(Minghui.org) Mr. Xu Bin's appeal against his four-year prison sentence for not renouncing Falun Gong was recently rejected by the local intermediate court.
The 61-year-old Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province resident has been sent to Hulan Prison on May 21, 2019.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Xu had scheduled to retire this year. Because of his prison sentence, his workplace, The Daqing Oilfield Company, refused to process his retirement application and denied his pension benefits.
Sentenced to Four Years
Mr. Xu was arrested together with his wife Ms. Shi Shuxian on February 28, 2018, when they were giving another practitioner, Ms. Wang Fajuan, a ride to the hospital to visit her daughter, who was approaching labor.
The police had been monitoring Mr. Xu and his wife for some time before making the arrest. They accused the couple of breaking the law by filing a criminal complaint against former Chinese Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin for initiating the persecution of Falun Gong.
The police interrogated the couple and Ms. Wang at Chengfeng Police Station before sending them to Daqing City Detention Center that evening. They ransacked Mr. Xu's home and confiscated many of his personal belongings, including his cellphone battery and charger.
Ms. Shi and Ms. Wang were extorted 20,000 yuan and released on bail. One month later, Mr. Xu's case was submitted to the local procuratorate, which quickly indicted him and forwarded his case to the court.
He appeared in Ranghulu Court on August 9 and November 22, 2018. The presiding judge Li Chenyong sentenced him to four years in prison and fined him 20,000 yuan on December 9, 2018.
The judge never informed Mr. Xu's lawyer or his family of his verdict. Only after Mr. Xu told his family that he wanted to appeal the sentence did they realize that he had been sentenced.
His family managed to submit his appeal on the last day of the appeal window, only to be rejected soon by the local intermediate court.
Mind and Body Elevated from Practicing Falun Gong
Mr. Xu used to suffer multiple ailments, including frequent headaches, sleep and digestion disorder. Because of his physical discomfort, he had a bad temper and was easily angered.
After he learned Falun Gong in 1997 and disciplined himself by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, he soon found himself free of illness. His temper also improved and his relationship with his family became much more harmonious.
Although he had very limited income, he took good care of his mother-in-law, who was in her 80s, both blind and deaf. Living in a small apartment, he gave the main bedroom to his mother-in-law, while he slept on the floor in the living room.
Three Forced Labor Terms
Because of not renouncing Falun Gong after the persecution, Mr. Xu was arrested multiple times and given three labor camp terms, for a total of five years.
First Term
Mr. Xu was first arrested in March 2000 when he went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. He was detained at Dulitun Detention Center for a month after being taken back from Beijing to Daqing.
He went to Beijing again one year later. He displayed a banner reading “Falun Dafa is good” at Tiananmen Square, but was immediately arrested. He was taken back to Daqing by local 610 Office staff and then given two years of forced labor at Daqing Forced Labor Camp.
Second Term
Mr. Xu was arrested again on December 2, 2004 after the police found he browsed Falun Gong related information on the Internet. They searched his computer and found a copy of the “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party,” a book about the communist regime's bloody history written by the Editorial Board of The Epoch Times.
Mistakenly thought that Mr. Xu wrote the book, the police gave him another two years of forced labor. He served time at Daqing Forced Labor Camp again.
The guards at Daqing Forced Labor Camp instigated the inmates to torture Falun Gong practitioners. The inmates would receive weeks of term reduction if they successfully forced one practitioner to write statements to renounce his faith. Many felons actively participated.
Mr. Xu was often savagely beaten and deprived of sleep. The guards injected and force-fed him with unknown drugs. When he refused to comply, they beat him again.
The inmates also restricted him to a metal chair for two days and didn't allow him to sleep. He had difficulty walking after being released from the chair.
Many practitioners, including Mr. Wang Bin, Mr. Niu Huaiyi, and Mr. Lu Bingsen, were tortured to death there.
To cover up their crimes, the guards denied the practitioners' visitations and began to beat their private or vital parts, which caused severe internal injuries but without obvious external bruises.
Third Term
Mr. Xu was arrested for the fourth time on his way to work on March 14, 2010. The police had monitored his cellphone for a long time before arresting him.
The police locked him in a metal cage and poured cold water on him. One of his coworkers, who didn't practice Falun Gong, was also arrested and interrogated for more than three hours.
The police ransacked Mr. Xu's home twice when no one was at home. They confiscated his Falun Gong books, related materials, three cellphones, his wife's ID card and his son's computer.
They ran into Mr. Xu's family when they left. Officer Deng Hui lied to them that their door was already open when they came.
Mr. Xu was transferred to Ranghulu District No.3 Detention Center that evening and later given one year of forced labor.
Guards at Suihua Forced Labor Camp also instigated inmates to monitor and torture Falun Gong practitioners there. Mr. Xu was again savagely beaten for not renouncing his faith.
The guards forced him to sit on a small stool for more than ten hours each day. The flesh on his buttocks festered. They also restricted his restroom use and forced him to do slave labor without pay.
