By Pastor John Cao —
CHANGSHA CITY, China — On June 4th, the police detained me for over 20 hours without
HOME
reason. Today, June 6th, they came up with a new tactic. Around 4pm, I walked out of my mother’s room 2015, where I am temporarily staying, only to see two worker-like individuals installing a high-definition camera directly facing my mother’s doorway.
I shouted aloud: “Mom, come quickly and see, the public security is installing a high-definition camera at your doorway to monitor you, an elderly person.” My mom came out to look and said to these two plainclothes public security personnel, “Welcome, welcome. In case I fall, you must come to my aid in time.”
Of course, these plainclothes public security personnel installing a camera at my mom’s doorway are not tracking my mother, I am the target they want to control. The building my mother lives in is called Quansheng Tongfu Apartments. The public security also installed two high-definition cameras at the entrance of apartment complex. This way they can easily track my every move.
There are also cameras everywhere on the streets, and all these cameras are interconnected.
These cameras are not just for tracking my whereabouts, but also for monitoring who comes to visit me. The police have let it be known that they will not go after people who only visit me once, but people who come to visit me a second time must enter the public security’s records. I used to visit a few close college classmates of mine, and they all later told me that after I left, the Public Security Bureau had summoned them for questioning. It can be seen how closely the Public Security Bureau is monitoring me. This was before I went to prison.
What is conceivable now is that they will summon people who often come to visit me. Their strategy is to harass my friends so that they dare not come to see me, thus achieving the goal of completely isolating me. The Public Security Bureau’s wishful thinking is that I better just stay in my mother’s apartment and not go anywhere, only see some people occasionally. Without an ID card, I can’t leave Changsha city.
The Bible has a basic requirement for preachers: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction (2 Timothy 4:2). To preach and exhort people, one must have contact with people. I don’t want to increase the workload for the police either. But I have to have contact with people, I can’t possibly sit in an ivory tower. It seems that in the future, the police will be busy running circles around me.
