The Facts of the Persecution of Falun Gong  -- March 28, 2007

Issued by Clearwisdom Net

Content

  • Mr. Zhang Xinzhong from Qingzhou City, Shandong Province Tortured to Death by 610 Office

  • The Police at Xinwen Mining Group in Shandong Province Persecute Falun Gong Practitioners

  • Guta District Court in Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province Sentences Mr. Zhang Lifeng to Four Years in Prison

  • The Violent Persecution of Yang Xiliang at Qianjin Prison in Beijing



  • Mr. Zhang Xinzhong from Qingzhou City, Shandong Province Tortured to Death by 610 Office

    In July 2004, within only ten days, Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Zhang Xinzhong, 41, from Qingzhou City, Shandong Province was tortured to death by Qingzhou City 610 Office agents, including Liu Rongyou and Zhao Guangyi, at the private prison that they had set up specifically for the torture of practitioners. He was held to the floor or bed, and beaten, pinched, bitten and tortured in many ways until he lost consciousness. Mr. Zhang Xinzhong cried out due to the excruciating pain during the torture. However, these perpetrators did not stop until his heart stopped beating.

    Mr. Zhang Xinzhong

    Mr. Zhang Xinzhong, from Wangche Village, Zhuliang Town, Qingzhou City, was the art teacher at Zhuliang Town Middle School. He started to practice Falun Gong in 1996.

    According to his wife, one day between July 1 and July 7, 2004, Mr. Zhang Xinzhong received a call from his sister-in-law, Li Guangqin, who was misled by the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) lies and assisted in torturing Falun Gong practitioners. She invited Mr. Zhang Xinzhong to Qingzhou City to give art lessons and earn some extra income during his school's summer vacation. The schools' last day was July 7, 2004 and Mr. Zhang Xinzhong headed for Qingzhou City the next day.

    From the day he left, his wife lost contact with him, although she and his parents kept calling whomever they could think of.

    On July 18, 2004, Mr. Zhang Xinzhong's brother Zhang Xinhua and his wife Li Guangqin came to his parent's home, kneeling in front of them, and told them that Mr. Zhang Xinzhong was dead.

    Mr. Zhang Xinzhong's wife and son had not received any information until July 18, 2004, when his body was about to be cremated. With great shock and unbearable pain, Mrs. Zhang followed others to where the cremation took place.

    Zhang Baoxin and Liu Rongyou from the 610 Office refused Mr. Zhang Xinzhong's family's request to take a closer look at his body. They also rejected his family's request of have an autopsy done in a hospital. Mr. Zhang Xinzhong's brother-in-law saw black and purple marks on his neck, hands and arms, and on his face were clear signs that his face had been touched up with cosmetics or through other means.

    Liu Rongyou and Zhao Guangyi participated in the torture against Mr. Zhang Xinzhong. On the morning of July 16, 2004, shortly after Mr. Zhang Xinzhong died, Liu Rongyou informed Zhao Guangyi. Zhao Guangyi was shocked and asked Liu Rongyou to report to the police. Liu Rongyou called the 610 Office first but got no answer. Then he called 110, the emergency number for police. The political instructor of a police station, Guo Yonggang, came. After he heard that the Mr. Zhang Xinzhong was a practitioner, he did not even want to take a look at all. Zhao Guangyi dragged him upstairs to look at the scene and his body. Guo Yonggang said that they would not investigate and just left.

    Liu Rongyou, from the 610 Office, was the CCP Party secretary of Qingzhou City CCP Funds. He joined practitioners before the CCP banned Falun Gong, but he never lived by a practitioner's standards. After he was brainwashed at the Zibo City Wang Village Forced Labor Camp in Shandong Province, he switched sides, joined the 610 Office, and participated in viciously torturing Falun Gong practitioners.

    Since then, following the CCP's extermination policy of practitioners, Liu Rongyou has brutally tortured practitioners and sexually assaulted female practitioners. He has developed specific torture "methods" and has visited several forced labor camps to spread lies and deceive practitioners. The torture methods he uses include sleep deprivation, pouring freezing cold water over practitioners, as well as tying them up and beating them. The most vicious method he uses is to claim someone has spirit possession or a snake on their body. Then he claims he is "getting rid of the evil spirit" from that person's body, and pushes the practitioners, who have been deprived of sleep for many days, onto the floor or a bed, and then pinches, touches and scratches with fingernails that person's private parts. Liu Rongyou once shouted, "Sooner or later someone has to die!"


