7.11.2003 URGENT APPEALS

Cheng Jun Liu is a Falun Gong practitioner. He was arrested in 1999 while he was lodging a complaint against the prohibition of this movement. He was sent to a labour camp. After he was set free in October 2001, a new protest on his part led to his second arrest.

Finally, on 24 March 2002, Cheng Jun Liu was again brutally arrested by the police. State employees beat his cousin until he divulged, under torture, Cheng's hiding place. They then set fire to the woodpile where the latter was hiding and made him come out. Although he was already tied hand and foot they shot him twice in his thighs. After undergoing more ill treatment in a police hospital, Cheng Liu was transferred to a detention centre at Tiebei, where he was tortured continuously for 52 days with the aim of extracting a "confession" from him. He was then condemned to 19 years' imprisonment and incarcerated in Jilin prison. In this prison, apparently, about 100 detainees are on hunger strike to protest the constant torture inflicted upon them by the prison guards.

On 21 October 2003, the Cheng family was informed that he had been hospitalized. His life was hanging by a thread. His relatives observed wounds all over his body; he no longer recognized all his family members and kept losing consciousness.

On 27 October 2003, Cheng Jun Liu was taken to the notorious police hospital of Jilin province, Changchun. This establishment is well known for its ill treatment of Falun Gong practitioners.

By our petition, we hereby ask the Director of Public Security of Jilin province to conduct inquiries into the conditions prevailing at Jilin prison and Changchun hospital and to take the necessary measures to protect fully the detainees against acts of torture inflicted by the prison officers. We also ask that those responsible for acts of torture be brought before the courts. Finally, we require that ChengáJunáLiu receive the necessary treatment.