By All Practitioners from Chicheng County, Hebei Province

(Clearwisdom.net) Since July 20, 1999, Chicheng County's party secretary Qiu Jianguo, along with the vice secretary and the head of the "610 Office" Song Wangui, have directed and controlled their subordinates to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. They have used such illegal tactics as detention, torture, surveillance, phone tapping, breaking into residences, dismissal from the work place, brainwashing, forced labor, and jail sentences. In the past four years, they have illegally detained 150 practitioners, sent 70 to brainwashing sessions, forced eight practitioners to leave home to avoid arrest and further persecution, sent 54 to labor camps, five to jails, caused two to become disabled, and caused three deaths.

Since July 20, 1999, Falun Gong has been demonized and persecuted. A large number of practitioners exercised their constitutional right to appeal and went to Beijing, but upon arrival they were seized by police, detained and fined. Thirteen practitioners were put into detention centers, while over 1000 were detained at different sites. Police used force to coerce them into renouncing their belief in Falun Dafa and write "guarantee letters" to give up their belief. Police also fined practitioners that went to Beijing to appeal, 1000 Yuan each and those that did not travel to Beijing were fined from a few dozen to a few thousand Yuan. Police even charged practitioners a fee for the cost for their food and administration fees during their detention. On the way to Beijing at the Luotuoshan stop, two female practitioners climbed a mountain in order to avoid interrogation by the police which often entailed torture. Because it was dark and the road treacherous, the two women fell to their deaths at the base of the mountain. But the police lied, claiming that they had jumped off the mountain on purpose.

In order to gain political clout and gain a promotion, Qiu Jianguo and Song Wangui lied to their superiors, claiming a 100% of transformation rate of Falun Gong practitioners in Chicheng County. They then published this information in the newspaper. Some practitioners went to the "610 Office" to clarify the truth on April 13, 2000. The office staff not only refused to listen but also put those practitioners into the detention center. A total of 17 practitioners were detained. The "610 Office" authorities said that the practitioners had violated the law and detained them for 30 days. At the end of that time, the "610 Office" personnel attempted to force the practitioners to write a letter guaranteeing not to go to Beijing. Some practitioners were fined 1000 yuan but did not get any receipt for the money they paid.

In order to prevent practitioners from going to appeal, the police confiscated practitioners' ID's and set up roadblocks at intersections on the way to Beijing. Bus passengers also had to have an ID. On every holiday and so-called "sensitive day," special staff were dispatched to monitor practitioners. Practitioners needed permission just to go outside. "610 Office" personnel even follow practitioners secretly. They also set up detection equipment and often arrested people secretly. Dafa practitioners Practitioners Wang Haojun, Zhao Chunxiang, and Wang Yufeng had all been contact persons. They were arrested at night and given long term detentions. When we questioned the police, they said, "We'll arrest whoever Qiu Jianguo asks us to arrest, especially you guys, as you have been a contact person!"

Because of this illegal persecution, Dafa practitioners have lost their basic rights and freedom. In the face of these illegal actions, we have no other place to seek justice. So, Dafa practitioners spontaneously go to Beijing to exercise their constitutional right to appeal, one after the other. We hope to bring about the end of the persecution against Falun Dafa after more officials learn the facts. But what Dafa practitioners receive is cruel persecution. Whenever police catch practitioners who go to Beijing or distribute materials, they torture them. They use whips, electric prods, and force them to be tied to the "tiger bench" [The practitioner is forced to sit on a small iron bench that is approximately 20 cm (6 inches) tall. He has to sit straight up with his eyes looking straight ahead. His hands are placed on his knees.] They have sent practitioners to detention centers, to labor camps or even to prison for long-term detention.

Qiu and Wan intensified the persecution under pressure from Jiang's regime. In the Xiaodiaoe area some very misguided people created a brainwashing center. They seized practitioners, who would not give up their belief in Falun Dafa, from their homes and work places, took them to the site, and subjected them to brainwashing. About 70 practitioners were detained. Because practitioners resisted the brainwashing, the head of the center, Liang Zhibin, complained to Song Wangui, who then led criminal policemen to the center to beat and threaten the practitioners. Liang hit Ms. Sun Fuqin across the face and hung her up in the air for four hours, until 7 pm. Ms. Huai Dianying was so severely beaten that she developed a protrusion of her lumbar vertebra and had difficulty walking. Mr. Yan Jingcai was beaten until he was hardly able to walk. Mr. Wei Shufeng and Mr. Xiao Kuicheng were electrically shocked. Because of long term detention and brainwashing Ms. Wang Chunmei suffered from a mental breakdown. The authorities invested a large amount of manpower, material, and monetary resources into this project. In 2001 alone, the cost of persecuting Falun Gong was as high as 800,000 yuan, despite the fact that Chicheng County is such a poor county that it cannot pay salaries on time.