    Former Qingzhou City 610 Office Brainwashing Center (before 2005), located at Longshan Hotel

    Perpetrator Liu Rongyou

    Perpetrator Zhao Guangyi

    Liu Rongyou has used his "getting rid of the evil spirit" method to torture many practitioners. He has almost killed people several times by strangling them. He also sexually assaulted and tortured many female practitioners.

    The 610 Office's brainwashing center was located on the second floor of Longshan Hotel at Hongguang Road, Qingzhou City (it was later moved to a hidden location on Oyuan Street). The cries of pain could be frequently heard at night. Once the 610 Office decides to torture a certain practitioner, they deceive the practitioner into coming to the place where the inhumane torture then occurs. Another vicious method that Liu Rongyou uses is to force the practitioner's family members to participate in the torture. He and his cohorts threaten the practitioner's family members, saying that if the practitioner does not "transform," he or she will be sentenced to forced labor or even prison. Then Liu Rongyou claims that the practitioner is possessed by an evil spirit. He deceives the practitioner's family members, who agree to apply his "getting rid of the evil spirit" method. Then he calls in his cohorts to torture the practitioner. They torture the practitioner until the practitioner loses consciousness. Several practitioners were tortured almost to death. Some practitioners were disfigured, some became mentally disoriented, and some retained water, with their bodies swelling up to the point that they could barely walk. Some practitioners became partially paralyzed and did not regain use of their limbs until several months afterwards. Some practitioners' private parts were infected so badly that they began to fester and even the hospital dared not accept them. Some practitioners' feet bled after being stabbed with chopsticks or keys, and some practitioners' shirts were soaked with blood.

    Practitioners Mr. Zhang Xinzhong and Ms. Li Xiumei died in great pain after such tortures.

    The crimes of deceiving people and then brutally torturing them in a private prison continues. The agents of Qingzhou City 610 Office are increasing their brutality in torturing practitioners. Additionally, some perpetrators even use their own homes as a prison to torture practitioners.

    People directly involved in the torture of Mr. Zhang Xinzhong:

    Liu Rongyou, CCP Party secretary of the Qingzhou City CCP's Fund Foundation:
    86-536-3990011 (Cell), 86-536-3233286 (Home)
    Address: West Unit, , 3rd Floor, Middle Corridor, Building 17

    Zhang Xinhua and Li Guangqin: 86-536-3233410. Zhang Xinhua works at the Second Cafeteria of the Qingzhou City Government Office

    Zhang Baoxin, former deputy CCP secretary of Qingzhou City Technical Skill School: 86-536-3208209
    Zhao Guangyi: 86-536-3233286

    Xu Wende, director of the 610 Office: 86-536-3260233 (Home), 86-13963625607 (Cell)


    The Police at Xinwen Mining Group in Shandong Province Abducts Falun Gong Practitioners

    It was about 8:00 a.m. on February 23, 2007, when over ten people broke into Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Bao Peiping's home. They were led by Gao Lei, the chief of the Public Security Section of Huaheng Company, Xinwen Mining Group, and Ji Zhicheng, the CCP secretary at the company. They turned Mr. Bao's home upside down, just like robbers, and took their TV set. Mr. Bao and his wife, Niu Rongtian, also a Falun Gong practitioner, were illegally arrested and detained in the security section. Later, the police broke into practitioner Liu Qin's home and searched it. They took three Falun Gong books and an MP3 player, and arrested Ms. Liu Qin. She was detained at the police section. At about 4:00 p.m. the same day, police broke into practitioner Ren Zhiling's home, and confiscated Falun Gong books, truth-clarifying materials, VCDs, a TV and a DVD player. Ms. Ren was arrested and detained at the police section.

    On February 25, 2007, the CCP committee and Police Section of Huaheng Company threatened the families of the three detained practitioners, imposing a fine. They demanded a 10,000 yuan fine payment from practitioner Zhao Wenzhu, Ms. Ren's husband. He refused. The police then resorted to other vile means. They had Ms. Ren's son, Zhao Lei, fired from his job. They took him along to search his aunt's. They didn't dare arrest anybody there, because they didn't find any so-called "evidence." So they rushed to Ms. Ren's home to arrest Zhao Wenzhu. He is around 50 years old and a new Falun Gong practitioner. He, too, was detained at the police section.

    The CCP Committee officials and the Police Section brutally tortured these five practitioners. They didn't allow them to sleep, and terrorized them in hopes of getting the practitioners to give up their beliefs. Finally, Zhao Wenzhu paid 6,000 yuan and Bao Peiping paid 7,000 yuan. They couldn't find Ms. Liu Qin's husband, but they obtained the money from her son's work unit. Her son was fired from his job when he could not afford to reimburse his employers.

