(Clearwisdom.net) Mr. Liang Zhenxing, one of the Falun Gong practitioners involved in tapping into the Changchun City Cable Network to broadcast truth-clarification videos, died as a result of persecution at the Gongzhuling Central Hospital on May 1, 2010.
Mr. Liang Zhenxing
Mr. Liang, born in 1964, was a water-heating engineer in Changchun City, Jilin Province. He once picked up bad habits from the big dye vat of the declining society, and his family was on the verge of collapse because of his low morality. After he began to practice Falun Gong upon a neighbor’s recommendation in 1998, however, he gradually learned how to conduct himself and was able to break his bad habits and enjoy a harmonious family life. Witnessing the tremendous changes in him, his wife and daughter also became practitioners.
Mr. Liang Sent to a Labor Camp for Appealing for Falun Gong
After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) openly announced its suppression of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, Mr. Liang and other practitioners went to the Jilin Province Appeals Office on July 22 to clarify the facts about Falun Gong and to request the release of local Falun Gong coordinators that had been arrested during the previous two days. Appeals Office officials told the practitioners to send in five representatives to speak to them. Mr. Liang was one of the volunteers. During the talk, however, the Appeals Office officials denied the arrest of any coordinators.
Mr. Liang went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong twice: in August and September of 1999, respectively. He was arrested during his second appeal and sentenced to serve a one-year term at the Weizigou Labor Camp, which kept him incarcerated for seven more months past his term expiration date, until April 2001.
Mr. Liang Resisted Persecution with Righteous Thoughts at the Labor Camp
The labor camp guards subjected detained practitioners to an intensive torture session in June 2000. They ordered Mr. Liang, Mr. Liu Chengjun and other practitioners to sit on small benches for extended periods, while at the same time beating and shocking them with electric batons. They also forced them to go through brainwashing sessions.
Under the directive of personnel from the Changchun City Judiciary Bureau, Weizigou Labor Camp transferred all the practitioners to the Fenjin Labor Camp on July 12, 2000, but they brought back Mr. Liang and some others not long after.
After the CCP staged the “Tiananmen Square Self-immolation” incident around the 2001 Chinese New Year, camp officials gathered all detainees one night to watch programs attacking Falun Gong. To protest the Falun Gong smear campaign, Mr. Liang and Ms. Han Yuzhu shouted, “Falun Dafa is the righteous Fa.” The guards gagged them and held Ms. Han down. Mr. Liang and Ms. Han went on a hunger strike to protest their mistreatment.
The morning of February 9, 2001, camp head Zhang Benquan led his subordinates to force-feed the two practitioners. They pried Mr. Liang’s mouth open and poured in a bottle of high-density saline water. When Mr. Liang struggled to get away, they punched his eyes and caused severe injuries. His mouth was also damaged during the process. He couldn’t stop coughing and vomiting when he was led back to his cell. Also force-fed the high-density saline water, Ms. Han suffered from sodium poisoning and died that night.
After his release Mr. Liang worked together with practitioners to clarify the facts of Falun Gong to people. To get the message out, they tried everything possible, including tying truth-clarification banners to helium balloons and broadcasting truth-clarification materials via loudspeakers.
In 2002, in order to clarify the truth to people deceived by the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) slanderous propaganda about Falun Gong, several practitioners tapped into the cable networks in Changchun City and broadcast a video program relating the true story of the Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident. In retaliation, the CCP arrested more than 5,000 Falun Gong practitioners.
Before and After the Cable TV Interception
Since the CCP-staged “Tiananmen Square Self-immolation” incident had mentally blinded many people, Mr. Liang contemplated how to spread the truth of the persecution of Falun Gong more effectively. After he learned of the potential benefit of tapping into a cable TV network, he began to do experiments, financed with his own savings.
On February 27, 2002 Mr. Liang received a phone call from his workplace, asking him to talk to manager Sun at the Songhui Market the next day. When he arrived, more than ten plainclothes policemen captured him and took him away.
Mr. Liang Zhenxing in Detention in March 2002
At around 8:00 p.m. on March 5, 2002, Falun Gong truth clarification videos including “Falun Dafa Around the World” and “Self-immolation or Staged Act?” were broadcast for about fifty minutes on eight channels of the Changchun City cable TV network, which boasted 300,000 subscribers and more than one million viewers. The incident created shockwaves in the public, and many people learned the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong.
