(Clearwisdom.net) Mr. Li Zhiyong, 26, is a Falun Dafa practitioner from Changchun City. Prior to his illegal arrest, he worked in the employee cafeteria of the municipal bank, the ICBC (Industry and Commercial Bank of China), in Changchun City.
On the morning of March 11, 2002, when Mr. Li was at work, policemen from the Luyuan Police Department and the Chengxi Township Police Station arrested him and took him to the Chengxi Township Police Station. The policemen took turns beating him violently while interrogating him about who had given him all the flyers that he had, which Mr. Li refused to reveal. The policemen then took him to a small dark room and continued to brutally torture him. His hands were cuffed behind his back: One hand was pulled up over his shoulder and cuffed behind his back to his other hand that was pulled backward and upward at his waist. They made Mr. Li stand beside a wall and kicked Mr. Li's knees if he failed to stand up straight.
A lieutenant at the Luyuan Police Department ordered a policeman to press Mr. Li's shoulders back and forth. The police called this torture "beating the dough" and claimed that this would even unlock the steel teeth of those people [whose lips are so stubbornly sealed]. (Below are reenactment pictures of these torture methods made by Falun Gong practitioners)
  Photo illustration 1, The "Face Pressing" Torture |
  Photo illustration 2, The "Face Pressing" Torture |
When this torture did not get the expected results, a policeman forced three beer bottles under Mr. Li's arms while they were still handcuffed behind him, which immediately caused Mr. Li such excruciating pain that he had to bend over.
Photo illustration 3, back handcuffing with three beer bottles
Upon seeing Mr. Li bending down, the policemen immediately kicked his knees; out of a conditioned reflex, Mr. Li straightened up, but the intensely violent pain immediately made him fall to the ground causing the beer bottles to break and pieces of broken glass to cut Mr. Li's head.
  Photo illustration 4: The broken bottles that injured Mr. Li's head |
  Photo illustration 5: The broken bottles that injured Mr. Li's head |
Seeing what happened to Mr. Li, the policemen temporarily stopped the torture session. They then took him to the 2nd floor of the Luyuan Police Department. They forced Mr. Li to sit on a metal chair and continued the illegal interrogation.
Photo illustration 6: shackled to a metal chair
Deprived of both water and sleep, Mr. Li was illegally interrogated and tortured in various ways for two days and nights. He was then sent to the Changchun First Detention Center.
While Mr. Li. was being detained in the detention center, Mr. Li's family sent money to him. However, because Mr. Li was denied any family visitation, his family could not confirm that the money was ever delivered to him. Consequently, Mr. Li only received a small portion of the money and the remainder of the money has yet to be discovered. The money his family sent him was not available for Mr. Li to use. Every day he had to eat the "extra meals" made by the detention center. Regardless of whether he ate the meals or not, the detention center charged Mr. Li 15 yuan per day. As a result, it was very difficult for Mr. Li to buy necessities. Whenever the higher authorities came to investigate, the detention center would tell detainees in advance that there would be no one in charge in the cell, that they could use the restroom and drink water any time they wanted, and that they all had equal sized sleeping quarters. Yet, after the investigation was over, the head prisoner of the cell would continue random beatings and mistreatment of others without fear of being punished. A cell head usually had some kind of connection that his or her family had built over time by giving guards money so that he or she could get things easily and could live an easy life in the detention center. A detainee had to get permission from a cell head in order to drink water or use the restroom. No matter how crowded and packed other detainees sleeping spaces were in a cell, the cell head always had a sizable sleeping space. Where three or four detainees had to share one blanket, a cell head could have two or three blankets. There could only be two Falun Gong practitioners in a cell and they were not allowed to talk to each other, nor were other people allowed to talk about Falun Gong. When practitioners were put in the forced sitting torture, they were not allowed to close their eyes.
As a result of the brutal interrogation session conducted by the Luyuan Police Department, Mr. Li could no longer lift his arms. For fear of having any evidence seen by an outsider, the policemen did not submit Mr. Li's case to a Prosecutor until three to four months later. When the Prosecutor summoned Mr. Li, his arms had basically healed. Mr. Li exposed the facts about the brutal interrogation session conducted by the Luyuan Police Department to the Prosecutor, yet the Prosecutor dismissed the case on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
When Mr. Li's legal documents were submitted to a court, the court rejected the case and returned the documents to the police department on the grounds of unclear facts and insufficient evidence. The police department again fabricated evidence and submitted it to the court. During this time, the central government issued an order that over-term imprisonment of detainees be handled immediately. Mr. Li's case fell into this category since he had already been illegally detained for a year and a half. In the end, the court sentenced Mr. Li to four years in prison on an unfounded charge. Mr. Li. rejected the sentence and appealed to a higher court, but the Changchun Intermediate People's Court dismissed Mr. Li's appeal without conducting any investigation and reinstated the original sentence. Mr. Li Zhiyong was illegally detained for one year and nine months, after which he was sent to the Jilin prison.
Telephone numbers:
Country code: 86, area code: 431
Address of the Luyuan Police Department in Changchun: Puyang Street 81B,
postal code: 130062
Office: 7613124
Disciplinary Committee: 7613125
Address of the Changchun Police Department: Renmin Dajie Street, No. 2627,
postal code: 130051; fax: 8966903
Main line: 8908000
Office: 8908066
Command Department: 8922156
Command Center: 8989110
Address of the Changchun City Intermediate People's Court: Jingyang Dalu Road,
No. 26, postal code: 130000
Main telephone lines: 7685400, 7685401
January 10, 2005
