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Germany: Deputy Chief of Public Security for Hubei Province in China, Zhao Zhifei, Faces Another Lawsuit (Part II)
(Clearwisdom.net) In November 2003, 41 Falun Gong practitioners from Europe,
North America and Australia sued sixteen Chinese officials in Germany. This is
the second suit brought by practitioners against Zhao Zhifei, Deputy Chief of
Public Security for Hubei Province. The first suit was brought in the United
States. He is being sued for Genocide, Infliction of Cruel Torture and Crimes
Against Humanity.
A large amount of evidence and documentation proves that Zhao Zhifei was the
primary person responsible for the "610 Office* in Hubei Province. The 610
Office instructed all the police stations, detention centres, prisons, and all
those who dealt with Falun Gong affairs in various departments and units in
Hubei Province to use cruel torture, intimidation of practitioners' personal
connections (such as friends, relatives and colleagues) and all kinds of other
hard and soft approaches to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. No matter what
they did, whether it was cruel torture or a something more subtle, their purpose
was to force Falun Gong practitioners to give up their belief in "Truthfulness,
Compassion, Forbearance and to eradicate Falun Gong.
In July 2001, Peng Liang, a Falun Gong practitioner from Wuhan City in Hubei
Province, filed a lawsuit with a U.S. court against Zhao Zhifei, Deputy Chief of
Public Security and current Head of the 610 Office of Hubei Province. The
details of the lawsuit were communicated via the Internet. On December the 21st
2001, the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York
issued a default judgement against Zhao Zhifei, charging him with murder, cruel
torture, illegal imprisonment and crimes against humanity in his treatment of
Falun Dafa practitioners in Hubei Province. It also pronounced that Zhao was in
violation of other international human rights laws and had the liability for
compensation. That was the first time in which a Chinese official was found
guilty of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners.
1. Peng Liang's younger brother, Peng Min, was killed, but the Chinese
Central Television fabricated lies to cover it up
According to Falun Dafa website Clearwisdom.net, Peng Liang's younger
brother, Peng Min, was arrested in March 2000 and incarcerated in Qingling
Prison. Under police guard Zhu Handong's instruction, Peng Min was violently
beaten by inmates on many occasions. He was pushed on a wooden bed and struck by
fifteen or sixteen inmates on his buttocks with the soles of plastic shoes until
they became afraid that Peng Min might be dead. Peng was brutally beaten many
times because he practised Falun Gong.
In August and September of 2000, there were two 13-15 centimetre pustules on
the central part of Peng Min's buttocks and left leg. Instead of arranging
necessary medical treatment, the prison authorities hinted to other inmates to
take advantage of this opportunity to "teach him a lesson. More than ten inmates
pushed him onto a wooden bed and took turns to press the pustules on his body,
which resulted in unbearable pain for him. It was so painful that his entire
body went into spasm. Because of this suffering, he couldn't sleep for almost a
month and could only cower around the doorframe, which caused tremendous damage
to his health. Many eyewitnesses testified that the police cruelly beat Peng on
January the 9th 2001, which led to the fracture of the fifth bone of his
vertebra and of his cervical vertebra. Since he was entirely paralysed, his
mother took him home to recuperate after she heard the news.
When Peng's mental and physical condition started to improve, the riot
brigade of the Municipal Public Security Bureau dispatched around thirty
policemen to forcibly escort him to Wuhan Seventh Hospital for so-called
"treatment". Upon arriving at the hospital, the police, together with special
agents from the city's "610 Office, isolated Peng Min in a small room at the end
of the orthopaedics wards on the hospital's second floor. The room was blocked
so that no one could see in. His mother and younger brother (Peng Liang) were
forced to take care of him day and night, and were not allowed to leave. On the
surface, they were asked to take care of Peng Min, but in reality they were
under house arrest, in order to stop them leaking news to the outside world. In
the meantime, the policemen from Zhongnan Street Police Station in Wuchang City
were ordered to stay in the room next door around the clock to prevent them from
contacting anyone on the outside. Peng Min was not allowed to read any Falun
Dafa books or listen to Falun Dafa music. Under instruction from the "610 Office
and the municipal public security bureau, the hospital turned a blind eye to
Peng Min's critical condition throughout his stay in the hospital. The hospital
even told his family members that Peng Min would never be discharged until he
was dead. At that time, Peng Min had completely lost consciousness, and his back
had developed a large wound because of the persecution he suffered in the forced
labour camp.
