(Clearwisdom.net) Mr. Gu Xingchang, 39 years old, is a resident of Mantang Village, Beishicao Town, Hejian City, Hebei Province. Since former president Jiang Zemin's regime started persecuting Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, Mr. Gu has been illegally detained four times. During his detention, he suffered from many cruel tortures, including being confined on the death bed and "Squatting on a hitching post." He also had hot and cold water alternately poured over him, and was deprived of sleep for 13 successive days. Gu Xingchang was illegally sentenced to 6 years of imprisonment. He is currently detained in the Tangshan Prison where he is forced to do slave labor every day.
Before Gu Xingchang started to practice Falun Dafa, he suffered from many kinds of ailments and diseases such as arthritis, cholecystitis and hepatitis, which made it hard for him to work. He obtained Dafa in February 1996 and started to behave according to Falun Dafa's principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance." It was not long before all his illnesses completely disappeared and he started to enjoy life as a healthy person.
But such a good practice began to be persecuted in July 1999. Gu Xingchang knew that he should go tell the government about how he benefited from Falun Dafa both mentally and physically and that Dafa had saved his life. So together with other fellow practitioners, he went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. Upon arriving in Beijing, they were illegally arrested by the police and immediately taken back to their hometown, where they were detained in the conference hall of the government offices of Beishicao Town, Hejian City. They were forced to write a guarantee statement that they would give up Falun Gong and would never again go to appeal for Falun Gong, or otherwise they would not be allowed to go home. The local officials also pressured Mr. Gu's family members to try to force him to give up Falun Gong.
In September 1999, Gu Xingchang once again went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and was arrested for the second time. He was detained in the Hejian City Detention Center, where he was brutally beaten by officials from the Cangzhou region, Hebei Province, who went to the detention center for a working investigation. They beat him so cruelly that his face was deformed. They also forced him to assume the punishment of "Squatting on a hitching post" by making him hold the painful position of half squatting with his arms stretched out in front of him. He was forced to hold this posture for hours at a time and was kicked by the officials if they thought his position was not satisfactory enough. After several hours of this torture, Gu Xingchang became unable to walk and had to crawl back to his confinement cell. To cover up their abuse of Mr. Gu, the authorities refused the request of his family members to see him. He was not released until his family paid 2,000 yuan as guarantee money 15 days later.
On the first day of 2000, Gu Xingchang once again went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. Right when his group arrived at the Appeals Office in Beijing, they were stopped and asked why they had come. Upon learning that they came to appeal for Falun Gong, the officials immediately sent Gu Xingchang and several other practitioners to the Panjin Detention Center of Liaoning Province, where Mr. Gu suffered from even more cruel torture. The policemen ordered the other prisoners to torture Dafa practitioners. They beat him and tore off his clothes. Then they alternately poured 15 basins of scalding hot water and 15 basins of ice-cold water over his head and body in turn. The cold water was poured on him each time after the hot water. While carrying out the torture, the inmates shouted abusively at him to force him to repeat phrases that they wanted him to say. They did not stop doing so until Gu Xingchang was devastated by the torture. After that he was sent back to his hometown by the policemen from the Hejian Police Department. He was released only after his family was extorted out of 3,000 yuan by the Hejian Police Department.
By the time Gu Xingchang went home, he had lost all feeling in his body. He could not support himself to stand and had to stay in bed, unable to control his bowels or bladder. He became extremely emaciated. However, because of his firm belief in Dafa and Teacher, he could stand up again after one month in bed. Then he resumed studying the Fa and doing the Falun Gong exercises as before, and he started to recover little by little. However, he was constantly harassed by officers from the Hejian City Police Department and the Beishicao Town Police Station. In 2001, they illegally sentenced Gu Xingchang to two years of forced labor, but he did not pass the health examination for acceptance by the labor camp and was sent back home. Nonetheless, the police continued to harass him constantly, trying to force him to give up Dafa.
In March 2004, police from the Police Department of Hejian City arrested Gu Xingchang with force when he was working in a factory in his village. The police also ransacked his home without any legal permission and took away a computer, a video player and some other valuable items. They also took away some truth-clarification materials and arrested Gu Xingchang's wife Wang Xiangru and sent them together to the Hejian City Detention Center.
In the detention center, the prison guards tried to extort confessions from the couple by cruelly torturing them. They were ordered to reveal details about other Dafa practitioners and were beaten when they refused to do so. Suffering from the cruel beatings and other torture methods, Wang Xiangru became unable to walk because one of her legs was badly injured. She was in good physical condition before, but now her face was badly swollen and her heartbeat was irregular. Gu Xingchang was also cruelly tortured each time the police interrogated him. One of his eyes was injured and seeped fluid after they were violently struck by the police. He could not see out of the injured eye for quite a long time. One side of his face was badly swollen, the bones in his feet were beaten until they were almost broken and his ankle was swollen. Even though he was in such condition, the police still shackled his feet with heavy shackles and tortured him with the death bed.
This time, Gu Xingchang was sentenced to six years in prison and was sent to the Tangshan Prison in Hebei Province. Right after he arrived in the prison, the prison guards and some collaborators started to work on "transforming" him. With several people working in 4-hour shifts, they continuously bombarded him with their false understandings of Dafa. They prodded his head with their fingers when he was became sleepy, thus depriving him of any sleep for 13 consecutive days. The suffering was so great that it was beyond imagination. On top of this, Gu Xingchang was also forced to do slave labor in the prison every day.
Throughout the numerous illegal arrests and brutal persecution of Gu Xingchang, police officer Zhao Baoqiao from the Political Security Office of the Hejian City Police Department played a major role.
