On February 13, 2007, Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Chen Jianzhong was taken home in critical condition from the Changsha City Xinkaipu Forced Labor Camp in Hunan Province. Mr. Chen remained on the brink of death and finally passed away on September 14, 2007, at the age of 36.

Mr. Chen Jianzhong

Mr. Chen Jianzhong weighed only 80 pounds when he was taken home from the Xinkaipu Forced Labor Camp by his family.

On September 17, 2007, eight of Mr. Chen's relatives went to the Xinkaipu Forced Labor Camp to seek justice for Mr. Chen. Section Chief Jiang of the Management Section, mainly in charge of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners, denied that the forced labor camp is responsible for Mr. Chen's death. Eventually, he threatened Mr. Chen's relatives, "We are not responsible at all. If you keep causing trouble for us, we'll arrest you!" Another guard said, "We are just following orders from the top. We enforce the law with only a civilized approach and have never persecuted any Falun Gong practitioners. Where's your evidence?" Mr. Chen's relatives had no choice but to leave with great sorrow and disappointment.

That afternoon, Mr. Chen Jianzhong's body was cremated, and his ashes were taken to his hometown for burial. His mother is unaware of his death. His relatives returned home to learn that officials from the Changsha government requested the township to send people to follow them home to keep them from exposing the torture of Mr. Chen Jianzhong.

Mr. Chen Jianzhong from Changsha City was a firm believer in Falun Gong. He was imprisoned twice and suffered brutal torture at the Changsha City Xinkaipu Forced Labor Camp for clarifying the truth about Falun Gong. In November 2005, he was sentenced to two years of forced labor. In order to rescue him, Mr. Chen's family went through a year-long legal process and spent thousands of yuan. In the end, his family was left with his death and no place to appeal.

Mr. Chen Jianzhong was from Chaling County, Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province. In April 1999, while he worked in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, he started to practice Falun Gong after he heard the practitioners went to appeal in Beijng.

Three months later, Jiang Zemin and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the unprecedented persecution of Falun Gong. Under the sudden overwhelming pressure, Mr. Chen Jianzhong wrote a letter to the executives of his company to explain the facts of why he decided to go to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong and defend its principles of "Truthfulness, Benevolence, Forbearance." He was arrested at Tiananmen Square but managed to escape and return home with another practitioner. He continued "clarifying the truth" about Falun Gong and distributed truth-clarification materials in Hunan Province.

In November 2001, Mr. Chen Jianzhong and other practitioners were followed by police and illegally arrested while distributing truth-clarification materials in Xiangtan City, Hunan Province. He was taken to the Xinkaipu Forced Labor Camp for a year and a half of forced labor. In the forced labor camp, he protested the persecution and told guards and inmates the facts about Falun Gong. His righteous thoughts instilled fear in the guards, who did not dare to injure him. Many inmates understood the truth and some expressed interest in learning Falun Gong when they were released.

After he was released in 2002, Mr. Chen found a job with Junxin Intellectual Technology, Inc. in Changsha City. He clarified the truth about Falun Gong to his boss, colleagues, and customers and helped many of them withdraw from the CCP. On October 25, 2005, he attended a business meeting with a customer at Yinhua Restaurant, where he clarified the truth about Falun Gong to the customer and later to a security guard in the elevator. The security guard reported him to the police, and he was arrested. On November 1, 2005, the Changsha City Forced Labor Committee decided to put him in Xinkaipu Forced Labor Camp for two years. The entire process, from arrest to forced labor camp, took only one week, without going through any legal procedures.

In order to stop the illegal persecution of Mr. Chen, his brother worked with other Falun Gong practitioners to go through the legal process to seek justice for Mr. Chen.

In November 2005, Mr. Chen's family requested an Administrative Reconsideration from the Changsha City Legal Enforcement Committee to nullify the Forced Labor Committee's decision, with no success.

In March 2006, Mr. Chen's family filed a lawsuit against the Tianxin District Court in Changsha City. However, on April 19, 2006, the court held a trial but did not inform the plaintiff. This was an obvious violation of the legal procedure. The judge and the representative of the defendant Forced Labor Committee could not answer the questions from Mr. Chen's family and their attorneys, dancing around the questions and finally claiming that they were "following the policy set up by the top." The judge then announced that the trial was adjourned and that he would pick another day to continue.

