Li Xiaoyuan

Chinese Name: 李效元
Gender: Male
Age: 46
City: Shenyang City
Province: Liaoning
Occupation:
Date of Death: 2003-11-09
Date of Most Recent Arrest: 2002
Most recent place of detention: Guanshan Forced Labor Camp
Case Description:

An Outstanding Technician and a Kind-hearted Practitioner

Mr. Li Xiaoyuan was an outstanding technician at Shenyang No.1 Mold factory. Since practicing Falun Dafa, Mr. Li enjoyed good health and became unselfish. He was well respected. In October 1998, Mr. Li was at the local practice site at 4:00 a.m. every morning, doing the Falun Gong exercises and teaching the practice without compensation. The number of people at the practice site increased from 50 to more than 100.

Arrested and Tortured for Appealing for Justice

In July 1999, Chinese Communist Party followers, Jiang's cohorts, began to persecute Falun Gong. Mr. Li went to Beijing to appeal for justice. All he wanted to say was that there is nothing wrong in practicing Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance and being a good person. Simply for following such principles, he was cruelly persecuted.

In October 1999, Mr. Li Xiaoyuan was arrested in Beijing and taken back to Shenyang. He was taken to a brainwashing center and then a forced labor camp. Before the Chinese New Year of 2002, Mr. Li was illegally arrested a third time and again taken to the Shenyang Zhangshi Forced Labor Camp. To "transform" him, guards at the camp tortured him. They deprived him of sleep for long periods of time, took his clothes off, hung him on an iron door, beat and shocked him with electric batons, put him into a freezer and much more. Mr. Li did not renounce his belief. He was forced to do slave labor.

Some practitioners shared information they remembered about Mr. Li Xiaoyuan: On April 25, 2002, to protest the torture, Mr. Li Xiaoyuan, Wang Jinmin, Zhang Zhenwu and other practitioners refused to wear the prisoners' uniform and perform hard labor. Cheng Diankun, the director of the Zhangshi Forced Labor Camp, directed the guards to form a "persecution team." Team Leader Yang Shu selected a dozen prisoners and made Team Room 401 into a torture chamber. They claimed that whoever entered that room would be skinned alive, even if he survived the torture. Mr. Li Xiaoyuan was tortured in that room for four days. Yang Shu and others shocked him with a 120,000-volt electric baton. Afterward, Mr. Li's entire body was swollen and covered with injuries. He could no longer walk.

But guards at Zhangshi Forced Labor Camp did not "transform" Mr. Li Xiaoyuan. In May or June of 2002, Mr. Li was secretly transferred to Liaoning Guanshan Forced Labor Camp.

Murdered at Guanshan Forced Labor Camp

The Guanshan Forced Labor Camp guards are known for using barbaric torture and blocking of messages. It is the worst of all forced labor camps in Liaoning Province. It is located at Luanshishan, Changtu County, Liaoning Province. All prisoners who are labeled "non-reformable" are taken there.

The Guanshan Forced Labor Camp reduces the sentence of prisoners who participate in the torture of Falun Gong practitioners. Some guards encouraged prisoners to beat practitioners cruelly. Guard Yu Li, responsible for the so-called "small cells" [small isolation cells] often was drunk in the evenings. He told the prisoners on duty, "It is your call as to how you want to torture the practitioner. I will back you up."

A released prisoner, who paid 30,000 yuan as a bribe for his release, said later: "It is hell. The guards gave handcuffs and electric rods to us. They tell us who to torture and we do it."

Before Mr. Li Xiaoyuan's died, the torture grew ever more cruel at Guanshan Forced Labor Camp. In July 2003, the No. 7 Team, which was used for detaining Dafa practitioners, bought new pulse-type electric batons. On October 16, 2003, Mr. Zhu Xiaofei, a practitioner from Dalian, refused to wear a prisoner's uniform. Guards shocked him with electric batons and imprisoned him in the "small cell." On the 18th, Mr. Zhu wrote a statement about refusing to wear prisoner's uniform. He was beaten by team leader Wu Zhanjun and prisoners for a day and night. He became unconscious and his blood pressure was 0. He was rushed to the hospital for emergency rescue. Several days before Mr. Li Xiaoyuan's death, another practitioner from Tieling was cruelly tortured and seriously injured by inmates who were instructed by Guard Gao Qilong.

At the beginning of November 2003, Mr. Li Xiaoyuan was taken from his cell of the No. 2 Team. On November 9, the news of his death was made known.