(Minghui.org) Mr. Sun Fangxi of Hefei City, Anhui Province, was arrested on March 3, 2018, while he was going through security checks at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. He shouted out “Falun Dafa is good” as he was taken away. His whereabouts remain unknown.
Mr. Sun’s latest arrest came less than two years after he finished serving 13 years for tapping into his local cable TV to broadcast programs exposing the Chinese communist regime’s persecution of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong), a spiritual discipline based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
Mr. Sun credits Falun Gong for curing his liver disease and enabling him to enjoy a healthy life. After the persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999, he worked hard to tell people that Falun Gong was nothing like what was depicted by the state-run media propaganda.
He was first arrested in January 2001 and sent to a labor camp where he was forced-fed and tortured to the point of near-death. He continued his efforts to raise awareness of the persecution after he was released from the labor camp.
As all legal channels to appeal against the persecution had been blocked, Falun Gong practitioners utilized some unconventional means to educate the public of what the practice was about and why the persecution was illegal. One of the “get-the-word-out” techniques was to tap into cable TV to broadcast programs exposing the illegality and brutality of the persecution.
Mr. Sun and seven other Hefei practitioners tapped into a local cable TV network in May 2002. All of them were arrested and given heavy sentences. Mr. Sun was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
He was forced to do hard labor without pay while he was held in Baihu Prison in 2006. He went on a hunger strike to protest and was force-fed many times.
Mr. Sun was transferred to Suzhou Prison in March 2007. He again went on a hunger strike and was brutally force-fed. Several of his teeth were knocked out as a result. In July that year, a criminal inmate used pliers to pinch his nose and tongue. The inmate also hammered him on the head and pierced his skin with a needle.
Around 2011, Mr. Sun fell from the second floor of a building and fractured his legs. For a period of time, he also became incontinent and lost cognitive functioning. The authorities only gave him minimal treatment at the prison hospital.
Mr. Sun was released around May 2015, only to be arrested again in March 2018. According to insiders, his latest arrest prompted Huang Ming, deputy minister of Ministry of Public Security, to issue a secret order for law enforcement at every level to follow. It remains unclear, though, what exactly was the order about.
Falun Dafa Practitioner Sun Fangxi from Anhui Province on Hunger Strike for 31 Days