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The Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in Tianshui City, Gansu Province

March 09, 2006 |  

(Clearwisdom.net)

1. Partial details of practitioners who died as a result of persecution

Wang Shenggui, a monk from the Yuquan Taoist Temple, Tianshui City passed away in detention

Officials discovered Mr. Wang, age 35, in possession of a copy of Zhuan Falun at the end of 2000. He was detained for months and went on a protest hunger strike for over 40 days. He passed away at the Min County Detention Center. Following are details:

Wang Shenggui, a monk from the Yuquan Taoist Temple, Tianshui, Gansu Province, began practicing Falun Dafa in 1999. In December 2000, there was a theft at the Yuquan Taoist Temple. Policemen searched the temple and found Wang Shenggui in possession of a copy of Zhuan Falun. They detained Mr. Wang for over three months, in violation of the Chinese Constitution, at a drug rehabilitation center located in the Qincheng District, Tianshui City. Meanwhile, the police tried to force him to write the guarantee statement, but Wang Shenggui refused and his firm determination to cultivate in Dafa did not waver. On March 9, 2001, he was sent back to his hometown in Min County where he was again detained, this time for over four months. To protest the persecution, Wang Shenggui started a hunger strike. The officials at the Min County Detention Center ignored the hunger strike and refused to release Mr. Wang. After a hunger strike that lasted for over 40 days, Wang Shenggui passed away in July in the same year. The detention center officials lied to his family saying, "Wang Shenggui died of sickness and the hospital was unable to save him."

Policemen beat Huang Zhili to death

Practitioner Huang Zhili from Tianshui City was the victim of police beatings that left him with severe injuries from which he later died. Mr. Huang, age 53, was a practitioner from Mawusi Village (Shilipu Town, Tianshui City Gangu County). He went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. After his return, a villager reported him to the police. Local police illegally arrested Mr. Huang in 2001. He was unlawfully detained. During the interrogation, the police attempted to force Huang Zhili to give up cultivation. The police beat him brutally and he was tortured to the brink of death. The police were afraid of taking responsibility for Mr. Huang's condition, and drove him back home in a police vehicle. The injuries were too severe however, and he missed critical treatment time. Two days later, Huang Zhili passed away at home.

Ms. Chen Guilan, a senior engineer of the Nuclear Industry 213 Team, was tortured to death

Dafa practitioner Chen Guilan was from the Beidao District, Tianshui City, Gansu Province. She was a senior engineer at the Nuclear Industry 213 Team. In September 2001, Communist regime agent Feng Jitang from the Beidao District Police Department deceived Ms. Chen into going to the police department. When she had just stepped inside the gate, the police immediately arrested her and pushed her into a police car. They sent her right away to the Lanzhou City Women's Forced Labor Camp in Gansu Province. Several days later, Ms. Chen died in the camp from gross physical abuse. The police told her family on October 1 to pick up the body. They told her family that she died of heart disease. When Chen Guilan's husband went to see the body, he saw that a large area of one of her legs was black and purple and showed blood. It was obvious that Ms. Chen died from torture.

Liu Wenyu, a retired employee from the Railroad Hospital in Tianshui City died as a result of persecution

Liu Wenyu, age 53, was a retired employee of the Railroad Hospital. She started practicing Falun Gong in October 1998. At the end of December 1999 she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. The local police detained her for two weeks and fined her 4,000 yuan. In December 2000, Ms. Liu went to Tiananmen Square alone, saying to people, " Falun Dafa is good." Officials delivered her back to Tianshui City where she was sent to the Anning District Forced Labor Camp in Lanzhou City for two years. Liu Wenyu refused to cooperate with the unreasonable demands of the persecutors. She went on a hunger strike in protest, and they brutally force-fed her. The feeding tube caused excessive stomach bleeding. Ms. Liu endured many additional tortures. When she returned home from the labor camp, Beidao District agents went to her home and continued to harass her. As a result of the unrelenting persecution, Ms. Liu passed away in February 2004.

