(Minghui.org) Mr. Yi Xueming is a practitioner in Qixia City, Shandong Province. He was detained at the Qixia Detention Center after being arrested in the afternoon on March 28, 2013. Reportedly, he was arrested while seeking justice for his brother's death and his wife's imprisonment.
Mr. Yi not only lost his brother, but his family has been torn apart during the persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners in China. In August 2011, Mr. Yi and his wife Ms. Feng Cuirong were arrested by officers from the Qixia Police Department. In October 2011, his brother Yi Jingming, who was blind, went to the police department asking for their release, and was later murdered. Ms. Feng was sentenced to eight years in prison at the end of 2012. She is imprisoned at the Jinan Prison.
Here is a statement by Mr. Yi:
My name is Yi Xueming. I am 48 years old. In 2005, six years after the Communist regime launched the persecution of Falun Gong, I became a practitioner. I learned how to be a good person, and both my mind and body were uplifted.
At dawn one day in August 2011, six cars pulled up in front of our home. When my wife and I opened the door, a dozen people rushed in and took all three members of our family to the Tangjiapo Police Station. They were not driving police cars, nor were they wearing police uniforms, and they did not show us any sort of identification. They behaved just liked a group of kidnappers. Our son was released two hours later. My wife and I were separated and held at the Yangchu Fourth Professional School. They ransacked our home, confiscated our computer, cell phone, printer, satellite dish, and other items totaling over 10,000 yuan.
I was held at the Yangchu Fourth Professional School for four days, then the Qixia Detention Center for 43 days. I was released after the police extorted 5,000 yuan from me. After I was released, I learned that my elder brother, Yi Jingming, had been persecuted to death while he was appealing for our benefit.
My brother,Yi Jingming, was blind and depended on us for living. He knew that we practiced Falun Gong, followed the Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance principles, and would not do anything bad. He went to the Qixia Police Department many times to appeal for justice and our release. The officers of the Domestic Security Division sent him to the Cuiping Police Station. The officers at the Cuiping Police Station could not make him leave, so they took him home by force. This happened repeatedly and it annoyed the officers.
On October 8, 2011, our relatives found that his door had been shut and tied with metal wire from the outside. His dead body was lying on the bed inside and he had scratches on his neck and face. Bloodstains were on the walls and the comforter. There were many footprints on the bed and a pool of dry blood was on the ground. A pesticide container was setting near the bed. It was an obvious setup and a homicide. But the forensic police said that he had “died from drinking pesticide.”
To avoid being persecuted again, I left home.
During this time, my wife Feng Xueping, also called Feng Cuirong, was being detained at the Yantai Detention Center, and faced sentencing with five other practitioners. Our family hired a lawyer from Beijing to defend her. On July 3, 2012, without notifying the families or their lawyers, the Qixia Court secretly tried the six practitioners at the Qixia Detention Center. All six were given heavy sentences ranging from five-and-a-half to ten years. My wife was sentenced to eight years. The practitioners appealed to the Yantai Middle Court, which would not take their arguments and upheld the unjust sentence. My wife, along with four of the practitioners, are being incarcerated at the Jinan Women's Prison.
I was tortured many times by the police while detained. I was shocked with electric batons, and forced to hold an electric baton between my legs to shock myself. It was so painful that I could not stop hitting my head against the wall, which made my head bleed. During the interrogation at the detention center, police officers cuffed my arm and legs together and forced me to squat. I lost feeling in my body. My legs and feet became swollen. I lost strength and lay on the ground. They did this to me for over two hours many times every day, for a week. They coerced me into telling them where I got the items that they had seized from my home and who I called to get them. I was forced to do slave labor 15 hours a day. I had to bow my head sewing gauze covers. My neck became so sore that couldn't lift my head. When I did not finish the quota, guards instigated the inmate cell head to “take good care” of me. He then punched me in the nose and poured cold water on me.
