Li Mingyi, a Dafa practitioner from Gansu Province, was formerly an assistant at Qilihe in Lanzhou city. He was arrested without cause at 4am on July 20 last year, and held for interrogation for six months at the People's Hotel. This February, after his release, Li went to appeal in Beijing regarding the illegal detention and he was re-arrested. He was first sent to the Changping Detention Center in Beijing, where he and more than ten other practitioners were forced to stand naked in the snow and freezing wind, holding ice to their bodies while being beaten by guards using batons. He was then sent back to Lanzhou, and detained in Xiguoyuan detention center for three more months. There, his condition worsened. Every day, he had to work more than ten hours, peeling sunflower seeds with his hands and mouth. When he failed to finish his quota, guards punished him by ordering other prisoners to beat him. As a result of this prolonged high-intensity labor, his index finger and his thumbs became deformed, very thick calluses formed on his palms, his lips were swollen, and his teeth were severely damaged. Meanwhile, his wife, Xiao Yanhong, went to Beijing to appeal on his behalf last September. For this appeal, she was arrested and sent back to Lanzhou and sentenced to forced labor at Pingantai Labor Camp.
After Li Mingyi was released from the detention center, police kept him under surveillance. In May of this year, a practitioner named Yao Baorong died when he fell out of a tall building while trying to evade public security forces of Anning District. Li was forcefully arrested by public security officers shortly thereafter while on his way to Anning District. An eyewitness states that nervous-looking agents dragged Li into a small car with tinted windows, and he was spirited away so quickly that his shoes remained behind on the road. Friends suspect that some public security informant tied Li to Yao. Again, Li was sent to Xiguoyuan detention center, then later sentenced to forced labor in Pingantai Labor Camp.
Recently, it was said that Li was frequently beaten because he insisted on practicing. He was already severely hurt and had been released to the hospital, but the Public Security Bureau has strictly denied access to information about his condition.
Another practitioner, Qian Shiguang, a Senior Engineer at the Northwest Geology Research Institute, also persisted in practice while in detention. [Detailed information about Qian is available in reports from June and July on the Internet]. As punishment he was cuffed and shackled in a very cruel way by the prison guards, and released only for forced labor. More than 40 practitioners in that prison have endured lesser degrees of such inhumane treatment.
We earnestly appeal to international human rights organizations and all kind-hearted people to give moral support to Falun Gong practitioners in Gansu. We ask that those evil assailants persecuting these practitioners be brought to justice, and that they receive the trials and punishment they deserve.
Gansu Dafa practitioners
8/29/2000
