(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioners Mr. Qu Yonghua and Mr. Zhao Shijun from Harbin City were each sentenced to nine years in prison in 2006 for distributing Falun Gong informational materials. They have survived eight years in Daqing Prison.

Mr. Qu is now quite ill, and Mr. Zhao has a severe back injury and a ruptured eardrum.

Falun Gong practitioners are subjected to brutal treatment in Daqing Prison, which keeps a tight lid on all information about the persecution. Mr. Qu's four front teeth were knocked out by guard Li Weinan in May of 2009, because he refused to wear a prison uniform and refused to denounce his belief. Mr. Zhao Shijun's back was injured and his eardrum ruptured when he was beaten.

Torture reenactment: Beating

Arrested and Sentenced

Mr. Qu Yonghua and Mr. Zhao Shijun were two of the seven practitioners who went to Yonghe Village, Yongyuang Town, Acheng, to distribute Falun Gong informational materials on January 9, 2006. The others were: Wang Jiang, Fu Wenchang, Yang Gongxi, Li Wanyue, and Sun Shuangrong. They were reported by village security director Xue Baoxin and arrested by Yongyuang Town police officers.

All seven Falun Gong practitioners were tried in the Acheng Court and sentenced to between eight and ten years in prison on April 18, 2006. Mr. Qu and Mr. Zhao each got nine years.

Mr. Qu Yonghua

Mr. Qu, a 60-year-old farmer, lives in Xinhua Town, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province. When he started to practice Falun Dafa in 1997, he quit drinking and worked hard on changing his bad temper. He changed tremendously both physical and mentally.

However, things turned upside down after the Jiang Zemin regime started the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. Local police officers broke into Mr. Qu's home repeatedly to harass him, and pressured him to denounce Falun Dafa. Mr. Qu went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in 2000. He was arrested and taken home, where he was detained in the Acheng Detention Center and brainwashing centers for several months.

Mr. Qu's term ends on January 8, 2015. Currently he suffers multiple ailments due to severe abuse, including torture. After he was arrested, his wife, who suffers from mental illness, looked for him in every house in the village, day and night. Her elderly mother later took her back home. Her current situation is unknown.

Mr. Zhao Shijun

Mr. Zhao lives in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province. He started to practice Falun Gong in 2005.

After Mr. Zhao was arrested with six other practitioners on January 9, 2006, he was taken to the Acheng District Second Detention Center and interrogated several times. On January 12 an arrest warrant was issued for him and he was transferred to the Acheng District First Detention Center.

Torture illustration: Doused with ice water

In the detention center, the other detainees brutally tortured Mr. Zhao under the direction of the police. They often poured ice water over him.

When Mr. Zhao was sentenced to nine years by the Acheng District Court, the presiding judge said that the sentences were decided by the 610 Office and that the court did not have the authority to make its own decision. The seven Falun Gong practitioners appealed, but their case was dismissed by the Intermediate Court.

Mr. Zhao was first taken to the training center of Hulan Prison in the Hulan District, Harbin, on July 6. He was pressured to write the three statements, forced to stand for long periods of time, and was forced to do slave labor.

He was transferred to the 7 ^th Ward of Daqing Prison on August 3. Over the past eight years, Mr. Zhao has been forced to do intensive labor and has been tortured by the guards. Guard Zhang Chunsheng beat him so severely that Mr. Zhao sustained back injuries and a ruptured eardrum which did not heal after a long period of time. Mr. Zhao is currently detained in 5 ^th Ward of Daqing Prison.