Shocked and angered, Jiang Zemin, the then CCP head who started the persecution, issued a secret order to “kill [those responsible for the incident] without pardon.” Soon, police officers from Jilin Province arrested more than 5,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Changchun City. During the arrests, at least seven Falun Gong practitioners were beaten to death, and fifteen practitioners were sentenced to between four and twenty years in prison. Mr. Liang and Mr. Liu Chengjun were given 19 years and Ms. Zhou Runjun 20 years, which were the longest terms exacted upon Falun Gong practitioners since the onset of the persecution in 1999.
Mr. Liang Brutalized by Police
Following the mass arrest of practitioners, agents from Division One of the Changchun City Police Department took Mr. Liang to the Tiebei Detention Center in Changchun City. They interrogated him six times during his detention there. Each time they drove him to a hotel in a suburban area where they kept a covert interrogation room. They often tortured him for several days in a row. One time they kept shocking his nipples with electric batons and eventually burned and broke one off. They beat him so hard that they fractured his ribs as well.
Torture Reenactment: Shocked with Electric Batons
At 7:00 a.m. on September 18, 2002, a Changchun Intermediate Court commenced a trial of the 15 practitioners involved in the TV interception ahead of schedule. Before the trial the police beat and shocked the practitioners with electric batons. Many of the practitioners had their mouths badly injured. Mr. Liang, Mr. Liu Chengjun and Mr. Lei Ming shouted, “Falun Dafa is good,” and “Falun Dafa is the righteous Fa” on the way to the courthouse. The police shocked them madly with electric batons in an attempt to stop them. During the court session Mr. Liang kept repeating, “Falun Dafa is good” and “Falun Dafa is the righteous Fa.”
Mr. Liang Tortured at Jilin Prison
After Mr. Liang was sent to Jilin Prison in November 2002, criminal detainees, including Li Ming and Zhao Guangcun used every means possible to make him suffer. They whipped him with rubber pipes filled with water, pummeled his back with shoe heels, and poked their fingers in between his ribs. They even squeezed his testicles hard.
On the eve of the 2003 Chinese New Year, Li Ming beat Mr. Liang with a rubber pipe so hard that Mr. Liang lost his balance, hit his head on the radiator and immediately lost consciousness. Following hospital emergency care he developed complications. His speech became blurred, and he sometimes couldn’t think clearly.
Mr. Liang's clear-headedness was restored in the spring of 2003 after reading articles written by Master Li that a practitioner’s family members had passed on. In the fall of 2003 he wrote a letter to the prison management, reporting the mistreatment of detained practitioners, but was met with retaliation. The guards transferred him to the “Strictly Managed Team” where they subjected him to even more brutal torture.
On July 10, 2004, the Jilin Province 610 Office dispatched a group of inspectors to Jilin Prison to start a 10-day involuntary brainwashing session. When Mr. Liang refused to cooperate he was again sent to the “Strictly Managed Team” where the guards made three criminal detainees watch over him. The monitors beat him and also forced him to sit on a wooden slat less than one inch wide for more than ten hours a day. The prison also forbade him to receive family visits.
Mr. Liang Went through Hell at the Tiebei Prison
On March 29, 2005 Mr. Liang was transferred to the Tiebei Prison in Changchun City where he continued to suffer from gross mistreatment. Division head Wang Xiaoguang and political head Zhang Lizhou ordered criminal detainees to beat him for several months in a row.
One day in mid-August 2005 Mr. Liang was taken to Police Hospital, where, instead of receiving medical care, he was made to go through a special kind of torture called, the “Stretching Bed.” With this torture, his four limbs were immobilized in a spread eagle position to the top ends of the four posts of the bed. His whole body was suspended except for his head, which was supported by a pile of objects. For six days in a row he had to remain in this position, day and night. When he was sent back to the Tiebei Prison Hospital he was shackled during the day, but tied up to the four corners of a bed in spread eagle position at night.
Torture Reenactment: Stretching Bed
Mr. Liang Suffered Tremendously at Shiling Prison
Mr. Liang was transferred to Shiling Prison in Siping City at the end of August 2005. As soon as he arrived he was led to solitary confinement. The guards later moved him to a so-called “Reform Division” where detained practitioners were closely watched. The guards assigned criminal detainees to keep an eye on each of the practitioners who were prohibited from talking to or exchanging eye contact with each other. Mr. Liang and another practitioner were spotted smiling at each other and were subsequently beaten by Gao Minglong and a few other detainees in the washroom. Both practitioners had a swollen face and loosened teeth afterwards.
After Mr. Liang went on a hunger strike on May 6, 2006, the guards made him lie in bed, handcuffed and shackled. He had to relieve himself in bed. Every day a few detainees walked him to the prison hospital to receive force-feeding, which eventually led to his damaged trachea, hoarse voice and slurred speech.
