(Minghui.org) Having endured two years of forced labor and brutal torture for remaining resolute in his belief in Falun Gong, Mr. Peng Yaxin from Jingmen City was recently arrested for possession of informational material on the practice.
While traveling in Shenji Township, Shayang County on March 13, two police cars sandwiched the vehicle that Mr. Peng and three other practitioners rode in and pulled them over. The police found Falun Gong informational material in the car and arrested all four of them.
Mr. Peng was taken to the county jail and transferred five days later to the Shayang County Detention Center, where he is currently detained.
Mr. Peng started practicing Falun Gong in 1996 while attending college. After the Communist regime launched the persecution in July 1999, the local police confiscated his ID card and frequently harassed him.
Mr. Peng went to Beijing in September to appeal for the right to freedom of belief and was arrested. He was then put through two years of forced labor and endured brutal torture for his belief.
Torture and Forced Labor
After his arrest in Beijing in September 1999, Mr. Peng was taken back to his hometown and detained at the Jingmen No. 2 Detention Center. A guard forced the detained practitioners out to the courtyard one winter night, stripped their tops off, and made them kneel on the ground. He whipped the bare chested practitioners one by one with a belt.
Mr. Peng was transferred to Shayang Forced Labor Camp in the end of 1999. Upon arriving, some guards took him to a small cell, cuffed his hands at his back, and assaulted him with electric batons. He was covered with cuts and bruises, and his hands and lips were burnt and blistered.
Mr. Peng had to perform hard labor and was routinely given extra heavy loads. He was assigned many tasks on a daily basis and punished when he didn't finish by the end of the day. He was not allowed to go to sleep and instead had to shell a big bag of peanuts.
The detained practitioners, including Mr. Peng, worked in the peanut fields during the day. They were not allowed to take a break after lunch like other inmates. They were made to weed the fields under the baking sun, forced to work, bent over, without relief. At the end of the day, the practitioners were to carry all the farming tools back to the camp and had to sing loudly while walking.
During the winter, Mr. Peng and others were made to stand in a freezing cold pond for long periods of time to harvest lotus roots and catch fish.
Torture Escalated at the Special Unit
A special unit was set up in March 2001 at the Shayang Forced Labor Camp in a desperate attempt to transform the unyielding practitioners. They were rounded up from each division, taken to the special unit, and one by one questioned and humiliated.
Because Mr. Peng would not call practicing Falun Gong a “crime” during questioning, two guards cuffed Mr. Peng's hands at his back, kicked him in the back of his knee to make him kneel, beat him, and shocked him with electric batons. Many other practitioners were beaten for the same reason.
Mr. Peng remembered the screams of other practitioners, the sound of the high voltage electric shocks, and the guards' loud shouting and cursing. The camp director, political commissar, and heads of the other divisions stood there and watched.
At the special unit, each practitioner was monitored by at least two criminal inmates, who recorded and reported everything to the guards. They verbally and physically abused the practitioners any time they wanted.
The practitioners had to get up before dawn and didn't go to sleep until late at night. They were made to practice military formations, run, walk, jump, squat, and stand for long periods of time.
There were many dehumanizing rules at the special unit. Whenever they left or entered a room, the practitioners had to call it out loud; they had to stand up and ask for permission before doing anything; they were to stand at attention whenever they saw a guard, and to squat whenever a guard talked to them; they were made to recite the rules and regulations of the camp; while sitting, they had to sit up straight and look straight ahead with hands neatly on their knees; they were not allowed to speak with other practitioners and not to even exchange a look, otherwise they'd be punished.
The practitioners were forced to watch TV programs slandering Falun Gong every night and write thought reports afterward. The guards monitored them closely to make sure that each practitioner paid attention. Whoever didn't do this was beaten.
The practitioners were often taken into the courtyard in the middle of the night and shocked with electric batons, or hung from a tree and beaten. They were given very little time to use the bathroom and were dragged out of the bathroom when time was up.
Mr. Peng was released in September 2001. He was repeatedly harassed after returning home and was put through a forty-day intense brainwashing session at the Hubei Brainwashing Center in Wuhan.
Family Suffers as Well
Mr. Peng's ordeal also brought suffering to his family. Shortly after he was transferred to the forced labor camp, his wife gave birth to their child. The camp authorities turned down his request to go home and be with his family.
Frequent harassment from the local authorities affected other family members. Mr. Peng's elderly mother got so anxious and scared that she couldn't stop shaking each time the police came knocking.
