Former Salesman Repeatedly Persecuted for His Faith Over the Past 22 Years (Part 2)

(Minghui.org) (continued from Part 1) 

Continued Persecution in Lanzhou Prison

Mr. Gao Feng was transferred to Lanzhou Prison in December 2002 and held in No. 2 Ward. The guards instigated inmates to closely monitor him by promising them term reductions. The inmates interfered with Mr. Gao when he did the Falun Gong exercises. They also framed and reported him to the guards. Two inmates, including Dai Jianlong, received a term reduction because of their reporting activities.

In order to transform Mr. Gao, guard Li Shengyong often forced him to memorize the prison rules and watch videos that slandered Falun Gong. Guards Wang Weihong and Liu Yongsheng handcuffed Mr. Gao and locked him in an isolation room for 18 days, citing his insistence in doing the Falun Gong exercises and his refusal to memorize prison rules or to renounce his faith. Mr. Gao went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. He was brutally force-fed and scolded. He was also ordered to stand and do military exercises. 

After he was let out of the confinement cell, Mr. Gao was continuously watched and reported by dozen of inmates in a regular cell. He was forced to do heavy labor for one-and-half months. He was not allowed to write letters and file complaints against the abuse. He was denied family visits. He was not allowed to go downstairs and meet other practitioners. He was often searched and the Falun Gong teachings he wrote down from memory were confiscated. 

Persecution in Gongjiawan Brainwashing Center in Lanzhou City

Mr. Gao’s four-year prison term was set to expire on November 19, 2004, but instead of being released on that day, he was made to wait in his cell from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., when a guard let him out of the prison compound and go to an office outside the prison to complete the exit procedures. A police car then pulled up with five agents getting out. Mr. Gao learned later that they were director Long of Anning District Political and Legal Affairs Committee and four agents from Liujiapu Police Station, including officer Zhao Hui, another officer surnamed Cui, a third officer whose name was unknown, and a driver. 

Long and his four companions forced Mr. Gao to get in their car. They stopped along the way, and Long got out of the car to make a phone call to Secretary Xia of Anning District 610 Office. Mr. Gao overheard Xia telling Long to take him straight to Gongjiawan Brainwashing Center.

The brainwashing persecution started as soon as Mr. Gao arrived at the brainwashing center. To force him to transform, the prison guards handcuffed him in the back and hung him in a confinement room on December 1, 2004. As a result of the torture, Mr. Gao started to have symptoms of severe tuberculosis, coughing, and vomiting blood. He suffered severe headaches, dizziness, chest pain, and trembling of the whole body. His hands and legs became extremely swollen.

Mr. Gao was released on April 4, 2005, after guard Qi Ruijun extorted 1,000 yuan from his eldest sister, who took him to a hospital for examination. He was diagnosed with gallbladder atrophy and a clogged blood vessel in the heart. The doctor recommended a more comprehensive examination, but the expense of it made it impossible.

Because of the long-term persecution, Mr. Gao always felt weak, fatigued, and anxious. He was unable to do heavy work. He could not tolerate hot food. He also suffered leg pains. In addition, he felt unusual discomfort in his blood vessels, though he couldn’t explain the sensation in words.

Director Long took away all of Mr. Gao’s prison release paperwork, rendering him unable to get his household registration, which is required for full-time jobs and a marriage license in China. As a result, Mr. Gao had trouble finding jobs or to even get married after he was finally allowed to go home.

Arrested and Tortured Again

Mr. Gao had difficulty finding a job due to the lack of a household registration and physical weakness. He moved from place to place. On May 19, 2006, he found himself wandering at Beijing Train Station but unable to afford a hotel. With no relative in Beijing, he suddenly remembered Mr. Cao Dong, who was once imprisoned together with him. He located Mr. Cao that day and moved in to temporally live with him. 