    On February 26, 2007, the police transferred Ren Zhiling, Liu Qin and Niu Rongtian to Taian Forced Labor Camp for forced brainwashing. They transferred Zhao Wenzhu and Bao Peiping to Taian Custody and detained them.

    Ms. Liu Qin is 63 years old. On June 13, 2002, she was posting truth-clarifying materials about Falun Gong in Wennan Town of Xintai City. Li Xin, associate head of Wennan Police Station, led a group of policemen to the scene and brutally beat her. They arrested her and took her to the police station, where they beat her again. The next day, they brought her to Xintai Detention Center and extorted 1,400 yuan from her family. On June 27, 2007, Huaheng Company wanted to send her to Wangcen Forced Labor Camp for continued persecution. Ms. Liu had to leave her home to escape. Ms. Liu went back home in 2006 and hid there. The police found Ms. Liu during the Chinese New Year, when she was visiting relatives and friends.

    Ms. Niu Rongtian is in her forties. During the evening of December 1, 2002, she was reported to the 610 Office for distributing truth-clarifying materials. She was arrested by Wennan Mining Company police, including Zhang Chuanyu, Gao Lei, Yang Bin, Niu Xuedong, Song Zeng, and a policeman with the last name of Zhang. They beat her during the 48 hours she was detained. They extorted 5,000 yuan from her family. Four days after the Chinese New Year, the police sent her to the Jinan Forced Labor Camp, where she was detained for over eighty days. Zhao (last name), head of the 3rd Group, beat her about the head while claiming he was doing so to make Ms. Niu accept "transformation." He informed her that she would not be allowed to sleep or use the restroom. Two detainees monitored her and force fed her three times, causing oral cavity bleeding. She was also forced to work over twelve hours every day. She was released during the Qingming Festival of 2003. Since then, the police have continued monitoring her.

    Ms. Ren Zhiling, about 50 years old, was distributing Falun Gong materials in December 2001, and she was reported to the police. Zhang Chuanyu from the 610 Office of Xitai City and Gao Lei from the Police Section of Wennan Mine Company took her to the Police Section. Two days later, she was transferred to the Second Women's Forced Labor Camp of Jinan City, where she was tortured for about fifty days. At the forced labor camp, the police tried to brainwash her by forcing her to watch the so-called self-immolation video tape. She was not allowed to sleep or use the restroom. She was punished by being forced to stand without moving for a very long time. She was also forced to do heavy labor for more than twelve hours every day. The police extorted over 6,000 yuan from her family without providing a receipt. The police often came to her home to threaten her and her family after her release.



    Guta District Court in Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province Sentences Mr. Zhang Lifeng to Four Years in Prison

    At 1:00 p.m. on February 26, 2007, the Guta District Court in Jinzhou City held a secret trial to illegally sentence practitioner Mr. Zhang Lifeng. The presiding judge was Li Hongbin (male). On March 6, the court sentenced Mr. Zhang to four years in prison.

    Mr. Zhang's family members were completely unaware of the trial or the sentencing. They learned about it only after they went to the court to ask about the case. They wanted to file an appeal, however judge Li Hongbin refused to show them the sentencing document. When they asked to look at the document, Li did not let them carefully review it. He said, "I will read it to you." Li also denied their request to meet with Mr. Zhang. He shrugged off the responsibility by directing the family members to negotiate with the police station. However, when the family members went to the police station, the officers said that the case had been transferred to the court, and they were no longer in charge of it. Mr. Zhang has lost vision in one of his eyes, and has a glass eye. His glass eye was lost during the police beating after his arrest and he is in a very weak condition. On the afternoon of February 26, he was held up by two people when he entered the courtroom.

    The action of presiding judge Li Hongbin has seriously violated the Criminal Procedure Law. Item 4 of Article 151 and Article 152 states that "To summon the parties, notify the defenders, agent ad litem, witnesses, expert witnesses and interpreters, and the summons and notification shall be sent thereto at least three days prior to the opening of the court session" and "The hearing of cases of first instance in the people's courts shall be public." It is quite clear that the law enforcement officials are breaking the law and abusing human rights. Other individuals who have participated in the persecution of Mr. Zhang Lifeng include Lu Zhiqiang (male), head of the investigation and supervision section in the Guta District Procuratorate, and Han Jianwei and Tian Shihua, both of whom are from the Beijie Police Station.

    Mr. Zhang was taken into custody on October 25, 2006. At around 8:00 p.m. that evening, a group of officers from the Beijie Police Station in Guta District, Jinzhou City broke into Mr. Zhang's home without cause. They took Mr. Zhang and other practitioners who were at his home, including Liu Guang, Qu Kai, Ju Xiaomei, and Jiang Yan, to the Beijie Police Station. Without following legal procedures, the police sent Mr. Zhang to the city's No. 1 Detention Center on October 26. The other practitioners were taken to a temporary detention center. The officers also took Mr. Zhang's notebook computer, Falun Gong books and other materials.


