(Clearwisdom.net) Mr. Cao Baoyu, a 56-year-old Falun Dafa practitioner from Langfang City, Hebei Province was tortured until he was on the brink of death. The Guangyang District 610 Office agents sent him to Guangyang District People's Hospital (also called Beida Street Hospital) to continue tormenting him under the persecution. He died at the hospital on April 27, 2006.
Prior to the onset of the persecution against Dafa
Mr. Cao Baoyu lived in Xugezhuang Village, the Guangyang District, Langfang City, Hebei Province. He worked at the Property Management Division of the Langfang City Pipeline Bureau. He was also well known in the Weifang food industry for his great skills and integrity.
All of his illnesses disappeared after he started practicing Dafa in 1993. Mr. Cao attended Mr. Li Hongzhi's Falun Gong classes in Tianjin City on January 17, 1994 and on March 14, 1994, and attended the last class on June 28, 1994 in Jinan City.
He was the main volunteer assistant in the Weifang area. Mr. Cao moved to Wuqing County, Tianjin City in 1995 to work in the food industry. 10,000 people were introduced to Falun Dafa in Wuqing County due to Mr. Cao's efforts.
At beginning of the persecution, Cao Baoyu was arrested and secretly sentenced to four years in prison
On July 17, 1999, before the Party began publicly persecuting Falun Gong, Zhang, head of the Internal Security Section at the Wuqing County Police Department in Tianjin City phoned Cao Baoyu and asked him to come to Wuqing County because he wanted to learn about Falun Gong practice sites. Later, on Cao Baoyu's way home on a bus, lawless officials from Wuqing County intercepted the bus and illegally arrested Cao Baoyu. In the evening they sent him to the Xiazhuzhuang Township Police Station in Wuqing County.
On July 19, Jiang Zemin's group began arresting Dafa practitioners nationwide. Mr. Cao Baoyu was secretly transferred to the Tianjin City Custody Center and detained there that day. The persecutors replaced his real name with "Li Yu." They didn't notify his family, who looked for him everywhere and never found out his whereabouts. Finally, Tianjin City Police Department agents sentenced him to four years in prison with the charge "gathering 'en masse' to disrupt social order," without following any legal procedures. He was savagely tortured at the Tianjin Prison, including being beaten and verbally abused, forbidden to sleep, and forced to sit on a small stool about three inches wide, four inches tall and five inches long while being forced to listen to Dafa-slandering propaganda. Mr. Cao suffered severe physical and mental abuse and was further persecuted by being fired from the Langfang City Pipeline Bureau. Nevertheless, he persisted in his belief in Dafa.
Cao Baoyu sent to Langfang brainwashing center after prison term expired
On July 20, 2003, when the prison term was completed, Cao Baoyu had by then shown symptoms of various kinds of illnesses. Tianjin City Police Department officials refused to let his family take him home because he had not "reformed". Agents from the 610 Office of Langfang City and from the Langfang Pipeline Bureau sent Cao Baoyu to the Langfang brainwashing center to further persecute him. Due to his family's strong protest, they first took Cao Baoyu to the Langfang Pipeline Bureau Hospital for a physical exam. He was found to have an open wound between his back and neck, about 10 cm [3.9 inches] long and between 5 cm [2 in] and 6 cm [2.4 in] wide that exposed the bone. He was diagnosed with "methanoic acid poisoning," and the doctor said the condition could not be treated. The Langfang City and the Langfang Pipeline Bureau 610 Offices gave the family the run-around. The Pipeline Bureau officials later paid Cao Baoyu's family 3,000 yuan and washed their hands clean of any responsibility.
Cao Baoyu was beaten at the Dachang County Detention Center for trying to rescue a fellow practitioner
After he went home, Cao Baoyu studied the Fa and did the Falun Gong exercises, and he basically recovered. On February 5, 2006, Cao Baoyu and some other Dafa practitioners went to the Xianghe Police Department and the county government to appeal the local police's arrest of Dafa practitioner Wang Shaoqiu from Langfang City. Officers from the Dachang County Police Department in Langfang City beat and kicked the practitioners and took them to the Dachang County Detention Center.
