(Clearwisdom.net) On May 14, 2004, Falun Dafa practitioner Han Chenchu died as a result of the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners. Han Chenchu's family members were grief-stricken, fellow villagers shed tears of sadness and people wondered how such an honest and good person could die such a tragic death at the hands of his own government.
Mr. Han Chenchu, 53, was a resident of Sidao Village, Sansheng Township, Yongqing County. He started practicing Falun Dafa in 1997. After becoming a practitioner, he diligently put into practice Teacher Li's principles for becoming a person with high moral character. He always considered how others would be affected by his actions, spoke the truth, and endured ill treatment without grievance. Fellow villagers could count on his initiative to offer help whenever they encountered personal difficulty. He was looked up to as a good man.
In 1999, Jiang Zemin started to persecute Falun Gong. When Han spoke the truth about Falun Gong to the government, he was locked up in the Yongqing County Jail for over a month. He was also illegally fined. In 2000, Han Chenchu again went to Beijing to inform the government of the truth about Falun Dafa. He was charged with disrupting social order and detained in a labor camp for two years. He was sent to the Wanzhuang Reeducation-through-Labor Camp in Langfang city. He was forced to perform physical labor for 15-16 hours a day in the labor camp. He was under special surveillance and was tempted with sentence reduction, but Han always remained unmoved. Later on, he was sent to the Gaoyang Reeducation-through-Labor Camp in Baoding.
The Gaoyang labor camp guards forced them to do work during the daytime, and did not let them sleep at night. They used electric batons to shock practitioners and tortured them by having their four limbs stretched and tied to four posts of a metal bed (a torture called "dead person's bed"). Under this inhumane suffering, Han Chenchu protested by refusing to eat many times. He lived through hell during those two years of labor camp and walked out the camp with his head held high.
He returned home, but because of his unwavering belief in Falun Dafa, Zhang Zhenqing from the Yongqing County Police Station's first branch and the local township police often sent people to his home to disrupt his daily life. On the eve of China's 16th Party Congress in 2002, the township police suddenly rushed to his home, apprehended him and imprisoned him in the county's knitting factory, which was used as the location for brainwashing classes. There were more than 40 other Falun Dafa practitioners arrested at the same time, and they were detained for sixteen days and weren't released until after the 16th Party Congress was over. They figured that Han's belief was very firm, so they wanted to keep him and fabricated a charge. They said that Han Chenchu's visit to another practitioner was in violation of regulations, and Han Chenchu was sent to labor camp again. On the morning of March 23, 2003, without proper legal procedure, Zhang Zhenqing from the Yongqing County Police Station's first branch and the local township police forcefully seized Han from his home and sent him straight to the Tangshan Kaiping Reeducation-through-Labor Camp.
In the Tangshan Kaiping Reeducation-through-Labor Camp, Han Chenchu protested by refusing to eat, and they tortured him by force-feeding him. Seeing that Han did not submit to the torture, the labor camp sent him to the Gaoyang Reeducation-through-Labor Camp in Baoding for even more brutal treatment. The Gaoyang labor camp guards beat him with a two-inch thick wooden stick that cut and bruised his whole body. A few sticks were broken from the beating. One labor camp guard hit his head with a brick, and he was knocked unconscious for several hours. One labor camp guard said to Han that they knew he was innocent, but the higher authorities ordered them to do it and they had to comply.
After the news that Han Chenchu was nearly beaten to death at Gaoyang Reeducation--through-Labor Camp reached his family, his family members rushed to the camp to see him. The labor camp was afraid of taking responsibility and hastily sent Han back to the Kaiping Reeducation-through--Labor Camp. The result was that his family members missed the opportunity of seeing him while he was in dire condition. On May 14, 2004, Han Chenchu's family members suddenly received a notice from the Tangshan Kaiping Reeducation-through-Labor Camp, saying that Han was critically ill. Family members hurried to the labor camp, but they were not permitted to see him. The next day, they lied to the family and said that Han Chenchu had sudden convulsions and died from a heart attack. They took his wife to the morgue to see Han Chenchu's body. His wife was grief-stricken, and she saw a big area of blue and purple on his back when she lifted his clothes. The labor camp was afraid that the whole thing would be exposed, so they gave Han's family 3,000 yuan and hurriedly cremated his body.
The Tangshan Reeducation-through-Labor Camp, along with Yu Yong from the Yongqing County "610 Office," and Zhang Zhenqing from the local police station assembled in Sansheng township to secretly monitor Falun Dafa practitioners who offered their condolences. Falun Dafa practitioners offered a wreath and an elegiac couplet (a Chinese tradition, a type of poem). Zhang Zhenqing and the Sansheng Township officials arrested practitioners Du Yufeng and Tang Dexiu, who were assisting Han Chenchu's family with some chores. They were sent to Yongqing County to be locked up. Du Yufeng and Tang Dexiu protested the unreasonable arrest by refusing to eat and they suffered from torture administered by the station's manager Liang Chengshan.