(Minghui.org) His family could hardly recognize Mr. Xie Hang (谢珩), emaciated and with deep wrinkles in his forehead. Mr. Xie looked a completely different person when the family visited in April, five months after his transfer to the Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai where he is serving a four-year sentence for practicing Falun Gong.
During the family visitation in April, a prison guard stood behind Mr. Xie and two others stood behind his family members. The communication phone line went dead whenever the family asked about his situation in prison.
His family could only gather the general fact that he had been tortured physically and mentally in the prison's efforts to “transform” him.
Mr. Xie was arrested in February 2013 and sentenced to a four-year prison term in December 2013. He has previously served four and a half years in the same Shanghai Prison, from 2004 to 2008.
Tortured from 2004 to 2008 in the Same Prison
Mr. Xie, 41, has already endured a four-year prison term at the Tilanqiao Prison after being sentenced in February 2004. He was held in an experimental division and confined to a 35-square-foot cell.
Three inmates took turns monitoring him around the clock. They took away all his personal items and did not allow him to leave the cell. He had to get permission for everything, including eating, drinking, brushing his teeth, washing his face, using the restroom, and sleeping.
Mr. Xie was forced to sit on a circular mat placed on the ground from 5:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily, and was not allowed to move. His buttocks developed painful sores after a month, which became infected.
The inmates were also ordered to lift his blanket and inspect his person every 15 minutes throughout the night, severely disrupting Mr. Xie's sleep. Enticed with exemption from forced labor if they successfully “transform” Falun Gong practitioners, the inmates resort to harsh methods and abuse.
Mr. Xie wrote an open letter from the prison on April 25, 2005: “I was sentenced to prison for my belief and my speaking up for Falun Gong. This is persecution. It is a violation of my constitutional rights. I do not acquiesce to any injustice imposed upon me and Falun Gong. I don't acknowledge the sentence.”