In the evening, a thin, tall detention center head arrived and ordered all Dafa practitioners to strip naked and submit to a search. The practitioners refused and were savagely beaten. The detention center head called several guards and armed police officers to come over; they forcibly searched Cao Baoyu. The detention center head dragged him out into the hallway outside an interrogation room. He slapped Cao Baoyu's face and hit his mouth until Cao Baoyu's teeth became loose and his eardrums ruptured. He later tied Cao Baoyu to a metal chair. Cao Baoyu went on a hunger strike to protest the gross abuse under the persecution and was released on February 13. He was extremely weak when he went home.
Arrested again in 2006 and sent to Langfang Detention Center; Cao Baoyu was extremely weak
At 7:00 a.m. on February 18, 2006, six officers from the Langfang City Police Department, from the Guangyang District Police Department, the National Security Division and the deputy head of Beiwang Township Police Department jumped over the wall into Cao Baoyu's home. Because of the Two Party Conferences in progress, they took Cao Baoyu, who had not yet recovered from his injuries, to a brainwashing class. At the brainwashing class, three or four people watched each Dafa practitioner. They subjected practitioners to sleep deprivation. Cao Baoyu held a hunger strike to protest the persecution. He was first held at Huakang Hotel and then at the Shengyanlou Hotel. Officials from the Guangyang District Procuratorate in Langfang City and from the Langfang Police Department later arrested him under the false pretense of "disrupting social order" and locked him up in the Langfang Detention Center.
Cao Baoyu was extremely weak from the torture. The police then sent him to the Langfang City Hospital and the Chinese Medicine Hospital for so-called "emergency treatment," which amounted in fact to brutal force-feeding. This resulted in declining stomach function, stomach bleeding and severe damage of the stomach lining, along with other treatment-caused problems. The abusers never once notified Mr. Cao's family about his condition. After Cao Baoyu slipped into critical condition several times, they sent him to the Guangyang District People's Hospital for so-called emergency treatment. For days, the wrong drugs were administered, which was responsible for the decline of Cao Baoyu's heart and kidney function. He urinated blood and became incontinent.
Family not allowed to visit Cao Baoyu; wife arrested and sent to brainwashing center
Cao Baoyu's family went to the Guangyang District National Security Division to ask about his whereabouts, but the officials ignored them and refused to tell them where he was being held. The family went to many places and eventually found out that Mr. Cao was in the Guangyang District Hospital.
Cao Baoyu's wife went to the hospital to visit him. The hospital staff hid the truth and threatened and intimidated her. To prevent her from seeing her husband, they told her Cao Baoyu was not held there. Eventually, his wife barged into the ward where Cao Baoyu was staying and saw an extremely weak Mr. Cao. She pleaded with deputy head Liu from the Guangyang District, who was watching Cao Baoyu, and with the hospital officials, to allow her to stay to take care of her husband, but they refused. They claimed she was interfering with treatment and pushed her out of the hospital.
When the family overcame interference and again went to the hospital, the doctor told them that Cao Baoyu was in serious condition and could die at any time. The family strongly demanded that they be given permission to take Cao Baoyu to a better hospital. Deputy head Liu feared losing his job should it come to light that they had been using the wrong drugs, and said to the family, "The condition at your home is poor; the hospital has better service and certainly would not kill him through treatment." The actual truth is that the hospital has outdated equipment and does not have any qualified doctors. Zhao Jiapu and Xin Pingyu, heads of the 610 Office, also tried to stonewall the family by telling them not to come to the hospital anymore, and that they would be arrested if they came again. They said to the family, "If you don't like it, go to the United Nations and sue us!" They forced the family out of the hospital.
Cao Baoyu's adult children, relatives and friends went to the hospital several times but were refused visits. The family then went to the Langfang City Party Committee to demand Mr. Cao's release. The officials told them to go to the Appeal Office, and the Appeal Office agents told them to go to the Guangyang District Party Committee, who in turn told them to go to the 610 Office and the National Security Division. The officials passed the buck; none of them agreed to take any responsibility, and all refused to take action.
On April 25 Cao Baoyu's wife again went to the hospital. Liu, deputy head from Guangyang District and Zhao Jiapu, head of the 610 Office, said "Cao Baoyu is healthy. You can visit him." When the family went in, however, they saw that Cao Baoyu was delirious and had very poor hearing. He was incoherent and he had feces on his body and hands. After a few minutes, Liu and Zhao Jiapu arrived and said, "Ok, it's time for you to leave." In fact, they had called Xin Pingyu, a 610 Office head, and asked her to send officials to the hospital.
