good luck”, I thought to myself, keeping my mouth shut. “If you knew, you would already have them.”
I had been quite worried that eventually they would find my team, but this gave me a glimmer of hope. They obviously hadn’t discovered them yet! Maybe they would be able to get away and live to evangelize in China another day.
I kept praying and the police kept pressing…
“Why won’t you tell us about the others? Why are you protecting them?”
I finally broke my rhythm of just saying “No”, and, feeling a bit of boldness rise up and with my heart pounding, began to sputter:
“Because they are my friends! I love them, and they love China. They take care of your orphans and widows and share God’s love with your people. And I don’t want them to be hassled in the same way that you are troubling me!”
Nothing Funny About It
That seemed to give them pause. But later they came back around to a similar line of questioning. When I refused yet again, one of the officers, from the Religious Affairs police, uttered the most shocking thing I heard all night.
He looked at me with a grin on his face (whenever I share this in person, I always say that I can’t imitate his grin because what he said was so evil) and spoke:
“Come on! What are you so worried about? Why won’t you just answer our questions? It’s not like we’re gonna beat you or anything!”
I had been looking down while he spoke, but his words and attitude immediately woke something inside of me. I raised my head up, incensed, and replied:
“That is not funny! I know what you have done to Christians in this country! You might not hit me, because I have an American passport. But many Chinese Christians have been beaten to death over the years! And I am not laughing.”
This was not the best moment for my Chinese, although I made myself understood. I spoke from my heart, not paying much attention to grammar, trying to express my emotions.
The officer responded with an even bigger (yet forced) laugh, as he turned to his Commie coworkers and said:
“Who, us? We wouldn’t do anything like that, right guys?”
I decided I was not going to argue. I had said my peace, so I bowed my head, silently gave it over to the Lord: “God, you are the judge. You will avenge your people.”
Wicked and Evil Men
This pointed exchange with an officer from Religious Affairs was definitely the emotional and spiritual climax of the entire interrogation.
Although I was never personally threatened with physical harm, his words in that moment, mocking the reality that countless Chinese believers have been beaten and continue to be tormented in a variety of ways, were a vivid example of Paul’s words in 2 Thessalonians 3:1-2:
“Pray for us..that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.”
Continued in Part III: The Escape
(Credit ©David Foldvari for the first and final images.)