On March the 9th 2001, when reporters from a talk show programme of the
Chinese Central Television and the Wuhan Television Station went to the hospital
and "interviewed Peng Min and his family members, the hospital's attitude was
completely different. While facing the lens of cameras, they applied medicine to
Peng Min's body and helped him turn over to face the camera lens. They told the
reporters, "We have arranged the best doctors, used the most advanced equipment
and the most effective medicine to treat Peng Min. Peng Min and his family
members immediately exposed the lies of the hospital authorities. Peng Min also
elaborated on how he was hurt and became paralysed. He repeatedly emphasised
that he did not become paralysed because he practised Falun Gong but because of
the vicious persecution he had suffered. However, the reporters from the Chinese
Central Television turned a deaf ear to him. Instead, they asked some
superficial and empty questions to cover up the facts. They asked Peng Min's
mother, "As your son is so sick do you feel regret? His mother sternly replied,
"No regret at all! Afterwards, his mother told other practitioners that the
reason she had no regret was that her son had chosen a righteous path!
At about 6 p.m. on April 6th 2001, Peng Min died. His remains were cremated
by the police at around 10 a.m. on April 7th 2001. The police in the prison
clearly knew the sinister reasons behind the immediate cremation. His father
Peng Weisheng was escorted from Hewan Forced Labour Camp to have a look at Peng
Min's remains, and afterwards he was sent back to Hewan Forced Labour Camp. Peng
Min's younger sister Peng Yan was in a jail, and she had no idea about Peng
Min's death for a long time afterwards.
2. Peng Liang's Mother Li Yingxiu
After Peng Min died, the police sent Peng Liang and his mother Li Yingxiu to
Hongxia Brainwashing Centre, and assigned someone to personally guard them. Li
Yingxiu was affected by the death of her son and didn't eat for several days.
Furthermore, the spicy food and lack of a thick blanket in the brainwashing
centre left her with the symptoms of a fever. As a result, four policemen
forcibly rushed her to a hospital. After returning to the brainwashing centre
that day, Li Yingxiu told the police that she had got over the sickness and
removed the intravenous drip. But she was violently beaten by four vicious
policemen and escorted to another place. Li Yingxiu immediately said that she
would write down all the crimes that these wicked policemen had done to her. The
policemen thus fractured her skull, and she died in a hospital twenty-two days
after Peng Min's death. Peng Liang's mother, Li Yingxiu, died on April the 29th
2001, in the hospital where her son died.
Li Yingxiu's husband Peng Weisheng went to the Seventh Hospital in handcuffs
to take a last look at her remains. He found that Li Yingxiu's hair had been
completely shaven revealing wounds on her head; there was blood in her nose and
mouth, and bloodstains on her clothes. Peng Weisheng angrily asked the police
and the medical personnel on the scene how Li Yingxiu had died. The doctor on
the scene said, "Li Yingxiu died of a cerebral haemorrhage, and the bloodstains
on her head resulted from the brain punctures and dissection. But Peng Weisheng
knew that Li Yingxiu had no medical history of cerebral haemorrhages. A
policeman told him that the reason behind Li Yingxiu's death was that she
"talked too much after her son died. Afterwards, to cover up the crimes they
committed, Chinese Central Television reported that Li Yingxiu died of "an acute
cerebral haemorrhage.
3. Peng Liang
Because he appealed for Falun Gong in Beijing in 1999, Peng Liang was
arrested and jailed in the Qingling Hongxia Brainwashing Centre of Wuchang
District in Wuhan City, from March through to the end of August 2000. He
suffered immensely cruel torture there. On the eve of National Day 2000, he was
detained for fifteen days for no reason. It was said that the Chinese
authorities were afraid that he might appeal in Beijing again.
