(Minghui.org) On the 25th anniversary since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to suppress Falun Gong in July 1999, practitioners from 44 countries submitted a new list of perpetrators to their respective governments, asking them to bar the perpetrators and their family members from entry and freeze their overseas assets according to the law.
Among the perpetrators listed was Liu Changgen, secretary of the Gansu Provincial Political and Legal Affairs Committee.
Perpetrator Information
Full Name of Perpetrator: Liu (last name) Changgen (first name) Chinese Name: 刘长根Gender: MaleCountry: ChinaDate/year of Birth: July 1966Place of Birth: Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province
Title or Position
November 2020 – December 2020: member of the Party Leadership Group of the Gansu Provincial Government.
December 2020 – May 2022: member of the Party Leadership Group of the Gansu Provincial Government and vice governor.
May 2022 – June 2022: member of the Standing Committee of the Gansu Provincial Committee, member of the Party Leadership Group of the Provincial Government, and vice governor.
June 2022 – present: member of the Standing Committee of the Gansu Provincial Committee and secretary of the Gansu Provincial Political and Legal Affairs Committee.
Main Crime
Since Liu Changgen became the secretary of the Gansu Provincial Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC) in June 2022, he has ordered PLACs at all levels, the 610 Office, the public security, communities, and village personnel and other departments to arrest, harass, detain and sentence Falun Gong practitioners. After imprisoned practitioners were forced to write statements to renounce their faith, Liu also arranged for the provincial PLAC agents to talk to them and order them to repeat the slanderous propaganda against Falun Gong, in order to examine whether they had truly given up the practice.
In September 2022, he published an article demanding that the province “continue to intensify the anti-cult war.”
On June 16, 2023, Liu spoke at the opening ceremony of the Gansu Provincial College Anti-Cult Alliance at Gansu Agricultural University, stating that the Gansu Provincial PLAC, the Provincial Education Department, and the Provincial Science and Technology Association, have started to establish anti-cult associations in colleges and universities across the province since 2022. As of May 2023, the anti-cult associations have been set up in 26 colleges and universities.
On September 18, 2023, the 2023 Western China Province Anti-Cult Work Seminar, co-organized by the China Anti-Cult Association, the Gansu Provincial PLAC, and the Gansu Provincial Association for Science and Technology, was held in Zhangye. Liu attended the meeting and delivered a speech, requiring them to “grasp the education and transformation of cult members, and crack down on the illegal crimes of cult organizations.”
Liu also emphasized they must strengthen cooperation with neighboring provinces; actively carry out anti-cult propaganda, theoretical research, and grassroots education, as well as establishing anti-cult associations in colleges and corporates and forming college anti-cult alliances.
In September 2023, at the launch ceremony of the 2023 Gansu Province Anti-Cult Concentrated Propaganda Activities jointly sponsored by the Gansu Provincial PLAC, the Provincial High Court, the Provincial Procuratorate, the Provincial Public Security Department, the Provincial Justice Department, the Provincial State Security Department, and the Provincial Science and Technology Association, Liu proposed to “build an online anti-cult all-media propaganda platform” to “resolutely fight and win the anti-cult war.”
Select Death Cases
69-Year-Old Gansu Woman Dies Weeks After Being Released from Prison on Verge of Death
Ms. Li Fenglan, of Baiyin City, Gansu Province, was transferred to the Gansu Province Women’s Prison on February 17, 2023, to serve a 20-month term. She was already cancer-stricken when admitted, yet the guards continued to torture her, including forcing her to stand for extended periods and depriving her of sleep. Her breast cancer soon metastasized. The prison didn’t release her until early January 2024. She died on the morning of January 10, 2024. She was 69 years old.
Having Lost His Wife and Son and Served Ten Years for Raising Awareness about the Persecution, 71-Year-Old Incapacitated Man Dies in Despair
Having lost his wife and son in the persecution of Falun Gong, Mr. Su Anzhou, a 71-year-old man in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, faced constant harassment and was threatened with a prison sentence, even when he had already become incapacitated. He passed away on January 10, 2024.
