Having Lost His Mother and Brother to the Persecution, Former Police Engineer Given Three Years for His Shared Faith
(Minghui.org) A former police engineer in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province was sentenced to three years in August 2022 for raising awareness about the persecution of Falun Gong, which has been targeted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Dong Yiran, 61, was arrested on February 24, 2022, while distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. His Falun Gong books, informational materials, and some supplies to make the materials were confiscated.
Mr. Dong was taken to the Shenbei New District Detention Center on March 1 and then transferred to the Heping District Detention Center. The police later submitted his case to the Yuhong District Procuratorate, which returned it for insufficient evidence. The prosecutor accepted Mr. Dong’s case when the police submitted it again on May 20 and moved his case to the Yuhong District Court on June 15.
Mr. Dong was tried through a video hearing on August 4. He was represented by a court-appointed lawyer. The judge sentenced him to three years on August 7. After he was taken to the Shenyang City No.2 Prison, the prison authorities barred his family from visiting him, sending daily necessities, or making cash deposits for him.
Mr. Dong’s sister, Ms. Dong Xinhua, who currently resides in Los Angeles, called for his release during a rally in front of the Chinese Consulate on July 18, 2022.
“My eldest brother Dong Xinran died from the torture in custody. My sisters were arrested and detained in brainwashing centers. Living in fear and under tremendous pressure due to the persecution of my siblings, my mother also passed away. My other brother Dong Yiran served two labor camp terms and a prison term for a total of 7.5 years. When he was released, the once strong and healthy middle-aged man had significantly aged. He was emaciated and gray-haired,” said Ms. Dong.
Ms. Dong Xinhua holding a sign that reads “Release my younger brother Dong Yiran immediately”
Health Improved by Practicing Falun Gong
Mr. Dong Yiran bought a copy of the book Falun Gong, while in Beijing for a business trip in March 1994. In the next few months, he attended two lecture series and a seminar given by Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong.
Living by Falun Gong’s principles of “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance,” Mr. Dong let go of his pursuit of fame and material enjoyment. Instead, he became broad-minded and put others before himself.
Mr. Dong used to suffer severe stomach problems due to irregular meal times. Shortly after he took up Falun Gong, he recovered and enjoyed good health.
Fired by the Police Department
On April 25, 1999, 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners from Beijing and nearby regions went to the state council’s national appeals office to appeal for a peaceful environment to practice their faith, after a Falun Gong publication was banned and a few practitioners in Tianjin were arrested for demanding a magazine to retract slandering articles against Falun Gong.
Mr. Dong also went to Beijing to appeal, but due to various delays, he only arrived there on April 26, when the road leading to the national appeals office was closed and heavily guarded by the police. He took a train back to Shenyang in the evening. The next day, his supervisor, who was aware of his trip to Beijing, talked to him and attempted to pressure him to renounce Falun Gong.
On July 20, 1999, the day when the persecution officially started, Mr. Dong was held in a police base for a brainwashing session and not allowed to go home for days.
His supervisor talked to him again in September 1999 and asked whether he still practiced Falun Gong. He insisted that he wouldn’t give up his faith. His supervisor made a few more attempts to pressure him. As he stayed firm, they ordered him to submit a resignation letter in late September. Mr. Dong refused to comply and was fired on October 15, 1999.
Held in a Brainwashing Center
Mr. Dong and his mother, Ms. Liang Yuqin, were arrested on November 9, 2000. The police confiscated their informational materials about Falun Gong and interrogated them about where they got the materials.
Mr. Dong, his mother, and his sister were arrested again in January 2001 and held in a brainwashing center. They were forced to watch videos of the Tiananmen self-immolation hoax and write thought reports afterward. The staff members of the brainwashing center closely monitored them and ordered them to renounce Falun Gong every day.
First Two-year Labor Camp Term
Mr. Dong’s next arrest was on April 28, 2002, when the police found that he provided Falun Gong materials for other practitioners to distribute. He was given two years at the Zhangshi Forced Labor Camp.
The guards forced him and other practitioners to sit sandwiching each other, with the person behind pressing their chest against the back of the practitioner in front of him. After sitting for a few hours, the practitioners were sweating profusely.
The guards also deprived Mr. Dong of sleep for 24 days. His feet were so swollen that he could only wear slippers. He was later taken to the Zhangshi Brainwashing Center for further persecution.