Before Cao Baoyu's wife walked out of the hospital's front gate, four men pinned her down. Xin Pingyu ordered a group of persecutors to push her into a car and take her to the Langfang Traffic Hotel where a brainwashing "class" was being held. On the first floor of the hotel, two people grabbed her wrists and two people grabbed her ankles and they dragged her along, upside down. They stepped on her hair and dragged her up to the fourth floor. The four people then threw her on the floor. Mr. Cao's wife went into convulsions. The officials said, "Stop faking already!" When she recovered slightly, she asked why she had been arrested. The officials answered, "No reason! We just had to arrest you so you would stop making trouble at the hospital."
The 610 Office agents took Cao Baoyu's wife away without telling her family. Her family looked for her everywhere but didn't know where she was held. Cao Baoyu's was worried about her husband and was thus under tremendous pressure and didn't eat or drink. Liu Shuxiang and Guo Ling, two collaborators, brainwashed her every day, and she became very weak.
Cao Baoyu, on the brink of death, passed away; perpetrators block information
On the morning of April 27, it was heard that Cao Baoyu was receiving emergency treatment at the hospital. Cao Baoyu's son heard the news and rushed to the hospital and asked to see his father for the last time, but his request was denied. He was told his father was doing well and that the family would be notified of whatever happened to him. The son waited outside the hospital for a long time but was never permitted to see his father.
Around 10:00 a.m. on April 28, the village officials told Cao Baoyu's son and other family members to go to the conference room on the fourth floor of Shengyanlou Hotel where the brainwashing class was held. The conference room was heavily guarded. Officials from the Guangyang District Procuratorate and the police department read a document stating the reason for Cao Baoyu's arrest and the trial on April 25. They also read Cao Baoyu's death report. He had passed away in the evening of April 27. When the family confronted the officials as to why they didn't notify the family when Cao Baoyu was in critical condition, the head of the Guangyang District Hospital said, "There are rules! We don't notify the family when we shouldn't." He didn't say what the rules were.
When the family asked to take Mr. Cao's body home, officials from the Guangyang District Procuratorate and the police department again said that due to orders from above (they didn't explain what the orders were) the body could not be taken home but instead, an autopsy had to be performed later the same afternoon, followed by cremation early the next morning. They even said that they ashes cannot be taken home. Everything must be done under police supervision. With strong protests from the family, they waived the autopsy and postponed the cremation.
Cao Baoyu's wife was not aware of her husband's death. The Beiwang Township Political and Judiciary Committee agents concealed the facts and sent her home from the brainwashing class around 11:00 a.m. on April 28, saying they feared her health would fail her. They thoroughly monitored Cao Baoyu's home by dispatching several people to guard the door, and forbade anyone to enter. They took photographs of and videotaped whoever entered the family's courtyard.
When several relatives learned of Cao Baoyu's death they barged inside Cao Baoyu's home and told his wife about it. When the wife tried to tell her friends and relatives, officials from the Beiwang Township Political and Judiciary Committee took over the home phone so she could not make any calls. They also dispatched all officers from the Beiwang Township Police Department to enter the courtyard and prepare to arrest people. The police only withdrew with a guarantee made by the village Party Committee.
Perpetrators fear exposure of facts and refuse to hand the family the ashes
Around 1:00 p.m., officials from the village Party Committee, from the Guangyang District Police Department, from the procuratorate and the court, the Guangyang District 610 Office and the National Security Division agreed to the family's request to conduct a surface body exam in the afternoon, postpone the cremation and let the family accompany the body to the crematory.
During the body exam, the family saw purple dots on the back of Mr. Cao's hands and on the wrists, and scars on the wrists and ankles left by ropes, which they guessed were the result of force-feeding and IV infusion. They also saw blood in the right nostril, unidentified excretion from the urethra, and black feces underneath the body.
The officials forbade the family's presence when the body was sent to the crematory; they directly took the body and cremated it on May 1. They forbade the family and friends to observe the cremation from close by and banned taking of pictures or videotaping. After the cremation, the ashes were light green. The crematory workers said it is the result of medication overdose. The ashes were sent to a cemetery and buried under the watchful eyes of officials from the police department, the National Security Division, the township Political and Judiciary Committee and the village Party Committee. The officials said whoever took the ashes home would be arrested.