Mr. Yang Faqiang Arrested Again after Being Persecuted Repeatedly for Years

(Minghui.org) Mr. Yang Faqiang, a Falun Gong practitioner from Longxi County, Gansu Province, was standing in a waiting room at the Longxi County Train Station at 2:00 a.m. on April 20, 2014. He was accompanying his parents on a trip to visit their hometown. Two police officers found Falun Gong books in his luggage and arrested him.

This was not the first time Mr. Yang has been arrested.

Mr. Yang, 45, works at the Northwest Aluminum Plant. He began practicing Falun Gong in 1998. He has been arrested, detained, and sentenced many times since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Gong in July 1999.

Arrested Twice for Appealing for the Right to Practice Falun Gong

On July 20, 1999, local authorities began to collect names of Falun Gong practitioners. The CCP secretary where Mr. Yang worked asked him to quit Falun Gong, hand over his Falun Gong books, and warned him that he was not allowed to go to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice. Mr. Yang refused to cooperate.

Mr. Yang and his brother, Mr. Yang Fazeng, went to Beijing in December 1999 for that very reason. They were stopped and arrested by Wang Wei, the head of security where Mr. Yang worked, and several other officers in front of Beijing West Train Station. They were detained in a hotel, and the following day deported back to Longxi, along with several other practitioners, including Mr. Bi Yujie, Mr. Bi Wenming, and Mr. Yan Zhongxin. They were then held in Longxi County Detention Center for 30 days.

In January 2000, the Yang brothers and other practitioners went to Beijing to appeal again. At Tiananmen Square, the brothers unfurled a Falun Gong banner. The police surrounded them, grabbed their banner, and beat them to the ground. They were taken to Qianmen Police Station.

Mr. Yang Faqiang was deprived of sleep after being transferred to Changping Police Station in Hebei Province. He and other local practitioners were later taken back to Longxi Police Department. They were detained in Longxi County Detention Center and Weiyuan County Detention Center after being questioned.

Mr. Yang Faqiang was detained for eighteen months. He was interrogated and threatened many times, but he always refused to give up practicing Falun Gong.

Mao Jianhua, head of the detention center, and officer Song Jianhua forced everyone to watch videos slandering Falun Gong, including the staged self-immolation. Mr. Yang said, "Our teacher told us that practitioners should not kill. Committing suicide is a crime. This self-immolation was certainly made up by the Party." Mao Jianhua immediately silenced him.

The detention center refused to allow Mr. Yang's family to visit him. Song Jianhua and other officers ransacked Mr. Yang's home. He went on hunger strikes twice to protest the illegal detention.

Sentenced to a Three-Year Prison Term

Mr. Yang was not "transformed" in Longxi County Detention Center. In 2012, Mao Jianhua and other detention center leaders made a list of Mr. Yang's "crimes" and sent him to trial. Officers with the Longxi County Procuratorate and Court interrogated Mr. Yang and had a lawyer ask him if he needed a lawyer.

Mr. Yang asked, "Will you plead not-guilty for me?" When the lawyer said he couldn't, Mr. Yang said, "Then I will defend myself."

During the trial, the judge tried to stop Mr. Yang from pleading not-guilty. The judge did not allow him to go over the case in detail, and specifically forbade him from mentioning the fact that Falun Gong was being persecuted. Longxi County Court sentenced Mr. Yang to a three-year prison term, and did not allow him to appeal.

Mr. Yang was taken to Lanzhou Prison in 2002. There he was forced to do hard labor for three months, doing everything from picking pumpkin seeds to construction.

Mr. Yang was taken to Dingxi Prison at the end of the year. He was forced to recite the prison rules and later to do benchwork. Several prisoners were assigned to watch each practitioner. The practitioners were forbidden from doing the Falun Gong exercises or even talking to one another.

Mr. Yang's term expired on January 29, 2004. His family came to Lanzhou Prison to take him home, but the officers refused to let him go, because he had not been "transformed." The next night several Longxi County officers, including Song Jianhua and Lu Dechang, took Mr. Yang to the brainwashing center in Longxi County Drug Addiction Treatment Center, and detained him for another month.

Three Months in Gongjiawan Brainwashing Center

After his release, Mr. Yang returned to his old job. Officials said that he could only return to work if he wrote a guarantee statement promising not to practice Falun Gong. Mr. Yang refused.

They then told him to ask permission from the Longxi County Political and Legal Affairs Committee, "We'll only allow you work here if they agree." Mr. Yang Faqiang, Ms. Wang Yanmei, and another practitioner went to see the head of the county Political and Legal Affairs Committee, Ma Xianwu.

When Ma learned that they had not stopped practicing Falun Gong, he got very angry. Several days later, Ma went to Xijiao Police Station and ordered the police to take Mr. Yang and Ms. Wang from their homes to the Gongjiawan Brainwash Center in Lanzhou City.

It was the summer of 2004. In the brainwashing center, officer Yang Dongchen ordered guards and other prisoners to watch the Falun Gong practitioners, and not let them talk to each other or do the exercises. They were forced to watch videos that slandered Falun Gong and write reports on their thoughts. They were ordered to write statements promising to quit Falun Gong. When they refused to do so, they were handcuffed to the window bars in isolated small cells.

Mr. Yang was locked up for more than a week. He was tortured both physically and mentally for three months at the brainwashing center before being released.

Forced to Be Displaced

Mr. Yang was arrested in the summer of 2006 by security people from Northwest Aluminum Plant where he worked, along with Longxi County police. They took him home, ransacked his place, and then detained him. After he got out, he could not go home and was forced to live elsewhere.

Parties That Participated in Persecuting Mr. Yang: Nan Xicheng (南锡诚), Political and Legal Affairs Committee head: [phone], [phone] Longxi County Police Department: [phone] Public Security Office: [phone] Lu Dechang (陆德昌), director of Public Security Office (国保队队长): [phone] Zhang Xueping (张学平), factory director, Northwest Aluminum Plant: [phone], [phone] Jin Zhenglu (靳正禄), 610 Office staff: [phone] (For more perpetrators' contact information, please refer to the original Chinese article)