(Minghui.org) A 43-year-old man was twice sentenced in the past three years for his faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Gao Bing, of Yanchi County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, was arrested in June 2020 and later sentenced to 1.5 years in the Shizuishan Prison. He moved to Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province for work after being released on December 18, 2021. The Yanchi police kept monitoring him and discovered that he had sent a message bearing information about Falun Gong to a friend on WeChat (a social media platform). They then began to track his cellphone and internet usage.
On August 22, 2022, officers of Yanchi County Domestic Security Office traveled nearly 1,100 miles to Suzhou, arrested him and took him back. The Litong District Procuratorate in Wuzhong City (which oversees Yanchi County) indicted him and the Litong District Court sentenced him to another one-year term at the Shizuishan Prison. He was released in August 2023.
Prior to his two latest prison sentences, Mr. Gao was expelled from college and incarcerated a total of eight years between 2005 and 2018 (serving a two-year forced labor term and two 3-year prison terms), also for upholding his faith.
Past Persecution
Mr. Gao suffered depression in his teen years after his parents divorced. After reading Falun Gong books in 1996, he found hope again. Both his health and academic performance improved in a short time. He was later admitted to the Shaanxi Institute of Mechanical Engineering. In his spare time, Mr. Gao joined other practitioners in doing the Falun Gong exercises in the park. He said that was the happiest time in his life.
With the onset of the persecution three years later, Mr. Gao’s college spread propaganda against Falun Gong. He told his classmates how he had benefited from Falun Gong and did the exercises on campus, hoping to help more people learn the facts about Falun Gong.
In retaliation, the school leadership ordered him to stop practicing. As he refused to betray his belief, they summoned his father to the school and had him try to persuade Mr. Gao. When Mr. Gao remained unmoved no matter how his father scolded or beat him, his father threatened to disown him. The school later expelled Mr. Gao and he returned to his hometown in Yanchi.
On April 25, 2005, Mr. Gao was reported for putting up Falun Gong posters outside the Yanchi County Party School. He was later sentenced to three years in Guanmahu Prison in Wuzhong City, where he endured constant beatings and verbal abuse.
When his term expired in April 2008, agents from the Ningxia 610 Office directly took Mr. Gao to the Yinchuan City Brainwashing Center and held him there until August 2008.
Mr. Gao later went to Beijing to work. He was arrested on May 24, 2011 and given two years of forced labor. He was subjected to electric shocks and beatings while serving time at the Inner Mongolia Forced Labor Camp, in addition to the forced labor of cutting rolls of toilet paper. During an accident in June 2013, his left middle finger was cut off by the machine and he required 38 stitches. He was released on November 12, 2013, shortly after the forced labor system was dismantled in China.
Mr. Gao was secretly arrested again in late 2015 and later sentenced to three years in prison. He first served time at the Yinchuan Prison before being transferred to Shizuishan Prison on May 3, 2017. The guards kept him in solitary confinement and forced him to wear a straitjacket, as he refused to renounce Falun Gong. He was released around June 2018.
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Having Served Eight Years, Ningxia Man Secretly Sentenced Again for His Faith
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