Liu Zhirong died at the 3rd Prison, Tianshui City

Dafa practitioner Mr. Liu Zhirong was a teacher at the Tuanjie Elementary School in the Xifeng District, Qingyang City, Gansu Province. He was tortured to death before January 14, 2006, by a murderous 1st Prison guard. The prison cremated Mr. Liu's body without prior notification of his family. The funeral parlor in Qingyang City, Mr. Liu's hometown, received the urn from the prison officials. The authorities claimed that he died of "suicide."

Liu Zhirong, age 42, went to Beijing to clarify the truth with Xu Feng and other practitioners on December 4, 1999. When he returned, the police unlawfully arrested and incarcerated him in a detention center for over 70 days. Zheng Xiang, a policeman from the National Security Section, the Xifeng District Police Department, beat him cruelly. On April 10, 2000, Zheng Xiang tricked Liu Zhirong into coming to the police station. He put Mr. Liu into a drug rehabilitation center to continue the persecution. Mr. Liu was later taken to a "public trial." He was paraded in the streets and humiliated. Liu Zhirong was put into a labor camp for one year, in violation of the Chinese Constitution. On April 25, he was delivered to the 1st Pingantai Forced Labor Camp in Lanzhou City and was released on July 1, 2001.

On April 28, 2002, Zheng Xiang led a group of policemen and rushed to the Tuanjie Elementary School. They tried to coerce Liu Zhirong into fingerprinting a document they had brought. Liu Zhirong refused. The policemen surrounded him in the schoolyard. They kicked him, stomped on him, and hit him violently with their police batons. Accompanied by their yelling and defamatory remarks they pushed Mr. Liu into a police vehicle. Teachers and students saw the policemen's brutality. Later, the police went to Liu Zhirong's home and ransacked his place. They broke several locks during the search, turning Mr. Liu's home upside down. In the afternoon of April 30, the police sent Liu Zhirong to a detention center. Mr. Liu said that he was not a criminal and refused to enter through the gate. The police then beat him and dragged him forcibly into his cell. Mr. Liu went on a hunger strike and became very weak, but the police didn't release him. Instead, they put him in a labor camp for three years. They then transferred Liu Zhirong to a rehabilitation center for further persecution. Liu Zhirong struggled against the abuse. The perpetrators beat him and carried him into his cell.

By the end of October 2002, Liu Zhirong had been illegally sentenced to 15 years in prison. At the end of October 2003, he was transferred to the Dashaping Prison in Lanzhou City, where he was confined and continuously abused under the persecution. In December 25 of the same year, he was transferred again, to Dingxi Prison in Gansu Province. At the end of 2005, Liu Zhirong, Xu Feng and six other illegally detained practitioners were sent to the 3rd Prison in Tianshui City. At noon on January 10, 2006, a prison guard from the 1st Prison District kicked the base of Mr. Liu's ear with his heavy boot. Mr. Liu Zhirong died from the blow.

2. Dozens of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained, sentenced to forced labor and prison

In December 1999, practitioners Chen Gang, Zhou Yaming, Dong Peilan, Zou Changhai and others, about 20 Falun Gong practitioners in all, went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa. All were detained upon their return. During the 2000 Chinese New Year, more than 60 practitioners were detained because they joined Falun Dafa group study. Each was fined from 500 to 3,000 yuan; the median fine was 2,000 yuan. Practitioners Li Fuzhi, Wang Yongming, Chen Gang, Zhou Yaming, Dong Peilan, and Zou Changhai and others were locked up in a detention center for a month. After that, they were sentenced to forced labor for a year and taken to the Honggu District Forced Labor Camp in Lanzhou City, to be further persecuted.

In December 2000, the following practitioners went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa: Li Jingjie, Zhi Kaiyan, He Xifeng, Wang Zhenzhu, Pang Bifang, Zhou Xiaolan, Wang Lixia, Liu Xiaoming, Liu Xiaoqin, Han Meiying, Zhai Fengchi, He Guiqin, Zhang Aiqing, Jia Kuangyuan, Yao Hui, Chu Yuzhong, Liu Yuanjin and Yan Hujiu. They were placed in detention after their return to Tianshui City. They started a protest hunger strike, and the authorities accelerated their persecution. Wen Dahu, Politics and Security Section head from Tianshui City's Qincheng District Police Department, swore at the Dafa practitioners and also threatened, "If they don't eat with their mouths, we will make them eat with their bottoms." They inserted tubes into the rectums of four practitioners, filling the tube with salty chicken broth. The pain that the four practitioners suffered was so severe that even the inmates present could not watch any longer.