The authorities even fine Falun Gong practitioners. When a practitioner's term is fulfilled, the police extort money from their familes by claiming it is "paying bail," otherwise they threaten to send practitioners to labor camps or jails. The families can do nothing but pay these extortions, in amounts ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of yuan. The police do not give any receipts, and the money becomes their personal bonus. There is a saying in China that the people have regarding these types of policemen. The people say, "Catch and then release, release and then catch. If they don't catch and release, there is no money to spend."

The police detain Dafa practitioners who refuse to renounce their belief for long terms. They refuse to release practitioners at the end of their 30-day terms and arbitrarily extend their detention to 6 months without proper legal procedure. Practitioners inside suffer severe persecution both physically and mentally from the torture they receive from the police. For example, in June 2001, practitioners acted to protest their illegal detention by refusing to go back to their rooms at lunchtime and demanding to be released immediately. The chief of the detention center led over twenty guards to force them back into their rooms. Some female practitioners' clothes were torn open. Finally the police had to throw the practitioners into their rooms. Some practitioners' bodies were therefore covered with dirt or injured in many places.

On July 20, 2001, in order to protest the persecution against Falun Dafa, practitioners spread banners reading "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance" and "Falun Dafa is good," etc. Some practitioners wrote the words on their T-shirts to express their appeal. The guards became very angry and reported the practitioners actions to their superiors. The vice bureau chief led a group of guards to search the rooms and beat practitioners. Wang Manlin beat Ms. Jin Jianhua and Ms. Zhang Xiufen on their faces. Guards stripped off female practitioners' clothes to conduct searches. A female guard named Shi Hongwei stripped off one female practitioner's underpants, in the full the presence of male guards and criminals, leaving a female practitioner naked in front of them. They handcuffed 16 practitioners, including ten females, hands behind their backs. Two practitioners put in thick iron shackles. At night they could not sleep or go to the bathroom. Ms. Zhao Binheng's arm became so severely swollen from having it cuffed behind her back that she almost lost feeling in the arm. She was handcuffed like that for 15 days, until some leaders came to check. Her arms did not recover feeling for a long time having suffered nerve damage. Her hands remain feeble and numb to this day, and she has become slightly handicapped.

Mr. Li Yuchuan voiced his protest against the illegal action of the guards, so the chief attempted to put handcuffs on him that were purposely too small to cause him a lot of pain. Li Yuchuan sqeezed his hands so tightly to resist the handcuffs that even when guards pressed him to the ground, they could not open his hands. Cui Zhengjun locked another handcuff on one of his arms and then jerked it forcefully, causing his wrist to bleed. Only then were they able to put the small handcuffs on him.

Li Yuchuan was in great pain, and his hands became swollen. The on-duty guards and doctors all said it was very serious, but they said they did not dare remove the handcuffs because the chief had put them on. So Li Yuchuan stood for the whole night. The pain cannot be described in words. He suffered until the next morning, his hands swelling up to a huge size from the lack of blood circulation and were left completely without feeling. The chief finally inspected Li Yuchuan's hands and ordered the guards to put on larger handcuffs. The guard Cao Yu looked at Li Yuchuan's hands and saw that a blister as big as a ping-pong ball had formed on each of his wrists. He felt sympathy and asked the chief to waive the penalty. Finally the chief agreed but told Li Yuchuan, "If you do not listen to me, it is easy to make you handicapped!" The two blisters took a long time to heal and left two black scars. Now both of his hands are numb and barely functional.

The guards have also committed many other illegal acts. For example, a male guard Chen Yu let a criminal Zhang Youli break into the female practitioners' room to grab the T-shirts they wore with the words "Truthfulness Compassion Tolerance" on them. They tore the T-shirt off of Ms. Zhou Yumei, leaving her naked. Their behavior, which seriously violated jail rules, is the behavior of scoundrels. When other practitioners criticized their actions, they said shamelessly, "Sure I violate the law, so sue me whenever you like. I am not afraid." The chief did not care about their illegal behavior at all. On the contrary, in fact he encouraged it.

Under the direction and with the cooperation of the chief, the inmates also became belligerent towards practitioners. In order to flatter the guards they often tortured and humiliated Dafa practitioners, especially the females. They were afraid that practitioners would write about and expose their crimes, so they forbid practitioners from having paper or pens. The criminals took away the practitioners' clean clothes and toilet paper. Every time a practitioner went to the bathroom the inmates only handed over a few pieces of toilet paper to female practitioners, not even enough for a man, even during their menstrual period. The inmates also used obscene language. They limited the times practitioners could go to the bathroom and if they took longer than five minutes they would start harassing them. When female practitioners went to the bathroom, the inmates threw stones at them.