Two days later, Mr. Cao went out to do something but never returned home. On the evening of May 26, 2006, six plainclothes agents from the National Security Bureau and one woman from the neighborhood committee opened the door with a master key. They illegally ransacked the home and confiscated many of Mr. Cao’s belongings, including Falun Gong books, his ID card, one MP3 player, disks, and other items. 

They also arrested Mr. Gao and confiscated his MP3 player and radio, ID card, phone card, some invoices, and 2,000 yuan in cash. Mr. Gao then learned that Mr. Cao was arrested after he told Mr. Edward McMillian-Scott, vice president of the European Parliament, about the persecution of Falun Gong in China.

Mr. Gao was taken to a secret base belonging to the Beijing Police Department. As soon as he arrived, he was handcuffed to a chair for five days in a row. Nine agents took turns interrogating and beating him around the clock. They also employed all kinds of mental torture on him, including intimidation and scolding.

Mr. Gao was taken to a hospital in a secluded location on the evening of May 29. He went on a hunger strike. They tied him up and force-fed him with a plastic tube without lubricant talcum powder. The tube insertion caused Mr. Gao dizziness, nausea, stomach pain, and profuse sweating. 

The force-feeding lasted about an hour. They gloated, “Was it uncomfortable? You had better start to eat.”

One police officer shouted, “Falun Gong practitioners are not welcome in Beijing. We will get rid of all of you before the Olympics….”

On May 31 Mr. Gao was given house arrest by the National Security Bureau and escorted back to Lanzhou by two officers from Anning District Security Brigade. He was forced to sit on a tiger chair and scolded. 

The police confiscated his ID, 2,000 yuan in cash, and an MP3 player without giving any receipts. They warned him not to go to Beijing again and then released him.

Harassment After 2006

One day in September 2007, a woman from Liujiapu Neighborhood Committee called Mr. Gao’s parents to harass them. She also asked about Mr. Gao’s phone number and workplace. One month later, his parents received a call asking for information about Mr. Gao. At least three men talked on the phone. The elderly parents were harassed twice on November 15 by two officers from Qingcheng Township Police Station in their hometown of Yuzhong County.

Mr. Gao’s older sister was also harassed multiple times in 2007.

In April 2008, Mr. Gao’s parents were harassed at home by three plainclothes agents and one uniformed officer from Qingcheng Township Police Station. They were told to not allow Mr. Gao to go to Beijing during the Olympics. 

In May 2009, Mr. Gao applied for a household registration and ID card in the hopes to be able to find a job. More than ten people from the political and legal affairs committee, the neighborhood committee, and the Anning District 610 Office, as well as the chief of Liujiapu Police Station, held a meeting to discuss Mr. Gao’s application. The police chief claimed that Mr. Gao’s old household registration record had been lost during the computer upgrade.

One woman from the neighborhood committee said that Mr. Gao had never shown them any paperwork of a prison release, and he explained that director Long of the local 610 office took away all his paperwork when taking him to the brainwashing center. 

Another woman from the neighborhood committee asked Mr. Gao to admit “having been transformed [giving up his belief]” on a piece of paper before they could proceed with his application. Mr. Gao refused the request and the woman then offered for him to sign on a blank piece of paper and they’d write about his being transformed. He again declined and his application was thus deemed incomplete. 

In the few years that followed, Mr. Gao could only work odd jobs to make a living. The police frequently called his boss, eventually forcing Mr. Gao to resign so as not to implicate the boss. The same thing also happened in 2010 and 2011, when his new bosses were again harassed on the phone by the police and he had to quit his job again.

In 2012, Mr. Gao’s eldest sister was forced to sign a “Supervision Guarantee” promising to keep an eye on him, causing her tremendous stress. 

On July 11, 2013, agents from Liujiapu, the political and legal affairs committee, and the neighborhood committee came to the workplace of Mr. Gao’s eldest sister, who happened to be out of town on a business trip at the time. They then talked to her husband and Mr. Gao’s boss, demanding to see Mr. Gao. The boss had no way but to arrange a meeting. 