Another 2.5-year Labor Camp Term
While Mr. Dong was released ahead of time, he was arrested one more time on January 20, 2004, for distributing Falun Gong materials.
As he refused to reveal his name, the police restrained him in an interrogation chair and stomped on his chest. His face was bruised and swollen with bloodshot eyes from the beating.
Song Tiejun, the deputy chief of Nujiang Police Station, poured cold water into his collar non-stop. His clothes were completely soaked. Song then turned on the fan to blow at Mr. Dong from midnight to the next morning and opened the window to subject him to the freezing temperature outside.
Two days later, on the day of the traditional Chinese New Year, the police gave Mr. Dong a 2.5-year labor camp term. He held a hunger strike in protest. By the 8th day, he suffered kidney failure and was taken to the hospital for resuscitation. He was taken back to the Huanggu Detention Center the next day and given IVs for eight days. As soon as he recovered a bit, the guards transferred him to the Zhangshi Forced Labor Camp.
In the labor camp, the doctor force-fed him. He also blamed Mr. Dong for causing trouble to him and inserted the feeding tube back and forth into his nose to torture him.
A few days later, Mr. Dong was taken to the Zhangshi Brainwashing Center, where he was held for a month before being taken back to the labor camp. When the labor camp was demolished in November 2004, he was transferred to the Shenxin Forced Labor Camp.
Sentenced to Three Years
Three police officers showed up at the gas station Mr. Dong worked at on February 27, 2010, and seized him. He refused to answer any of the police’s questions and was taken to the detention center in the evening.
Only when a prosecutor from Dadong Procuratorate came to interview Mr. Dong, did he learn from them that the police arrested him because someone reported him for giving a person Falun Gong materials on February 25. Mr. Dong denied the charge, as he had finished the night shift at 8 a.m. on February 25 and returned home afterward. But the person who claimed to have received the materials from him said it happened later that day.
Despite the lack of evidence, the Dadong Court still sentenced Mr. Dong to three years.
Mr. Dong was taken to a prison facility for newly convicted inmates on February 15, 2011. He was forced to get up at 5 a.m. and subjected to brainwashing for 16 hours while sitting on a small stool without moving. The long hours of sitting caused tremendous pain in his buttocks and back. The guards also ordered him to walk with his arms behind his back and his head down.
Mr. Dong was transferred to the Panjin Prison on March 28, 2011. During the first month of intensive brainwashing, he was beaten on the head for not wearing the inmate’s name tag.
Hu Xiaodong, the director of the prison education department, took Mr. Dong to a room with no windows in May 2011. He cuffed his hands and feet to the four metal rings fixed to the wall, shocked him with four electric batons, rubbed against his ribs with his fist, and beat the inner side of his thighs. Mr. Dong’s thighs became swollen immediately. The electric shocks, especially on his armpits, ribs, neck, chest, and thighs, continued from evening into the next morning.
Mr. Dong was taken to the Benxi Prison on May 8, 2012, and forced to work 15 hours a day making clothes without pay. He wasn’t given one day off in the first eight months there. He was released on February 26, 2013.
Passing of Mother and Brother
Ms. Dong’s older brother, Mr. Dong Xinran, was sent to a brainwashing center twice and given three years of forced labor in October 2001.
He suffered several forms of torture while in detention, including sleep deprivation, beatings, electric shocks, burning with cigarette butts, and having toothpicks shoved under his toenails. On top of all the torture, he was also forced to do hard labor for long hours.
Mr. Dong was released on medical parole in December 2001 but was arrested again on March 31, 2004, after moving from place to place for a year to escape the persecution. He was severely tortured by the police and taken to the hospital.
When his wife visited him at the hospital on June 4, 2004, Mr. Dong was emaciated and unconscious. The doctor had issued a critical condition of him two days earlier. He had injuries from electric shocks and cigarette burns all over his body. Darkened clots of blood in his mouth that was from forced feeding. His right wrist was fractured. The police agreed to release him after his wife paid a 3,000 yuan medical fee and a 5,000 yuan bail bond.
Mr. Dong never recovered after returning home. He remained bedridden for ten years and passed away on November 12, 2013, at the age of 58.
The brothers’ mother, Ms. Liang, was held in a brainwashing center twice. Her home was ransacked three times. At the age of 73, she had to move from place to place in 2002 for six months to escape arrest.
Worse still, the government forcibly demolished their home in November 2007. Facing extreme mental and financial pressure, she passed away in July 2008 at the age of 79.