    The Violent Persecution of Yang Xiliang at Qianjin Prison in Beijing

    During the New Year of 2000, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners went to Tiananmen Square to appeal for Falun Gong. I was one of them. Quite a few of us were illegally arrested by Beijing police. On October 12, 2000, nine of us received three to eight year jail sentences. Yang Xiliang was sentenced to four years in prison. After he served his term in Beijing's Qianjin Prison and was released, he told me of his hellish experience in jail.

    Physical Torture and Verbal Abuse

    Mr. Yang Xiliang and fellow practitioners were sent to the Qianjin Prison, of the Qinghe Police Branch. After they arrived, the prison assigned four or more criminal inmates to monitor each practitioner.

    The police ordered the criminal inmates to write "guilty of obstructing law enforcement" on a piece of white cloth and sewed it to Yang's jacket.

    Every day at 6:00 a.m., policemen Huang Lihua, Chen Jun, Pang Qiang and Zhang Jianguo assigned the criminal inmates to escort Yang Xiliang outside. He was told to sit still on a narrow bench and put his hands on his knees. The weather was -10o to -20oC (14o to -5oF), and the strong gust made it feel much colder. Because of the low temperature, the criminal inmates who took turns watching him had to rotate every 30 minutes. Mr. Yang wore only a very thin coat and sat for the whole day. The police even forced him to open his coat and "sun bathe." The freezing temperature caused Yang to suffer very badly. Pus came out of his ears, his hands were frostbitten and his body ached beyond description. Yang told me that the pain was so hard to endure that he would remember it for the rest of his life. One day, a criminal inmate could not bear to watch and he gave Yang a winter hat to wear. Policeman Zhang Jianguo saw it and shouted, "How dare you have sympathy for Falun Gong! You want to make enemies with the government? I want to freeze these people to death."

    One day Mr. Yang Xiliang was sitting in the cold weather as usual. Zhang Jianguo approached him from behind and kicked very hard on his lower back and knocked him down to the ground. Zhang went on to kick him nonstop while shouting profanities.

    Once, policeman Chen Jun, gathered five criminal inmates and brought in practitioners Yang Xiliang and Li Jinpeng. They violently assaulted the two practitioners physically and verbally. They hit their chests and heads with foldable benches so hard that they even broke a bench. The criminals shouted, "You guys made the government very angry." A criminal named Xue said, "Let's beat them up as hard as we can." At the time, Mr. Yang Xiliang's feet were injured. Criminal Zhang Tao intentionally trampled on his feet, with army boots on, causing his foot injury to become worse. After the violent assault, Li Jinpeng passed out and was lying on the floor. The criminals said he was faking. It took Li Jinpeng a long time to regain consciousness.

    They stopped the beating in the evening, but policeman Li Zhimin continued to curse at them for several more hours. After that, the criminal inmates forced Yang Xiliang to pose as an "airplane." That is to bow his head between the legs and reach his hands up in the air. He stood in this position against the wall for several hours. After that, they forced him to put his hands on the wall and then hit them with a steel ruler. The pain was so bad he almost cried out, but they told him not to make any sound. Every time they tortured the practitioners, the police and the criminal inmates would write in the record book, "We criticized Falun Gong."

    All Kinds of Tortures

    Because Yang Xiliang and some fellow practitioners refused to compromise, the police resorted to all means to torture them. On one occasion, policeman Zhang Jianguo told Yang to lie on his stomach and ordered the criminal inmates to pile dirty bricks from the sewer on top of Yang's body.

    Sometimes, Zhang Jianguo got drunk at night. He would tell the criminal inmates to pull some practitioners from their beds, and he would shout profanities and insult them. The practitioners would be freezing as they stood there wearing only their underpants.

    The prison forced practitioners to make soccer balls by hand. To make things harder for them, the police did not give them leather finger guards or an awl which were used by other inmates. The practitioners had to use regular needles to pull the nylon thread to sew the leather. The work hurts the fingers very much. Yang Xiliang's hands were badly cut by the thread.

    One day the practitioners were forced to pull weeds in the yard. Some weeds were as tall as one meter and the roots were deep. Some weeds had tiny "saw teeth" leaves. After long term torture and mistreatment, Mr. Yang Xiliang was very fragile and had little energy to do such hard labor. His injured feet were hurting him, and his wounds from the beating added to his misery. Despite that, he still struggled to pull the weeds by hand, and dug a ditch. After they completed the work, policeman Cao Lihua scolded them for having a "bad attitude" and forced them to write apologies.

