(Minghui.org) A Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province resident was recently sentenced to two years for his faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Fan Lujie, 65, was arrested in July 2019 and has been detained at Jiujiang Detention Center since. Details about his most recent sentencing is being investigated at the time of writing.
Mr. Fan took up Falun Gong in November 1995. Following Falun Gong's principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, he was able to take personal gains lightly. When his workplace gave out apartments to its employees, he gave up his and let another coworker take it. He also volunteered to take on a big project of re-routing the power line outside the company warehouse and contributed to a lot of savings for the company.
In addition to the changes in his character, his health also had dramatic improvement. Many of his ailments, including otitis media that had caused severe injury to his eardrum, vision problems, and stomach bleeding, were all cured.
Because of upholding his faith after the communist regime ordered the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, he was arrested multiple times and given three labor camp terms. His mother passed away from the deep distress and his wife was also terrified and sickened as a result of the enormous pressure.
Mr. Fan was first arrested on July 22, 1999, when he went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong. He was detained for 17 days and ordered to write statements to renounce Falun Gong.
In September 1999, he returned to Beijing to appeal again, only to be arrested weeks later. After five days of detention in Beijing, he was sent back to Jiujiang and given 1.5 years of forced labor.
He was arrested again in September 2001, only six months after he was released. The police ransacked his home and confiscated his Falun Gong books and related materials. He was held at the Sanlijie Detention Center for three months and starved by the guards. This time, he was given three years and two months of forced labor.
Mr. Fan was arrested one more time in June 2008 and interrogated twice, first in September and then in October. As he refused to corporate with the police, they put him in a chokehold and beat him with a bamboo stick. After the beating, they forced him to stand for hours. Both interrogation sessions lasted 36 hours. He wasn’t allowed to eat or sleep during that time. He was later given two years of forced labor.
Tortured in the Labor Camp
Mr. Fan served all three terms at the now-defunct Majialong Forced Labor Camp. The guards always arranged inmates to monitor him, including when he was eating, sleeping and using the restroom. He wasn’t allowed to talk to any other Falun Gong practitioners detained there.
Mr. Fan was forced to work from dawn to midnight during his first term. As the guards always gave him the quota that he could never finish, they used that as an excuse to torture him every day.
In one torture, they forced him to bend down for hours, with his fingers touching his feet while keeping his legs straight. In another torture, they forced him to kneel down in front of a wall, with his legs split as wide as possible. Then they forced him to place his upper body against the wall. While most people couldn’t stand seconds of such torture, Mr. Fan was forced to hold the position for two hours.
The guards didn’t allow him to sleep in a bed, but on a wooden board placed directly on the ground. As the room was leaking, water always got in when it was raining outside. Sometimes the water accumulated in the room, as high as the wood board he slept on.
Due to the humid living environment, Mr. Fan developed scabies all over his body. It’s very painful and also itchy. Pus was oozing out everywhere. After he sat for a day to do the unpaid labor, the pus on his buttocks would wet his pants and stuck to the chair. When he stood up, a layer of skin would be torn off and the pain was excruciating. The guards turned a blind eye to his condition and still forced him to do the intensive labor.
Later on, his ankles began to fester and he had one big hole on each ankle. The wounds oozed smelly blood. His legs also turned black. A guard surnamed Xu said to him, “I can't eat for a week when I see your feet.” The labor camp doctor warned that they would have to amputate if treatment was delayed any longer.
During Mr. Fan’s second labor camp term, he submitted a solemn declaration to retract the statement he was forced to write to renounce Falun Gong during his previous term. The guards were infuriated and extended his term by three months. They constantly force-fed him after he held hunger strikes to protest the persecution, including on the last day of his third term.