When Peng Min was about to die, Peng Liang was imprisoned in the Qingling
Hongxia Brainwashing Centre in Wuchang District. After Peng Liang wrote a
so-called "guarantee statement** and was released from the brainwashing centre,
he joined his mother to take Peng Min home from the hospital. After Peng Min
died, Peng Liang and his mother Li Yingxiu were again jailed and guarded in
Hongxia Brainwashing Centre.
After his younger brother and mother died, in addition to a series of blows,
Peng Liang was slapped on his face 40 times every day by the guards. He thus
wrote a "guarantee statement again, though he had torn up the last one. Because
he wrote this statement renouncing his beliefs and freedom, Peng Liang was
allowed to repair vehicles at the entrance of an electricity company around the
Small East Gate of the brainwashing centre. Therefore, he had the opportunity to
plan the lawsuit against the warped officials who had tortured his mother and
his younger brother.
With other practitioners' help, Peng Liang finally filed a lawsuit with a
U.S. court against Zhao Zhifei, Deputy Chief of Public Security and the current
Head of the "610 Office of Hubei Province, by communicating through the Internet
in July 2001. Under this kind of circumstance, Peng Liang had no choice but to
temporarily go into hiding to avoid suffering further persecution. Because of
the tip-offs from traitors, Peng Liang and some other practitioners who had
offered to help him, such as Wuhan city practitioners Yan Zhigang and Liu
Xunchun, were apprehended in August 2001.
After being arrested, Peng Liang was jailed in the Second Prison in Wuhan,
where criminals subject to capital punishment are imprisoned. Afterwards, he was
transferred to Wuchang's Qingling Prison and finally ended up in the 610
Brainwashing Centre in Wuchang District. Peng Liang continuously went through
severe persecution and the public security system strictly blocked any
information about his situation from getting out. Peng Liang was absolutely not
allowed to approach the building in which Dafa practitioners were incarcerated
so as to prevent him from contacting them. Once a practitioner's family members
visited an inmate and Peng Liang happened to be on cleaning duty in the
reception room. The prison guard immediately asked Peng Liang to leave. Another
time, when the water supply was suspended, Peng Liang was carrying a barrel of
water for the practitioners imprisoned upstairs. Before he walked a few steps,
the police aggressively asked him to put the bucket down and ordered him to
return downstairs.
4. Peng Liang's Sister Peng Yan
In March 2000, Peng Yan was illegally arrested because she printed the main
book of Falun Gong Zhuan Falun and was then imprisoned in Wuhan's First
Female Prison, which later moved to Dongxihu Wujiaxan Erzhigou. That was the
second time she was arrested. At the same time, her older brother Peng Min and
another Dafa practitioner with the surname Ye were also arrested. The arrest
soon became a so-called "authorised arrest. In China, "authorised arrest means
people can be "legally detained for a long period of time without a trial.
When Peng Yan was detained in the "First Female Prison, she was harshly
beaten because she refused to take her clothes off for a full body search. Many
inmates heard this news. Later she was tied to "board shackles twice because she
refused to promise not to practise Falun Gong in the prison. ("Board shackles
was abolished in 1997. It was an instrument of torture exclusively used for
criminals subject to the death penalty. A criminal lies down on a board in the
shape of a cross, and his hands and legs are fixed to the board with iron
chains. There is a hole on the board beneath the criminal's buttocks so that
stool and urine can be released from the hole.) Peng Yan was tied to the "board
shackles for 39 days.
During the period when she was fastened to the board shackle for the second
time, Zhu and Hai (the male chiefs of that female prison) and another chief
inspected the cell where she was held. They tried to persuade her into writing a
"guarantee statement so that she could be released from the board shackles.
However, Peng Yan refused to give up her belief. Chief Zhu thus instructed a
criminal inmate of the cell to beat her on her face with the sole of a slipper.