On May 16, 2006, the Tianxin District Court continued the trial but did not inform Mr. Chen's family. Their attorneys informed Mr. Chen's family that they were under severe pressure from the government not to inform them about the trial in advance. The government was afraid that too many people would come to the court and that something could happen unexpectedly. The government also sent almost one hundred fully armed policemen to guard the court. During the trial, Mr. Chen Jianzhong solemnly presented his case. He used his own experiences to describe the righteousness of Falun Gong and exposed the illegal persecution of Falun Gong by Jiang Zemin's group. The attorneys helped to demonstrate that the charges against Mr. Chen lacked evidence and also that the procedures were illegal. The judge and the representative of the defendant could not say a word. The day after the trial was adjourned, Mr. Chen's family learned that the court decided to uphold the original judgment.

On August 16, 2006, Mr. Chen's family appealed to the Changsha City Intermediate Court, which announced a judgment of last resort to uphold the original decision without any trial or investigation.

On October 13, 2006, Mr. Chen's family appealed to the Hunan Province High Court. The High Court refused to accept the case and pushed it back to the Intermediate Court.

While Mr. Chen's family was seeking legal recourse to rescue Mr. Chen, the Xinkaipu Forced Labor Camp carried out many injustices against Mr. Chen Jianzhong, including physical assault, sleep deprivation, electric baton shocking, and more than three months of solitary confinement. When Mr. Chen had difficulty breathing, the forced labor camp did not stop torturing him. At the year-end annual exam, doctors found that Mr. Chen was in critical condition and reported it to the executives of the forced labor camp. The Xinkaipu Forced Labor Camp was afraid that he might die there, so they granted Mr. Chen a medical leave.

On February 13, 2007, Mr. Chen Jianzhong was dying and weighed only 80 pounds when taken home by his family. In early August, his health deteriorated further; he did not have strength in his limbs and could not eat or drink. He passed away on September 14, 2007, after struggling for survival for about one month.

Changsha City Xinkaipu Forced Labor Camp: 0731-5260064
Director Gao Liguo: 0731-5260001

When the CCP and Jiang Zemin began their unlawful persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, Mr.Yan and his parents went to Beijing to exercise their constitutional right to appeal to the State Appeals Office. As soon as they arrived at Tiananmen Square, the police arrested them by force and took them to the Tiananmen Square Police Station where they got Yan to tell them his home address. Next the police transferred them to Baoding City's Beijing Office. The police from Laishui County violently beat them up when they picked them up. They took Mr. Yan and his family to Laishui County's CCP School. As soon as they got out of the car, they were beaten up by hired goons with clubs, belts and boots. Their faces became swollen beyond recognition and their bodies were covered with blood and bruises. Afterwards, they were locked in an old shack surrounded by tall weeds taller than an adult man. At night, they were forced to sleep on the ground. They were given meager rations twice a day. In addition, they were forced to work as slaves during the day. They were also subjected to beatings and torture with bamboo sticks, clubs, belts, and whips made of telephone wire. The goons even burned them with lit cigarettes. The goons also forced them to watch video propaganda against Falun Gong. All practitioners there constantly faced physical and mental torment.

A month later, the local 610 Office and CCP officials demanded 4,000 yuan plus 10 yuan per day for food from each Falun Gong practitioner. Practitioners' families were required to produce a written guarantee statement on their behalf before they were released. They knew Yan Haidong was too poor to produce the ransom because there was no one at home but his six-year-old son. Where would they come up with 12,000 yuan in ransom for the three of them? It was an astronomical amount of money for an average farmer's family! Nevertheless, they forced Yan Haidong's mother Ms. Qin Sumin to return home and borrow money to pay the ransom. When officials saw that she could only come up with 800 yuan, they locked her up in Laishui County Detention Center. She went on a hunger strike as a non-violent means to protest the unlawful persecution before she was transferred to another local detention center.

Qin Sumin was made to work as a slave in the day and stood guard in front of her prison cell at night. On December 27, 2000, they paraded her on the streets to humiliate her. In fact, they paraded a total of 28 Falun Gong practitioners on the streets that day. After 30 days of incarceration, a group of officials, led by Sun Guijie (male), unlawfully sentenced Qin Sumin to two years in Baoding Forced Labor Camp. Because her blood pressure went up to 240, she was transferred back to the detention center. She was not released until her blood pressure went up to 280 and was unable to walk.

While Yan's mother was imprisoned, his father was taken from the CCP School to Yi'an Town where he continued to be incarcerated. Yan and his father were forced to sweep a courtyard in town. Everyday they were under watch. The hired thugs often threatened and beat up Yan and his father. Yan's father was repeatedly beaten up, which caused him insufferable pain in the head. But officials from Yi'an Town continued to demand ransom from Yan's father. When Yan's father became mentally confused due to constant torture, the officials took him back home and forced him to sell all the food in storage at the a rock bottom price of 800 yuan. The officials took the money and released them.