The inmates even dared to beat practitioners in front of witnesses. Ms. Li Hongying's body was shaking after receiving one of these beatings. Under the strong protest of practitioners the chief had to detain this inmate in a cell as a penalty.

In addition the police deprived practitioners of all their rights. Practitioners were not permitted any family visits when the montly visiting day arrived. Even criminals sentenced to death were allowed have to family visits. They did not pay attention to practitioners who went on hunger strikes. After seven days the police began to force-feed practitioners on hunger strike, even though some practitioners' esophagi started to bleed from the force-feeding. They still did not stop. Some practitioners' lives were endangered but the police did not show any concern for their condition.

Ms. Jiang Shuhua was arrested by the Yangtian town government and local police on January 27, 2002, and seriously tortured. Afterwards she was sent to a detention center. She started a hunger strike to protest. When her life was in danger, the guards did not care at all and refused to rescue her. Not until they saw Jiang was dying did they notify her family and ask them to send her to the hospital. But it was too late; Jiang Shuhua died an unnecessary death. Personnel from the Zhangjiakou Hospital testified that there was a scar on the back of her head. The police cruelly tortured a person to death but did not take any legal responsibility. After Jiang was tortured to death the authorities feared that the issue would become public, so they agreed to pay 3000 yuan to her family members in compensation. However, they only gave the family an IOU.

The police guards have lost their humanity in persecuting practitioners; they would not even let a high school student go. Miss Xu Yan was only 16 years old when she was detained. She went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa and was put into a detention center for half a year. When the national senior high school entrance exam day approached, she wrote to the county government, the "610 office" and the police department several times requesting to participate in her school exam, but to no avail. The authorities even deprived a high school student's right to receive an education.

The authorities used every means possible but they could not change Dafa practitioners' belief in "Truthfulness Compassion Tolerance." This made them become even more ruthless. They summarily sent Dafa practitioners to labor camps as soon as they were caught. Many practitioners were sent to labor camps without the benefit of any legal procedure. Due to the fierce beatings and long-term detention, practitioners became very weak and emaciated. All practitioners sent to labor camps were diagnosed with abnormal health conditions whenever they were physically examined. When the labor camps then refused to accept them, the police bribed the camp officials to let the practitioners enter. The secretary of Dongmao Town Su You is famous for his cruelty in treating practitioners. He tied up dedicated practitioners and beat them. Some were beaten until they became unconscious. Others were sent to the labor camp but were refused entry because of poor health. Su You bribed the labor camp with 3000 yuan in order to get the authorities to accept the practitioner. Over the past few years he has arrested 120 practitioners and sent 14 to labor camps.

During the past few years, 54 practitioners from Chicheng County have been sent to labor camps. Many more were forced to leave home to avoid arrest and cannot return. Some practitioners' families were broken apart. For example, practitioner Wang Haojun used to be the chief of the Chicheng County Industry and Commerce Bureau and his wife Ling Ying worked as an accountant in the County Smoke Bureau. Their two daughters were studying at a university. They also have an elderly mother. In the past the husband and the wife had serious diseases. Wang Haojun had gastritis and cholecystitus. His wife had serious stomache ailments. After they started to practice Falun Gong in 1995, they regained their health and enjoyed a happy and peaceful life. After July 20, 1999, however, because they did not give up their belief and because he had been a contact person, the police went to search his house many times. Whenever it was considered to be a "sensitive day" by the authorities, he was put into the detention center and kept their for a long time. He was forced to leave his home to avoid further arrest and harassment and lead a homeless life. The police department issued a warrant for his arrest and offered a large reward for his capture. Finally he was arrested and sentenced to two years in a labor camp. His wife was sentenced to five years in jail for going to Beijing to appeal. Their elderly mother's heart was broken, and she passed away in grief and indignation after police ransacked their home numerous times, creating an atmosphere of terror. Their children, who were in school in other cities, had to depend on their relatives for their living expenses since their parents could no longer support them. The parents and the children are not allowed to see each other.

The vicious persecution of Dafa practitioners these past four years cannot be adequately described in words. From the above examples we can see that the reason government officials at every level are so unscrupulous and inhumane in their persecution of practitioners is that Jiang Zemin directs the persecution and issued the order against Falun Dafa practitioners to "ruin their reputations, destroy them economically and eliminate them physically" while "deaths-from-torture are counted as suicide".

Posting date: 1/15/2004
Original article date: 1/14/2004
Category: Eye Witness Accounts
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/25/63239.html