Agent He Yong yelled at Mr. Gao when he talked about how he was persecuted for his faith. Mr. Gao then asked about the status of his ID card application and got no answer. The harassment caused Mr. Gao’s boss tremendous pressure; Mr. Gao ended up quitting his job again. 

Mr. Gao’s parents were in their late 70s at the time. For all those years, they had been harassed and damaged physically and mentally. Since 2007, his father’s blood pressure would elevate and he could not fall asleep every time he received a phone call or was harassed in person. His health was declining quickly. When he learned that Mr. Gao was harassed again on July 11, 2013, his physical and mental health deteriorated further. On September 6 that year, he passed away from a fall caused by fear and worries.

In 2014, the same group of agents went to harass Mr. Gao’s third sister at work and forced her to sign the “supervision guarantee.” The harassment put a lot of pressure on her and her husband. She also asked about her brother’s ID application status and was told the higher-ups were still thinking about the issue.

Around September 16, 2017, two officers (one male and one female) from Liujialu Police Station harassed Mr. Gao’s boss and co-workers (for offering Mr. Gao the odd job). They also harassed his relatives in his hometown. Earlier on, they had called his eldest sister asking about his whereabouts. They also harassed his second older sister in those years.

On September 18, 2019, chief Yuan Yun (in his 50s) of Liujiapu Police Station called under the guise of Xiqu Police Station to lure Mr. Gao’s nephew (the son of his eldest sister) to the police station. They forced the nephew to release his mother’s new phone number. They then forced her to report the current status of Mr. Gao. One woman from Fuxing Street Committee also called to harass her on November 14.

Between February 2020 when the CCP locked down Wuhan due to the coronavirus pandemic and July 2020, some of the above-mentioned agents called Mr. Gao’s eldest sister four times to harass her and asked about Mr. Gao’s situation.

In March 2021, people from Anning District Street Comprehensive Management Office found Mr. Gao’s eldest sister in Lanzhou. They lied to her that the government no longer persecuted Falun Gong. They took photos of her and her four-year-old granddaughter and asked her to sign some statements. On May 28, one woman and four men harassed Mr. Gao’s octogenarian mother and his two other sisters in Qingcheng Township and asked them about his situation including his phone number and workplace. They also lied that they needed Mr. Gao’s photo in order to process his ID card application.

Financial Persecution

Mr. Gao returned to the headquarters of Zhongxing Electronic Instrument Factory from the branch office in Hebei Province in November 1999. To avoid being implicated for his faith, his company dispatched four people to drive him to his parents’ home with the excuse that he refused to hand in Falun Gong books and stop cultivating. They did not pay his wages in 2019, which was more than 8,000 yuan. 

In February 2000, Mr. Gao was laid off by his company’s party secretary on grounds that the business was not doing well. With help of a friend, he found a job at a foreign enterprise in Beijing because the general manager there knew that Falun Gong practitioners were all trustworthy.In May 2000, Mr. Gao’s new employer was framed by people who did not know the facts. The general manager was pressured by the police to fire him and Mr. Gao was forced to resign. He continued to wander around in Beijing to find a job, but to no avail.In June 2000, Mr. Gao returned to Lanzhou and requested reinstatement of his previous position at Zhongxing Electric Instrument Factory and payment of his 1999 wages. The factory claimed that his wages were withheld to cover the money he owed the factory. But Mr. Gao did not believe that he owed the factory anything. The factory assigned many people including the Party Secretary to meet with him.

The Party Secretary defended their decision to fire Mr. Gao, “We secretly fired you and did not make your records known to the public. Your files will be removed once you find a new employer. You did a good job in 1999, but you practiced Falun Gong and we endured tremendous pressure for you from the superiors….We did the math, and your earnings in 2019 were just enough to offset the money you owed the factory. We are even now and we don’t owe each other anything.” 

The local court informed the factory of his four-year prison sentence in 2001 and the factory used that as an excuse to officially fire Mr. Gao that year. He was not given any buy-out money offered to employees in similar situations.