Belated News: 76-Year-Old Man Force-Fed and Sprayed with Tear Gas While Serving Time for His Faith in Falun Gong
(Minghui.org) A 76-year-old man in Suining City, Sichuan Province, was subjected to relentless torture while serving a prison term of three years and ten months between 2020 and 2024 for his faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. He recently recounted his ordeal.
Mr. Liao Banggui was arrested on March 23, 2019, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong on a bus. He was sentenced to prison by the Chuanshan District Court on June 17, 2020, and transferred to the Jiazhou Prison on July 10, 2020.
Mr. Liao had started a hunger strike in the Pengxi Detention Center following his arrest and continued it after he was admitted to prison. Throughout his prison term, he was force-fed and sprayed with tear gas on a regular basis. During one force-feeding session, the prison doctor had a convicted rapist insert the feeding tube into his nose. He almost suffocated.
Mr. Liao became very weak from all the abuse and had to be taken to the hospital to be revived several times. When he refused to take the prescribed medication, fearing it was toxic, the guards tied him up in bed for an extended period of time.
Torture Illustration: Tied up in bed
To prevent Mr. Liao from doing the Falun Gong exercises, the guards ordered the inmates to push him to the workshop in a utility cart, put a chair on his feet, and the have one of them sit on the chair.
When Mr. Liao once tried to explain to the guards and inmates that Falun Gong was being persecuted by the communist regime, guard Xu Ke ordered five inmates to cram a plastic ball into his mouth. He couldn’t close his mouth and kept drooling. Guard Yang Yinghu sprayed tear gas at him when he tried to clarify the facts about Falun Gong again.
A guard once dragged Mr. Liao on the ground a distance of nearly 300 yards. The thick socks Mr. Liao was wearing wore through, and one of his heels bled profusely. When the guard took him to the prison hospital, the doctor used an iodine alcohol solution on the injury instead of hydrogen peroxide, causing him excruciating pain.
Past Persecution
Mr. Liao Banggui has been repeatedly targeted for his faith over the past 26 years. He served three terms (lengths unknown) in the Xinhua Forced Labor Camp in the early years of the persecution.
Torture During First Three-Year Prison Term
Mr. Liao was arrested on April 6, 2011, and sentenced to three years in prison. While he was serving time in Wumaping Prison, warden Xiao Bin ordered the inmates to strip him to his underclothes and then shocked him with electric batons all over. They also tied him up in a chair, put a helmet on him, injected tear gas into the helmet, and then sealed it. When he still refused to renounce Falun Gong, they sprayed tear gas on his penis and into his anus, eyes, nose, and ears.
Three Arrests Between May and August in 2017
Mr. Liao was talking to a group of students about Falun Gong at a bus stop on May 12, 2017, when someone reported him to the police. Two Nanjin Road Police Station officers came, handcuffed him, and pushed him into their cruiser.
During the interrogation, the police restrained Mr. Liao in a metal chair. One officer with a thick notebook ordered him to sign something. When Mr. Liao refused to comply, the officer hit him on the head with the notebook.
The officer who hit Mr. Liao was the same person who sprayed a burning chemical on his face when he went to the police station on October 17, 2016, to ask for the return of his Falun Gong books and picture of the founder of Falun Gong that were confiscated during a home raid.
Another officer stomped on Mr. Liao’s foot. He attempted to do it again, but Mr. Liao told him firmly not to.
A woman officer then came in with the same notebook and ordered Mr. Liao to sign it. She promised not to bother him as long as he did not talk to people about Falun Gong in their jurisdiction again. He urged her to stop participating in the persecution. He was later released at 11 p.m. that night.
Mr. Liao talked to a boy around 14 years old about Falun Gong at a bus station on July 18, 2017. He gave the boy a Falun Gong brochure and a card to access uncensored online news. The boy returned with several officers while he was talking to a teenage girl about Falun Gong.
The police took him to the Beigu Police Station and seized the remaining Falun Gong materials he still had on him.
When an officer in his 50s slandered the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Liao said, “My teacher wrote a book, Zhuan Falun, that has been translated into 30 languages. Could you write a book that anyone would want to read?” The officer flew into a rage and kicked Mr. Liao in the shin, leaving a long gash. It did not bleed, however.
The police handcuffed Mr. Liao and restrained him in a metal chair. They also adjusted the surveillance cameras. Not long after, two officers came to undo his handcuffs and released him. They returned his watch and house key but not the Falun Gong materials. They also gave him his bus pass, which had expired.
On August 9, 2017, Mr. Liao talked to a man on a bus about Falun Gong. The man wasn’t receptive, so Mr. Liao moved on. When the bus stopped in front of a hotel, Mr. Liao and the man got off. As Mr. Liao was speaking to a woman about Falun Gong, the man showed up with three officers.
Mr. Liao was taken to the Fuyuan Road Police Station. He kept urging the police to stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. They ignored him and threatened to tape his mouth shut.
When the police ordered Mr. Liao to sign his name and five his fingerprints, he refused to comply and was released him in the early afternoon.
Another Arrest in 2018
Mr. Liao was arrested again in January 2018 for talking to people about Falun Gong. He was first given 14 days of administrative detention and then transferred to a detention center for a month, before being released on bail and placed under residential surveillance.
Related Reports:
Elderly Man Serving Time for His Faith Holds a Hunger Strike to Protest the Persecution
Sichuan Man in His 70s Sentenced to Prison for Talking to People about Falun Gong
Falun Gong Practitioners Tortured in Jiazhou Prison, Sichuan Province
Sichuan Police Spray Elderly Practitioner with Flesh-Burning Chemical