Mr. Xiao Zhiqiang, 60, Illegally Sentenced to Six Years' Imprisonment

(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Dafa practitioner Mr. Xiao Zhiqiang is an employee at the Gas Company in Xiangtan City. He has also worked as the principal of an elementary school. Since beginning to practice Falun Dafa in 1996, he has been illegally arrested twice from his home, imprisoned, sentenced, and detained numerous times simply because he refused to give up cultivating the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance." He has suffered relentless persecution by the Communist Party over the past seven years and is currently imprisoned in Chenzhou Prison.

On October 11, 1999, while doing the exercises at his regular exercise spot, Mr. Xiao was arrested and detained for 15 days by the Xiangtan Public Security Bureau for "disrupting social order."

In December of 1999, after traveling to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Dafa, Mr. Xiao was imprisoned by his workplace superiors, who demanded that his son "look after him" for a month. In February 2000, he was sent to a detention center for persecution.

On April 15, 2000, Mr. Xiao was arrested again. A trial was held on July 5, 2000, and he was sentenced to three years of imprisonment. Mr. Xiao refused to sign his name on the sentencing document. He was detained at the Sanjiaoping Detention Center, where he was persecuted for more than 20 months. On November 7, 2001, he was transferred to Chishan Prison in Yuanjiang, Hunan Province for further persecution.

At Chishan Prison, Mr. Xiao was subjected to forced labor. He was made to weave mattresses, make bulbs, etc., and would be handcuffed and hung up if he refused. He refused to wear prison clothes and resisted "transformation" at every turn. Because he refused to learn the prison regulations, do prison exercises, report numbers, line up in prison teams, squat, etc., he was hung up and force-fed many times.

On January 4, 2002, when the entire prison staff was engaged in work, Mr. Xiao refused to participate in the slave labor. On January 11, while he was doing the meditation outside a garage, a prison leader saw him and shouted, "Cuff him up!" A few criminal inmates rushed over and hung him up on top of a bicycle shed. He was ruthlessly punched in the eye for not wearing the prison uniform by a criminal inmate Liang, who was brought over by a guard. He was dragged from the bed to the floor and his left arm was brutally stepped on. An inmate said, "If he doesn't release his hand, I will break his arm!" Mr. Xiao's arm turned purple and his eyes became very sore.

On March 6, 2002, Mr. Xiao refused to participate in slave labor again and was hung up outside by criminal inmates under the direction of guard Li Feiwen. It was a very cold day, with very strong north winds blowing. Mr. Xiao's hands became swollen from the handcuffs. At night, he was taken in and handcuffed to the corridor in a garage.

On April 25, 2002, Mr. Xiao Zhiqiang and Ms. Xiao Huisheng went out into the open to practice the exercises. The moment they walked out the door, Ms. Xiao Huisheng was brutally beaten by criminal inmates until her face was swollen and purple. Then she was hung up on a window frame. Mr. Xiao Zhiqiang was hung up on awindow railing. Three days later they were force-fed by the guards. They were handcuffed behind their backs and pinned onto the ground facing up. Four or five criminal inmates grabbed each practitioner's limbs and torso, while another grabbed the victim's nose very tightly and pried open his or her mouth with a metal spoon. Then a bamboo stick that had one end cut into a sharp point was inserted, and rice soup diluted with mineral water was poured through the hollow bamboo stick. It was very hard to breathe, and food often got into the victims' windpipes. The practitioners coughed very badly as they could barely breathe. Their throats were severely wounded by the stabbing and they were unable to swallow even water for four or five days.

On May 23, 2002, Mr. Xiao resisted forced labor again. A re-education leader dragged him out of bed and handcuffed him onto the window railings. Two days later, guards directed criminal inmates to hang Mr. Xiao from the basketball hoop. A rope was tied between his handcuffs and thrown over the basketball hoop, allowing only his toes to touch the ground. He was monitored by criminal inmates 24 hours a day. At night he was secured to the bed with his hands crossed above his head and cuffed to the metal railing at one end, making it impossible for Mr. Xiao to turn or move his body at all.

On July 18, six tonnes of chili was imported into the prison for processing. The laborers had to work more than ten hours a day cutting off the chili stalks. While the criminal inmates had a fixed quota, Mr. Xiao Zhiqiang had to work as long as he was told to do so. Mr. Xiao began resisting the slave labor persecution by refusing to collect raw materials, so he was handcuffed up in a dense bushy area to be bitten by mosquitoes. One morning, seeing that Mr. Xiao was not wearing prison clothes, criminal inmates began using wooden sticks to beat his legs until they finally got tired and Mr. Xiao's legs had both become swollen with injuries. At this time, the prison guards gave the criminal inmates an idea: drag Mr. Xiao on the ground using the garbage truck. Mr. Xiao was then handcuffed to a car and dragged around before being dragged to their work area in the rain via another car. Mr. Xiao's entire body was drenched. He suffered this inhumane torture many times in Chishan Prison.

In 2003, Mr. Xiao was released, but his workplace refused to pay him his pension, claiming that, as a labor camp convict, even his residency registration was to be revoked. In March 2004, during a Communist Party conference, dozens of policemen from the 610 Office arrived at his home and seized Mr. Xiao. They took him to a brainwashing session held in Wujia Gardens in Xiangtan, where he was imprisoned for a month.

At the end of 2004, while shopping for vegetables at the marketplace, Mr. Xiao was once again arrested by personnel from the Xiangtan 610 Office and "illegally imprisoned" in a detention center. A list of fabricated crimes was concocted and Mr. Xiao was sentenced to three years of imprisonment. In 2005, he was transferred to Chenzhou Prison for further persecution. At the prison, Mr. Xiao constantly shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" He was imprisoned in a small cell for three months. He has also suffered numerous inhumane tortures.

For refusing to give up his belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance," Mr. Xiao Zhiqiang has been twice sentenced for a total of six years of illegal imprisonment. He has never admitted to being a criminal and is truly innocent. For resisting slave labor and persecution, he has suffered many tortures, including brutal beatings, force-feedings, and being hung up.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/8/18/135806.html

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