    One day at 6:00 a.m., policeman Zhang Jianguo charged that Yang Xiliang had hidden a book under his coat. After searching, he could not find anything. So he brought Yang to his office and forced him to take off his coat. He then used an electric baton to shock Yang Xiliang on the chest, and he yelled profanities at him. After the torture, he insisted that Yang write an apology. Yang said he had nothing to write and refused. Finally, someone else wrote a statement on his behalf.

    The Perverted Prison System

    Ten days before his release date, a police officer came to see Yang Xiliang. He introduced himself as a staff member at the Prison General Office. He said, "Let's forget what happened to you here."

    Before this, Mr. Yang Xiliang wrote a 12-page document exposing the crimes in the prison. He also told the leaders in Beijing Prison Administration and Qinghe Police Station in person of the torture, but these leaders warned him to shut his mouth. Now that he was about to go home, they once again made a threat, "So many Falun Gong practitioners were beaten to death. If you die, it's just another number, no big deal." They also said, "Anything can happen to you."

    Despite such brutality and illegal conduct, the Beijing Prison Administration still awarded Warden Liu Yongqing a first class merit award and promoted him to become deputy director of the police department. Policeman Cao Lihua was also awarded with first class merit. Cao said, "Our brutality at Qianjin Prison was the result of an order from the director of Beijing Prison Administration, Zhu Jianhua. He told us to destroy Falun Gong practitioners' spirits, ruin their reputations, and eliminate them if necessary."

    In addition, the Beijing City Administration of Personnel has named Qianjin Prison a top agency for law enforcement. All the police officers awarded with first and second class merits were invited to sightseeing tours in Sanya and Dalian, expenses paid.

    Family Harassment

    On June 10, 2001, Beijing Fengtai District policeman Zhang Shengguo led a group of six policemen and seven security guards to Yang Xiliang's house. They "illegally arrested" Yang's wife Zhang Lijing. The police illegally searched his house and threw household property on the floor. They took some Falun Gong books, Master Li's portrait and some audio cassettes. They also took valuable personal belongings; including 400 yuan in cash, a watch, and a box of old stamps, which was Mr. Yang's personal collection. During the house search, none of the police showed any ID or legal documents.

    The police also took Yang Xiliang's personal files from his desk drawer. On February 24, 2005, he was released from the prison, but Yang Xiliang could not find his personal files. This caused great difficulty to his job search and even in acquiring an insurance extension. These were hardships that could not be resolved. Police took away his proof of employment for the past 24 years. The police in Heyi Station used two computer boxes to store all the documents and kept them at the police station.

    Yang Xiliang's parents are both in their eighties. When his brother visited him at the prison, he told Yang Xiliang, "Dad and Mom cried for three days after the police arrested you." When Yang called his parents, he could tell that his parents' voices were hoarse from crying for a long time.

    After Yang Xiliang was detained, police from Dahongmen Police Station in Fengtai District went to his parents' house eleven times. One time they arrived at 11:00 p.m. Several dozen police officers in police cars, with sirens on, rushed to their house. Without showing any legal papers, they searched every room. Even their bicycle storage room was not spared. The search left the house in chaos, and it caused damage to furniture and frames. The police even forced tenants out of their rooms. They even searched the neighbors' house.

    Detained Again

    On August 30, 2006 at 8:00 p.m., policeman Wang Xuefei from the local branch knocked on the door. As soon as Mr. Yang Xiliang opened the door, a dozen people rushed in. Some were uniformed police, others were undercover. Six policemen pinned him down to the floor and handcuffed him. They kept him on the floor for 30 minutes. One policeman said, "Don't let him see anything." But Yang still noticed that they took out some papers from a black briefcase and started to take pictures. They also searched other rooms and took something away. Later Yang Xiliang was sentenced to two and a half years at a forced labor camp. The "evidence of a crime" was that the police found a copy of Zhuan Falun that he bought in 1995, and six flyers that the police brought in that day to frame him.

    On January 1, 2007, Yang's wife Zhang Lijing went to Xuanwu District Court to appeal for her husband, but the court refused to listen because it was a Falun Gong case. A judge told her, "We do not accept any Falun Gong appeals, even if someone listens to your appeal, we will not open the case for investigation."

    Zhang Lijing asked, "My husband was framed by the police. Whom should I report this to?"

    The judge replied, "It's not my business."

    At Yang Xiliang's home, life is tough. His elderly parents are in poor health, his father uses a crutch to walk, and his baby child is not even one year old. His wife Zhang Lijing is unemployed.