When Yan and his parents were released, it was already the end of the Chinese New Year Festival. They didn't have any money or food left at home. On New Year's Day, a kindhearted neighbor spared them some food. The day after Yan's father returned home, he passed away. Later, Yan's mother passed away after constantly facing harassments, imprisonment and threats of the officials from the village and Yi'an Town government. Now only Yan and his son remain.

In the spring of 2001, the police from Yi'an Town arrested Yan Haidong again. About eight policemen surrounded Yan. They removed his belt and pants and started to beat him up until his lower body was bruised purple. They tried to make Yan confess where he obtained Falun Gong truth-clarification materials from. The police from Yi'an Town always beat up Falun Gong practitioners in private to avoid any witnesses. All the practitioners arrested this time were forced to give the police from 1,200 to 1,300 yuan in ransom except Yan Haidong, who could not produce the money. With the help of fellow practitioners, Yan escaped from the police's custody. When they found Yan had escaped, they sent out search teams. That night all the roads out of Nangaoluo Village were guarded. Every man on the search team was equipped with a stun baton. Li Laotie, Mayor of Laishui County, ordered the men to beat up Yan Haidong if they found him and told them it was okay to beat him to death.

At around noon on May 30, 2007, Zhen Zhanjiang, Deputy chief of Yi'an Town Police Station in Laishui County, Hebei Province, Xia Xuefeng, Secretary of Yi'an Town CCP Discipline Committee, and about five policemen broke into the home of Yan Haidong. They ransacked the place and left nothing unturned. They stole his Falun Gong books, a set of lectures on CDs, a mobile phone and an MP4 player. Next they dragged and pulled Yan Haidong to the police station.

At around 7:00 p.m. that day, the police saw satellite dish coding instructions on Yan's telephone book, so they went to his home again. At the time there was no one at home. The police used the excuse that Yan practiced Falun Gong to justify their stealing a 21-inch TV, two satellite dishes, two satellite receiver boxes, a DVD player, a pair of stereo speakers and a CD player. Gao Yanxin, Deputy Chief of Yi'an Police Station, did not return the items they stole from Yan Haidong. Instead, he extorted 5,000 yuan from Yan Haidong.

On August 28, 2007, CCP officials and police from the local "610" Office in Yi'an Town broke in Yan's home and arrested him again. They unlawfully took him into custody. The main perpetrators in the arrest include Wang Fucai (male), Head of the "610" Office and a CCP official, as well as Dai Chunjie and Dong Honghao from the local police station.

That noon when Yan Haidong's child returned home, he could not find his father. It was not until afternoon when Yan Haidong's younger sister received a phone call and learned that Yan Haidong had been put into Laishui County Detention Center. Now Yan's child is left home alone, relying on a neighbor to look after him.

Gongzhuling Prison in Jilin Province is a very vicious place where Falun Gong practitioners are persecuted. Led by director Shen Jixiang and deputy director An Ping, for 8 years the prison officials have willingly served as Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan's pawns. They cruelly torture practitioners--who believe in "Truthfulness, Benevolence, Forbearance"--through beating, electric-shock torture, and locking them in small cells that prevent them from standing up straight.

These persecutors torture people until they suffer mental collapse. Some die as a result of the abuse. To avoid bearing responsibility for their crimes, guards in Gongzhuling Prison even asked the visiting family members of Falun Gong practitioners to bring proof and a letter from the Gongzhuling City 610 Office showing that they, themselves are not Falun Gong practitioners. Only after submitting such documents would the family members be permitted to visit Falun Gong practitioners. Because it has been very difficult to get information about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners out of the prison, these cruel tortures were not exposed to the public for a long time.

Locked in a small cell

Death bed

Hanging up

Beating

Beating by a group of police

Multiple electric batons deployed at the same time

In fact, before the start of the persecution on July 20, 1999, the benefits of Falun Gong were known in Gongzhuling Prison in Jilin Province. At that time, some prisoners also learned Falun Gong. Due to the boundless power of Falun Gong, those prisoners who could not be changed by the police underwent fundamental changes after taking up Falun Gong. They learned how to be good people, and strove to follow higher spiritual principles. Witnessing these prisoners' dramatic changes, the police in the prison were very surprised and quite impressed by Falun Gong.

But after the persecution against Falun Gong started, the group headed by prison director Shen Jixiang and deputy director An Ping also launched their own persecution against the prisoners who were practicing Falun Gong. Among those persecuted, Mr. Jiang Xiaotian was tortured most severely.

