Shanxi Man Arrested After 20 Years of Displacement, on Hunger Strike for Over a Month

(Minghui.org) After being forced to live away from home for over 20 years to avoid being persecuted for his faith in Falun Gong, a Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, resident, was arrested on April 25, 2023 and held at the Taiyuan City No. 1 Detention Center. 

Mr. Hou Lijun, 52, has been on a hunger strike since his arrest to protest the persecution. The guards have been force-feeding him every day. His condition is now precarious.

20 Years of Displacement After Escaping from Custody

Mr. Hou used to work at the Taiyuan Industrial and Commercial Bank as a security guard. He went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong in January 2000 and was given two years of forced labor. He served time in three labor camps, including the Zhencheng Forced Labor Camp in Taiyuan, Yuxiang Forced Labor Camp in Yongji City, and Xindian Forced Labor Camp in Taiyuan. His term was extended for four months and he was released in May 2002. 

Mr. Hou and his mother, Ms. Kang Shuqin, who also practiced Falun Gong, were seized during a mass arrest of 64 local practitioners on October 1, 2002. Among them, 23 practitioners were sentenced to prison and many others received labor camp terms. Six of them died as a result of the persecution. 

Ms. Kang was sentenced to eleven years at the Shanxi Province Women’s Prison and subjected to brutal torture. 

Mr. Hou started a hunger strike on October 20, 2002. Six days later, police officers Zheng Yongsheng, Chang Binli and Zhang Jiangang shocked him with 180,000-volt electric batons.

Torture reenactment: electric shocks

In a criminal complaint filed in July 2015 against former communist regime head Jiang Zemin for ordering the persecution, Mr. Hou recalled, “I was handcuffed with my arms behind my back. My shoes were taken off. The electric batons were crackling blue light. When the electricity went through me, it felt like hundreds of steel needles piecing my body and also a heavy hammer pounding me. My skin was burning and painful. The electric shock lasted a long time. I couldn’t stand up and began to lose consciousness. The whole room was filled with a strong smell of burnt flesh. At that time, I was very weak after six days of hunger strike, yet they still brutally tortured me in an attempt to extract a confession.”

After that, Mr. Hou suffered sharp pain in his kidneys. The doctor confirmed that he had heart and kidney failure and issued two critical condition notices for him. After 105 days of hunger strike, Mr. Hou miraculously found an opportunity to escape from the detention center and lived in displacement for the next 20 years before his recent arrest.

After his mother was released, the police installed surveillance devices at her home. She was also followed whenever she went out. Fearing bringing trouble to his mother, Mr. Hou avoided contacting her. The mental pressure took a toll on her health over the years. It dealt her another blow when her employer suspended her pension, using the excuse that she didn’t renounce Falun Gong. She succumbed to the persecution and passed away in 2020.

Perpetrators’ contact information:

Shi Haoming (时皓明), head of Taiyuan City No. 1 Detention CenterZhang Xiaopeng (张小鹏), director, Taiyuan City 610 Office: [phone]Yan Bin (阎宾), director, Jinyuan Police Department: [phone], [phone]

(More perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)