A month later, after suffering from the inhuman torture at the Qincheng District Detention Center, these practitioners were transferred to a drug rehabilitation center to attend brainwashing sessions. Because they insisted on practicing the Falun Gong exercises and stayed steadfast in Dafa, they were sentenced to prison terms, from one to three years. The female practitioners were transferred to the Anning District Second Forced Labor Camp in Lanzhou City, and the male practitioners were transferred to the Honggu District Pingantai Forced Labor Camp. None of the practitioners' families were notified before the transfer.

In April 2001, practitioner Guo Guangli was arrested at home and detained at a secret location. Since he refused to cooperate with the vicious forces, he was transferred to Honggu District Pingantai Labor Camp in Lanzhou City and was sentenced to three years of forced labor. On October 17, 2001, police from the local Mapaoquan Police Station arrested practitioner Li Cuihong at her teaching job. The police also claimed that they would send Li Cuihong to a labor camp. Her husband had been tortured by the evildoers and was already sentenced to one year of forced labor. He opted to leave home later on to avoid further persecution. But Li Cuihong was arrested. Their 10-year-old daughter was left alone at home.

Practitioner Huang Yuanyi from the Wushan District, Tianshui City, left his home because of persecution. The police then frequently went to his home to harass and threaten his father. They ordered his father to turn him in. His father felt hopeless and helpless and committed suicide by hanging himself. Yet, the Tianshi Daily accused Huang Yuanyi for not showing filial piety to his father, saying this was the reason his father died.

Mr. Yang Keqiang, 59 years old, a former employee of the Passenger Transportation Branch, Tianshui City Auto Transportation Headquarters, was tortured so severely that he showed signs of mental trauma. Yang Keqiang started practicing Falun Gong in 1998. He wanted to speak out in order to tell people the truth of Falun Gong and expose the wicked lies of the Communist regime. On May 8, 2002, Mr. Yang took a banner reading, "Falun Dafa is good," and hung it at the entrance of a municipal building. The Qincheng local police arrested him. That same day, some undercover police officers followed Yang Keqiang's wife home. They broke into their home and started to ransack it. His wife tried to stop them, but police officer Yang pushed her away. The force of his push made the police officer himself fall. By then another police officer arrived and grabbed Yang Keqiang's wife's arms roughly, held them behind her back and pressed them really hard. After Mrs. Yang rose from the ground, he kicked and beat her. If she tried to resist just a little, he would hit her hard. Her arms, chest, and other parts of her body ached so severely that it even hurt to breathe. They then arrested and detained her in the local police station for ten days. Yang Keqiang was held in the Luergou Detention Center and tortured for 33 days. The detention center extorted the Yang family out of 3,000 yuan. Office head Pei Guilin accepted the cash. After that, Mr. Yang was released. However, nobody knew what kind of tortures Mr. Yang had suffered in the detention center. As soon as he got home, he started to flail around, and rushed in and out. Whenever he saw a knife, sticks or guns, he would grab them. When he saw his wife, he would hit her and verbally abuse her. Even now, his mind is still confused, although he is able to work. His colleagues and friends comment that Yang Keqiang has changed into a totally different person as a result of the abuse he suffered.

In November 2002, before the beginning of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP's) 16th General Assembly, Tianshui City 610 Office agents made it mandatory for all students in the city's elementary schools to watch movies that slandered Dafa. They were intending to push the children into an abyss of lies.

On December 6, 2002, the Qincheng District Court secretly, and in violation of the Chinese Constitution, sentenced eight practitioners to prison terms as follows: held in the local prisons are practitioners Zhao Lanzhou (12-year term), Wang Yongming (11 years), Yang Jingchun (17 years), Shan Junbin (4 years), Wang Weiping (19 years), Gao Chaoming (6 years), Li Chunsheng (8 years). Imprisoned in the Lanzhou Dashaping Women's Prison out-of-town facilities are: Yin Xiaolan (11 years), Tang Qong (12 years), and Zhang Jinmei (20 years).