To force Jiang Xiaotian to renounce his belief in "Truthfulness, Benevolence, Forbearance," police hung him on a door for several hours at a time and tortured him in a variety of inhumane ways. In the end, Jiang Xiaotian suffered a mental collapse. Still, the police would not let up in their torture of Jiang Xiaotian. Some prisoners often tied up Jiang Xiaotian, used sticks to beat him up and forced him to smoke. They would especially beat him whenever they saw him doing the Falun Gong exercises. Due to long-term torture, in 2002 Jiang Xiaotian died shortly after he was released from serving a full prison term.

Shen Jixiang, who was rewarded by prison officials for actively persecuting Falun Gong, left Gongzhuling Prison in 2005 and was promoted to director of the Prison Surveillance Division of the Forced Labor Bureau of Jilin Province. Gongzhuling Prison's vicious environment did not improve after Shen Jixiang left. An Ping replaced him, and the deputy director was replaced by Chen Zhongbin, who used to be in charge of "transforming" practitioners.

From August 2005 to September 2006, over 70 Falun Gong practitioners in Tiebei Prison in Changchun City were transferred to either Shilingzi Prison in Siping or Gongzhuling Prison. Gongzhuling also illegally detained some Falun Gong practitioners sent from Yanji and other areas. Currently it is estimated that Gongzhuling Prison is detaining 30 to 40 Falun Gong practitioners.

Ever since Gongzhuling Prison started detaining Falun Gong practitioners, it has applied severe means to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. For example, the persecutors arrange four criminal inmates to monitor one Falun Gong practitioner, and prohibit Falun Gong practitioners from talking to anyone, otherwise these criminal inmates would be punished on the grounds of "guilty by association." Fearful of being punished, the criminal inmates would watch Falun Gong practitioners more closely than death row inmates are watched. They would closely follow Falun Gong practitioners, even to the restroom. The various means of torture make Falun Gong practitioners' daily lives miserable.

Prison police use various excuses to persecute Falun Gong practitioners who are persistent in their belief. In the 7th Ward, because Falun Gong practitioner Cai Fuchen did Falun Gong exercises in prison, he was locked up in a small cell by Prison Politics Section police officer Liu Haiyang.

To gain money, Gongzhuling Prison forces Falun Gong practitioners to do slave labor, working over 10 hours per day. For protesting against the slave labor, many Falun Gong practitioners suffered brutal tortures. For example, after Falun Gong practitioner Zhang Hui, detained in the 3rd Ward, protested against various unfair treatments and slave labor, he suffered severe beating by policeman Liu Haiyang, and was locked in a small cell by the 3rd Ward instructor Wang Jiqing many times.

In the original 4th Ward, Falun Gong practitioner Yang Huiyong protested against various inhumane treatments and slave labor. Consequently, he was locked up in a small cell by the former head of the Guard Group He Qingguo, who also detained him on a death bed, and instructed other police to shock him with nine electric batons at the same time. Yang Huiyong lost consciousness from the electric shocks. 

Instructor Liu Bing not only refused his request, but also locked Chen Guangwu in a small cell the next day, and restrained him on the death bed. Afterward, Liu Bing went to the prison factory and called staff Ma Yiwen. Both of them used two 10,000-volt electric batons to shock Chen Guangwu who was immobilized on the death bed. They directly shocked Chen Guangwu's face until the two batons ran out of power, and threatened to continue shocking Chen Guangwu the next day.

Several days later, these two policemen again went to the small cell to shock Chen Guangwu. At that time Chen Guangwu's face was severely disfigured from the electric shocks. There were big blisters all over his face. His whole face and ears were severely swollen and deformed. Witnessing this, the two policemen still shocked Chen Guangwu with electric batons. Chen Guangwu was already weak. After suffering electric shock torture, the death bed, and being locked up in a small cell for over 20 days, he became very physically and mentally unstable. Yet the prison police did not give up. They forced Chen Guangwu, who just been released from the small cell, to do slave labor.

Thus by August 2007 when Chen Guangwu was released from prison, he was extremely weak and emaciated due to persecution. Due to the electric shocks by those two policemen, many scars were left on Chen Guangwu's body and face. Because of long-term death bed torture, Chen Guangwu's right arm was atrophied. The electric shocks also caused Chen Guangwu's teeth to become loose, such that it was difficult for him to eat food. It was said that when Chen Guangwu's family members saw the cruel torture done to him, they were shocked and outraged. They have since started taking legal action against all who were involved in the persecution of Chen Guangwu.

The cited cases of torture are just a few among countless such cases. There are many more appalling persecution cases that have not been exposed due to the severe information blockade.