The death of Mr. Su, a former railroad bureau worker, capped his over two decades of suffering. He was arrested in late December 2000 when he went to Beijing with his wife, Ms. Geng Cuifang, to appeal for Falun Gong. He was given one year of forced labor and Ms. Geng was held in the detention center until October 2001.
As soon as Mr. Su left home around 6 a.m. on June 13, 2002, he was arrested by the police waiting outside. After taking him away, the police went to his home on the sixth floor and knocked on the door. Ms. Geng refused to open the door. As the police wouldn’t leave, she tried to escape out the window with a rope but fell to the ground when the rope broke. Upon seeing that she was alive, her neighbors tried to send her to the hospital, but the police didn’t let them. Instead, the police took her keys, broke into her home, took away her valuables, and left. She was left lying on the ground and exposed to the baking sun. She died hours later. She was only 48.
Mr. Su was arrested again three months later on September 18, 2002, for tapping into a local TV signal to broadcast information about Falun Gong. He was sentenced to ten years and subjected to relentless torture.
During the time he was in prison, his son, Su Wei, still a teenager, lived in displacement. He contracted a lung condition, which later developed into lung cancer. He couldn’t afford the medical treatment and was often starved. He died on August 4, 2006.
Although Mr. Su survived the torture in prison, he continued to face frequent harassment after he was released on January 26, 2010. He was arrested again on August 23, 2022, but was soon released on house arrest due to his extremely weak health.
Despite the fact that Mr. Su had lost the ability to take care of himself, the local police and the residential committee still harassed him and attempted to force him to sign statements to renounce Falun Gong, threatening to suspend his low-income subsidy if he didn’t comply. After the COVID-19 peak passed, Mr. Su’s sister came from Beijing to care for him in early 2023. Only then did his condition improve a bit.
The police arrested Mr. Su again in late October 2023 and took him to the detention center. As he was already incapacitated, the police released him on house arrest and threatened that he wasn’t allowed to leave home. After struggling with failing health for a few more months, Mr. Su passed away on January 10, 2024, at the age of 71.
Select Sentencing Cases
Having Lost Her Law License in 2013 Because of Her Faith, Gansu Woman Gets Three Years in 2023 for Still Practicing Falun Gong
A 49-year-old woman in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province was sentenced to three years and fined 5,000 yuan on August 11, 2023.
Ms. Jin Yijun used to work at a law firm, but could no longer practice law after the Lanzhou City Judicial Bureau refused to renew her law license in 2013 because of her faith in Falun Gong. She was arrested on September 24, 2021, and stood trial on April 7, 2023, before being wrongfully convicted on August 11.
At the Lanzhou City No. 1 Detention Center, because Ms. Jin refused to memorize the detention center rules or squat during roll calls, captain Li Peng had her one hand twisted behind her back, to be cuffed together with another hand pulled over her shoulder (see image below). She was handcuffed like this for 15 straight days, during which time she was deprived of sleep and subjected to regular beatings. Whenever she dozed off, each inmate would use their own way to keep her awake, such as pulling her hair or kicking her. With her hands cuffed, she had to rely on the inmates to get water for her to drink. Twice she requested water, but the inmates refused on the grounds that she had missed the specific times to make water requests. She was unable to brush her teeth or wash her hair or clothes during the 15 days, as no inmates were allowed to help her.
Torture reenactment: hands cuffed behind one’s back.
The head of the cell had other detainees beat Ms. Jin on December 27, 2022, because she did not squat during a roll call. The head guard saw the beating but ignored it because he was told that the victim was a Falun Gong practitioner. Ms. Jin was transferred to another cell and subjected to the “Back Tandem” torture.
Illustration of the “Back Tandem” torture.
In the “Back Tandem” torture, the guards handcuff the victim’s wrists behind her back, make her kneel down, and attach the handcuffs as close as possible to the ankle shackles. This forces the victim to stay in a kneeling, backward-bending position.
Ms. Jin was forced to wear leg shackles for 15 consecutive days and was not allowed to sleep. She was not allowed to lower her head or close her eyes. Other detainees could beat her at will. No one helped her to get water, and she had no way to wash up, clean herself, or wash her clothes. Yet the inmates berated her for smelling bad. Sometimes they would not even give her any drinking water.