When that criminal inmate was reluctant to do so, Zhu threatened, "If you don't
beat her, I'll ask someone from another cells to beat you. The inmate was
threatened until she was in tears. Peng Yan couldn't stand it and said to her,
"Go ahead, I won't blame you. The inmate was crying while she was hitting Peng
Yan. The Prison Chief was incessantly shouting at her until she had been hit
several dozen times.
Because she refused to wear a prison uniform and recite the prison
regulations, Peng Yan was handcuffed, forced to stand for a long period of time
and beaten by warped policeman Liu Lianzhen (This warped policeman was always
hostile to Dafa practitioners, frequently tried various novel methods to torture
them, and incited other criminal inmates to be hostile to them). On "May 1st,
though Peng Yan was handcuffed, the policemen asked her to do all the work for
that day, which was supposed to be shared by every inmate in the prison.
In March 2000, Peng Yan was jailed in the First Prison in Wuhan City after
being illegally sentenced to three years. At the time she was aged twenty two.
At the end of July 2001, she was transferred to the knitting brigade of Wuhan
Female Prison. Since her older brother Peng Min and her mother Li Yingxiu had
been tortured to death by the police in Hubei Province and news had reached
outside of China, the evil political regime were desperate to cover up their
atrocities and cut sources of evidence for the International Court of Justice.
They used every possible measure to transform Peng Yan. According to a prison
guard, their superiors ordered that Peng Yan must be "transformed within a short
period of time.
From detention centre to prison, Peng Yan suffered tremendous hardship for
about three years but never gave in; corporal punishment didn't work on her any
more. As a result, the prison exclusively set up a so-called "learning class in
a building which was originally used as a dining room and bedroom for inmates.
The prison guards who were experienced in persecuting Dafa practitioners were
deployed to this class from other brigades. They included both men and women,
and totalled over ten people. If other inmates were included, the total number
in the class added up to more than twenty people. In this so-called "learning
class, the wicked policemen used a hypocritical method, which was a so-called
"soft approach. They lived and ate with Peng Yan. Everyone was served with nice
food and had a comfortable place to sleep. In her daily life, Peng Yan was taken
care of as if she was a baby. All the prison guards and department chiefs took
turns to "transform her. A member of the prison's administration board, Han
Hanyun, even regarded Peng Yan as his nominal daughter, and a video showed that
he hugged Peng Yan in public and said, "You are the most disobedient daughter of
mine. Furthermore, he promised to solve her family problems and help her find a
job after she was discharged from the prison. On the other hand, some guards
from the "610 Office in Wuhan City and some hooligans from outside to the prison
were sent to collude with people from outside the prison and find information to
deal with Peng Yan. The most vicious approach was that if Peng Yan was not
"transformed all the prison guards participating in the class would not be
allowed to go home. This lasted more than 20 days and they took advantage of
Peng Yan's compassionate nature to impose tremendous spiritual pressure on her.
When Peng Yan compromised with them, all the prison guards were very excited and
hugged one another in tears. However, although it was shameful, they used the
related video as propaganda materials to deceive the world.
5. Peng Liang's father Peng Weisheng
Because he appealed for Falun Gong in Beijing, Peng Weisheng was brainwashed
for eighteen months in the 2nd Brigade of Hewan Forced Labour Camp in Wuhan
City. Peng Weisheng was supposed to be released on April 28 2001 but his jail
term was extended six months because he refused to give up practising Falun
Gong. When the six months extension expired, he was still not released. Instead,
his jail term was extended for another three months. In January 2002, he was
directly transferred to the "610 Brainwashing Centre near the Yujiatou riverbank
of Wuchang District in Wuhan City. The Chief of the brainwashing centre
announced in public, "Without compromise, he will be imprisoned indefinitely.
* The "610 Office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong,
with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other
political and judiciary systems.
** "Guarantee Statement" is a statement to declare that he or she is
remorseful for practising Falun Gong and guarantees not to practise Falun Gong
again, not to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and never again associate
with any Falun Dafa practitioners.
You can read "Deputy
Chief of Public Security for Hubei Province in China, Zhao Zhifei, Faces Another
Lawsuit (Part I)". |