When Mr. Liang’s family went to visit him in the prison on May 12, 2006 they noticed he had to be supported by two guards and appeared extremely weak. Moreover, the feeding tube was still hanging there, and the shackles were still on him.
Under orders from the Jilin Province 610 Office, Shiling Prison also conducted an involuntary reform session in July 2006. Again, practitioners were not allowed to talk to or exchange eye contact with each other. Any offense would invite scolding or beatings.
Mr. Liang had by then been on hunger strike for more than two months and was extremely weak. Since the guards often left the feeding tube in his stomach without removing it for many days in a row, the tube had already disintegrated inside his body. Despite his worrisome health condition, the guards ordered criminal detainees to carry him to the brainwashing class every day. Guard Shen Quanhong and former practitioner Zhu Jiahui who had gone along an evil path, inserted a thick tube into his nostril for up to 10 times a day. During one force- feeding session they almost broke his windpipe.
Torture Reenactment: Force-feeding
One day around five people, including prison head Yin Shoudong and division head Yang Tiejun, handcuffed Mr. Liang and pushed him on ground that had been soaked with water. They next shocked him with more than 10 electric batons simultaneously. They tortured him like this twice every day, once in the morning and then in the afternoon, for one straight month.
Mr. Liang’s family went to see him again in August 2006 and was saddened to see him reduced to just skin and bones. It was summer time with temperatures in the 90s, but with his winter coat on he still complained of feeling too cold.
Mr. Liang’s hunger strike lasted more than three months, during which the guards often chained him up to a bed and also shackled him.
When the prison moved Mr. Liang back to the “Reform Division” in 2007, he resisted the persecution by refusing to wear a prison uniform, answer roll calls or participate in labor. The guards assigned more than four detainees to watch over him around the clock. Every day at 5:00 a.m. they woke him up and shackled him to the bed railing. He wasn’t allowed to move and had to sit facing a wall all day long. As a matter of fact, he was chained to the bed like this until he was transferred to the Gongzhuling Prison on January 1, 2010.
One day near the end of 2007 Mr. Liang was beaten and shocked with eight electric batons simultaneously for refusing to recite prison rules. As a result his face was extremely swollen, deformed and covered with blisters. His back, abdomen and genital area were burned. Numerous rows of burn marks lined up, from his neck down to his bottom.
Detainee Yan Dequan poured cold water onto Mr. Liang’s head almost every day, be it winter or summer.
Mr. Liang’s eyes and face were often left swollen due to constant beatings.
Once Gao Minglong pushed Mr. Liang down in front of other detainees and hit him with a wooden slat. Mr. Liang’s back was covered with bloody marks afterwards. Another time Gao slapped his face with the sole of a shoe, causing his nose and ears to bleed. Yan Dequan spared no efforts making Mr. Liang suffer. He often punched or elbowed Mr. Liang on the chest, head, and face. He also slapped Mr. Liang on the face or grabbed his hair to hit his head against a wall. He stomped on Mr. Liang’s sensitive areas and hit his face and head with a wooden brush. He even squeezed Mr. Liang’s testicles, pulled his penis and inserted a toothbrush and broomstick into his anus. He also forced hot chili pepper into Mr. Liang's mouth. Mr. Liang had to remain still during sleep - any movement would invite beatings. He was also harshly treated when it came to eating, washing and using the restroom.
Years of torture had left Mr. Liang with great physical damage. There was a round dent about 3 centimeters in diameter on his head, and a rip on his left ear which often bled. The bridge of his nose was broken and two of his incisors came out. His trachea was greatly damaged, and his voice was hoarse. He could no longer produce a loud sound, leaving him with a very weak voice. There were many bruises and marks on his back.
Mr. Liang Died after being Transferred to the Gongzhuling Prison
By the end of 2009, Mr. Liang’s health condition had become extremely worrisome and he often lost consciousness due to the non-stop beatings. In an effort to shirk responsibility, Siping Prison transferred him to Gongzhuling Prison on January 1, 2010.
Mr. Liang went on a hunger strike again when the guards at the new prison demanded he give up his belief in Falun Gong. His protest was met with brutal force-feeding, which led to rapid deterioration of his health. He died on May 1, 2010, at the age of 46. It was said that the guards inserted the feeding tube into his lungs by mistake, causing his death. By the time he was sent to the Gongzhuling Hospital, he already had no signs of life, and his ankles were black and purple and swollen.
The suffering Mr. Liang went through is beyond people’s imagination and endurance limit. We expose the CCP’s crimes against him, so everyone has a clear understanding of this brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners who simply want the freedom to follow their belief in Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.