3. The crimes of Feng Jitang and Wu Hongxia, officials from the Beidao District Police Department in Tianshui City

Zhou Jizu, former chief of the Political and Security Section at the Beidao District Police Department in Tianshui City, beat a woman practitioner who went to Beijing twice to validate Dafa. His beatings were so severe that the woman was covered in bruises and unable to walk. She could only crawl to the restroom. She was forbidden to drink clean water, but only the dirty water in a basin. A sixty-year-old practitioner from Mapaoquan Village was unconstitutionally detained because she shared experiences with other practitioners. Fifteen days later, the lawless authorities tried to extort 500 yuan from her. Since her family was extremely poor and couldn't afford to pay, officer Zhou Jizu handcuffed her to the police department's metal door and used a metal shovel to beat the practitioner. Zhou illegally locked up several dozen practitioners and sent many practitioners to forced labor camps. Zhou Jizu has now met with retribution for his extremely evil acts: he was dismissed from his position as chief, his mother died of disease, and his wife is bedridden from illness.

Feng Jitang, the new Political and Security Section chief of the Beidao District Police Department, along with another police officer, beat a female practitioner for a long time. It happened around noon, after they found Master Li's articles at that practitioner's home. The brutal beatings resulted in bumps and bruises covering her legs, to the extent that she couldn't stand or walk.

Feng Jitang and Wu Hongxia were the two most brutal officials from Beidao. Their hands are stained with the blood of Dafa practitioners. They caused many family tragedies. Since the persecution started on July 20, 1999 they have closely followed Jiang Zemin's Communist regime to insanely persecute practitioners. They often bound practitioners and hung them up, and then beat and otherwise tortured them. By conservative estimates, these two have personally sent more than 30 practitioners to forced labor camps. The practitioners they have beaten included the elderly in their sixties or seventies, elementary school students who were only about 11 years old, and those who were disabled. Practitioner Zhang Jinmei sustained a broken arm from their beatings.

On August 30, 2004, these police officers arrested a female practitioner from Huaniu Town, Beidao District. To get this practitioner to reveal and denounce other practitioners, officers Feng Jitang, Ding Mao, Liu Qi, and political head Gao subjected her to torture to get a "confession". They handcuffed her with her arms behind her back and beat her using thick sticks, making her roll on the ground in pain. Her whole body was covered with bruises. They detained this practitioner and tortured her for one week. They released her only after they realized they could not get any information from her.

A sixty-year-old humpbacked person was arrested and was locked up in the Beidao District Detention Center because he helped some practitioners who had difficulty making ends meet due to the persecution. Later on, Feng Jitang ordered this elderly person to be taken back to the Beidao District Police Department office. He was deprived of sleep for four days and was kept sitting on a wooden bench with his legs hanging in the air. Officer Wu Hongxia beat the elderly person with a broom, making his face distorted and his eyes bulge out. His eyesight was blurred and his face was so swollen that nobody could recognize him. When he was taken back to the cell, even the criminal cellmates cried. The elderly person was illegally detained for almost three months. Later, with his family's requests, officer Feng Jitang released him after having extorted 2,000 yuan from them. By then, this individual was already skin and bones.

Officers from the Beidao District Police Department arrested a woman teacher on December 15, 2003 from her home, because she had logged onto the Minghui website (Minghui is the Chinese language version of Clearwisdom). She was locked up in an office building and was deprived of sleep that night. Officers Wu Hongxia, Feng Jitang and others beat her and kicked her and slapped her face. Later on, Feng Jitang took out a very thick stick and beat her legs until they were completely covered with bruises and severely swollen. They then handcuffed her with her arms behind her back for over twenty minutes. The teacher was half dead from torture. Only after she had written the Guarantee Statement, against her will, did they set her free.

Someone who was ignorant of the truth denounced another woman teacher when she clarified the truth of Dafa to a passerby. This teacher was arrested that same day and taken to the police department. Feng Jitang and three other people holding wooden sticks beat her, breaking her skin and creating gaping wounds. She was covered in large wounds and was in unbearable pain.