54-Year-Old Gansu Woman Given Second 5-Year Prison Term for Her Faith in Falun Gong
Ms. Zhang Ping, a 54-year-old woman in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province was sentenced to five years with a 20,000-yuan fine on April 7, 2023. Her sentencing stemmed from her arrest on May 9, 2022. The Lanzhou City Police Department used drones to track her down to a bus station that day and dispatched officers to seize her there. They then raided her home and took her to the police department. Ms. Zhang was issued a formal arrest warrant on May 24 and moved to the Lanzhou City First Detention Center soon afterward. The Chengguan District Procuratorate indicted her at an unknown date and forwarded her case to the Chengguan District Court on August 23, 2022.
Ms. Zhang stood trial on April 7, 2023, and the judges convicted her at the end of the hearing. The Lanzhou City Intermediate Court notified her family in late November 2023 that it had ruled to uphold her original verdict.
Baiyin City, Gansu Province: Five Practitioners, Including an 87-Year-Old Woman, Sentenced to Prison
Five Baiyin City, Gansu Province, residents were tried by the Baiyin District Court on March 30, 2023, and sentenced to prison in September 2023.
Ms. Liao An’an, 87, was sentenced to three years and nine months; Ms. Li Qiaolian, 69, and Mr. Gu Fuman, 65, were both sentenced to three years and nine months with 8,000-yuan fines; Mr. Wang Ligui, 62, was sentenced to three years and five months with a 6,000-yuan fine; Ms. Zhao Qinzhen, 75, was sentenced to one year in prison with a 1.5-year probation and a 5,000-yuan fine.
Ms. Liao, Ms. Li, Mr. Gu, and Mr. Wang were arrested at Mr. Wang’s home on January 14, 2022. It is unclear when and where Ms. Zhao was arrested.
After Seven Years of Displacement, Former Glass Shop Owner Gets 12 Years for Suing Jiang Zemin
After spending seven years on the run, a native of Qingyang County, Gansu Province was sentenced to 12 years for his faith in Falun Gong.
Mr. Wang Liqun, a 62-year-old former glass shop owner, filed a criminal complaint against former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin in 2015 for ordering the persecution of Falun Gong. The police had intended to arrest him but he evaded them. They hunted him for the next seven years and put his photo on the cloud database, which is connected to the network of surveillance cameras across the country.
While working in a mall in Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province (about 120 miles from Qingyang) in late September 2022, Mr. Wang was recorded by a surveillance camera after he took off his mask while changing clothes. The police soon traveled from Qingyang to Xi’an. After failing to find him in the mall, they found his manager and forced him to take them to Mr. Wang’s residence to arrest him.
As the police approached, Mr. Wang climbed from his apartment on the fifth floor to the third floor with a rope and then jumped downstairs from the third floor. Although he suffered a comminuted fracture in the ankle, he managed to escape.
Through searching the videos taken by surveillance cameras, the police found Mr. Wang and arrested him on October 19, 2022. He was taken back to Qingyang the next day and held at the Qingcheng County Detention Center.
Mr. Wang was indicted in January 2023 and he stood trial at the Zhenyuan County Court on February 27, 2023. As the prosecutor couldn’t refute the defense statement by Mr. Wang and his lawyer during the court hearing, he blurted out, “Falun Gong [practitioners] persuade people to quit the Communist Party. Isn’t that a cult?”
Mr. Wang was later sentenced at an unknown date.
Having Served 7 Years in Prison, Gansu Man Gets Another Six Years
Mr. Jiang Minghui, a 50-year-old resident of Lanzhou City, Gansu Province was sentenced to six years and fined 20,000 yuan on July 10, 2023.
Mr. Jiang’s prison sentence stemmed from his arrest on August 4, 2021, for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. After the Chengguan District Procuratorate approved his arrest on August 20, his wife, Ms. Wang Xiaojing, submitted a letter to the police, urging them to release her husband. The police still submitted his case to the Procuratorate, resulting in his indictment.
Judge Teng Xiaoqiong of the Chengguan District Court appointed a lawyer to represent Mr. Jiang and enter a guilty plea for him. He also deceived Mr. Jiang into signing an agreement to accept the court-appointed lawyer. He handed down a six-year prison sentence against Mr. Jiang on July 10, 2023.
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