(Minghui.org) A store owner in Chongren County, Jiangxi Province, was arrested on July 22, 2020, for distributing information about Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
The police ransacked Mr. Dai Chuanyi’s store and two residences on July 22 and July 23, respectively. His Falun Gong books and a laptop were confiscated. Mr. Dai’s wife was also brought to the police station for interrogation and intimidation. The police continued to monitor her after she was released.
Mr. Dai is currently on criminal detention at Fuzhou City Detention Center and denied family visits.
Previous Three-year Imprisonment and Torture
Mr. Dai, 53, was an agronomist in the Chongren County Red Soil Development Agency. He took up Falun Gong in early 1998 and the insomnia that bothered him for years soon disappeared.
On November 11, 2008, Mr. Dai and his wife were arrested after being reported for raising awareness about Falun Gong. The police ransacked their home and confiscated their Falun Gong informational materials. His wife was later released and Mr. Dai remained in custody.
Mr. Dai appeared in Chongren County Court in March 2009. He was heart-broken to see his wife, who looked exhausted after losing more than 20 lbs in a few months due to the pressure from the persecution. His 78-year-old mother burst into tears and knelt in front of him, begging him to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong.
Mr. Dai maintained that he didn’t do anything wrong in upholding his faith and was sentenced to three years.
Mr. Dai was sent to the Yuzhang Prison in mid-May 2009 and held in a solitary confinement cell, where many centipedes and ants were crawling on the ground, rendering him unable to fall asleep at night. The guards forced him to recite prison rules every day and ordered two inmates to monitor and torture him.
After Mr. Dai was transferred to a regular cell, the guards only provided him with two meals each day. He was forced to stand for long hours every day, with his upper body bending forward to touch the ground and his legs remaining straight. He fainted from the torture.
In the summer when it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the guards forced him to walk the goose steps or run under the scorching sun for more than a month. In addition to the physical abuse, he was ordered to make multi-colored lights. He wasn’t allowed to sleep if he didn’t finish the daily quota.
Mr. Dai also witnessed the torture against other practitioners, including savage beating, hanging up and sleep deprivation. Mr. Tu Guofan vomited a basin of blood as a result of the beating.
For the three years he was serving time, his family wasn’t allowed to visit him once.
After he was finally released, he was devastated to learn that he had been fired by his workplace and the family was having tremendous financial difficulty. After a few years of hard work, he was able to open a store to support the family, only to be arrested and detained again.