Someone reported two practitioners from the countryside for clarifying the truth of the persecution. They decided to leave home, rather than be persecuted by evildoer Feng. They have been homeless since last summer. They could not tend to their farmland and missed the harvest. The mother of one of the practitioners was paralyzed and bedridden the whole year, someone had beaten the practitioner's wife and broken some of her ribs, resulting in hospitalization, his small child needed a caretaker, and his family had trouble buying enough to eat. However, as soon as he arrived home, Feng Jitang struck again and arrested the practitioner in the dead of night from his wife's sickbed. This happened as soon as Feng Jitang heard that the practitioner had returned home. But the criminal who beat his wife still remains at large. Feng didn't care at all about the practitioner's family's extreme difficulties and even extorted money from them. One of the family members was extorted out of 6,000 yuan, and another was extorted out of 9,000 yuan. Feng Jitang boasted, "If the money isn't the exact total, I definitely won't release you! I don't want it to be short of the amount, not even a single penny!"

Practitioner Chen Jiao was reported, seized and sent to the village government while she distributed Dafa truth clarifying materials. An officer surnamed Wang from the Beidao District Police Department used a thick wooden club to beat Ms. Chen for several hours, and tried to force her to tell them the source of the materials. Ms. Chen attempted to escape by jumping from the third floor of the village government building. She is now bedridden. The perpetrator felt guilty and hurriedly sent Ms. Chen to the hospital and escaped. When Ms. Chen's husband went to the police department and questioned why they beat his wife and tormented her to such an extent, Beidao Police Department officials denied the fact that they had beaten Ms. Cheng and denied the existence of a police officer named Wang.

Prior to July 20, 1999, an older practitioner once offered the exercise music and a place for practitioners to do the Falun Gong exercises. Feng Jitang compelled the old man to take part in the farce of turning in the Falun Gong books in at the Tianshui Television Station, to deceive kind people. Later on, Feng constantly put this older man under duress, tried to force him to write the "guarantee statement", make declarations against Dafa and report to the police department. Someone was assigned to monitor him 24 hours a day. Even when the old man went back to his hometown for a funeral ceremony, Feng also made people follow him. He ordered the older man to regularly report practitioners' "new activities." If there were no "new activities," he then questioned him under torture, an act the Chinese Constitution explicitly forbids. This elderly man couldn't bear the torture, became mentally distraught and started to fabricate testimony. When the old man's "confessions" didn't satisfied Feng, he then continued to torture him. Later they then extorted huge fines from him, from several thousand yuan to over ten thousand yuan. After his children paid, they released him, but admonished him to continue to nose around for "new things" and report regularly. Feng's greed and illicit conduct, which went on for several years made this man's family extremely poor and forced them into debt. Fear and physical torture made this older man frightened all day long. His children eventually couldn't find him anywhere one day and looked wherever they could think of. Because they were afraid to explain this situation to Feng Jitang, his children decided to leave and become homeless, to avoid Feng's additional coercion and ruthlessness.

The Beidao District Drug Rehabilitation Center illegally detained Dafa practitioners. Practitioners underwent a hunger strike to resist the evil slanderous propaganda and the persecution. Center head Zhu Wanmin ordered other police officers to bind the practitioners' hands and feet with ropes to a torture tool called a chain chair. They used a metal bar to pry the practitioners' mouths open and force-fed them. This cruel procedure frequently resulted in practitioners losing a few teeth. They were bound up like this for over ten hours and were forbidden to go to the restroom. Evildoing person Zhu Wanmin also once handcuffed a woman practitioner outside of the building for several hours in the severe winter. He once used a rubber tube to lash a male practitioner and hung the practitioner to the basketball frame for several hours. The practitioner was barely able to touch the ground with his toes and was in extreme pain.

In order to get more money, Zhu Wanmin even confined non-drug addicts in the rehabilitation center for at least six months, to bolster the number of detained people in order to get the allocated money from the Communist regime. Those detainees had to bribe the police department head and the rehabilitation center supervisor to get released earlier. They had to bribe them with at least several thousand yuan, or even ten thousand yuan or more.