(Clearwisdom.net) Dafa practitioner Mr. Zhao Xudong, 35 years old, was an employee of Lanzhou City Chemical Industry Company in Gansu Province. At about 8 pm on February 7, 2004, Zhao was tortured to death in the first team of the fourth section at Lanzhou No. 2 Detention Center. Later he was sent to Taikang Hospital for so-called "rescue" but the certificate of diagnosis indicated that his electrocardiogram was a totally flat line. He was in fact sent to "rescue" after he had already died. When he died, his hair was two inches long, and two thirds of his hair was white. Just over two months ago, when 11 practitioners including Zhao were arrested, he had no white hair at all. He weighed over 160 pounds before, but was as thin as a reed and weighed less than 100 pounds. He had blood in his nose, but the certificate of diagnosis states that he died from a heart attack.

Within 53 days (in the first seven days he was detained in the detention center of Department of National Security, Gansu Province), the first team of the fourth section, Lanzhou No. 2 Detention Center turned a person who had no white hair, and who had been so healthy in September 2003 when joining the company, into one who suffered a "heart attack" and was full of white hair. This is a telling sign of the brutal treatment he received in the No. 2 Detention Center.

On December 7, 2003, eleven practitioners including Zhao Xudong and his mother Bai Jinyu, were abducted by the Department of National Security, Gansu Province. They were sent to the detention center of the Department of National Security. Later Zhao Xudong was transferred to Hualin Mountain Detention Center and the others were sent to No. 2 Detention Center. In January 2004, they were officially detained.

Zhao's mother Bai Jinxu is still being held in the detention center and suffering from the torture. She was beaten and injured all over her body, and her legs were broken.

Zhao Xudong started to practice sometime in 2000. In December 2000 he was sent for one year of forced labor because he had gone to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa. He was detained in the Lanzhou City No. 1 Detention Center. In October 2001, he was bailed out for medical treatment. Because he was unemployed for a long time, and many of his family members were persecuted, the Zhao's were living a very hard life. In about October 2000, Mr. Zhao's wife Li Hongping was arrested for making Dafa truth-clarifying materials. She was sent to forced labor and is still being persecuted in the notorious Lanzhou City No. 1 Detention Center. During her detention, she was subjected to a lot of torture. Once she was hung up with her hands cuffed behind the back for several days, breaking her arms in the process. The couple has an eight-year-old daughter.

At the end of 2000, Zhao Xudong was detained in Siergou Detention Center and Li Hongping was detained in Xiguoyuan (Lanzhou City No. 1 Detention Center). Her mother Bai Jinyu was abducted and sent to the forced labor camp in Yongjing, Gansu Province. She was sent to forced labor for two years. Zhao Xudong's father Zhao Baoting was detained in a detention center in Beijing for going to Beijing to appeal.

February 29, 2004