Mr. Li Xiaoyuan of Shenyang and Four Family Members Died As A Result of Persecution

Four years ago, Falun Dafa practitioner Mr. Li Xiaoyuan, 46, was tortured to death in Guanshan Forced Labour Camp of Liaoning Province. He spent the last four years of his life in detention and brainwashing centres, where he was subjected to torture. During his detention, four of his family members passed away as a result of the persecution.

Mr. Li Xiaoyuan

An Outstanding Technician and a Kind-hearted Practitioner

Mr. Li Xiaoyuan was an outstanding technician at Shenyang No.1 Mold factory. Since practising Falun Dafa, Mr. Li enjoyed good health and became unselfish. He was well respected. In October 1998, Mr. Li was at the local practice site at 4:00 a.m. every morning, doing the Falun Gong exercises and teaching the practice without compensation. The number of people at the practice site increased from 50 to more than 100.

Arrested and Tortured for Appealing for Justice

In July 1999, Chinese Communist Party followers, Jiang Zemin's , [former leader of China and instigator of the persecution] cohorts, began to persecute Falun Gong. Mr. Li went to Beijing to appeal for justice. All he wanted to say was that there is nothing wrong in practising Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance and being a good person. Simply for following such principles, he was cruelly persecuted.

In October 1999, Mr. Li Xiaoyuan was arrested in Beijing and taken back to Shenyang. He was taken to a brainwashing centre and then a forced labour camp. Before the Chinese New Year of 2002, Mr. Li was arrested a third time and again taken to the Shenyang Zhangshi Forced Labour Camp. To "transform¹" him, guards at the camp tortured him. They deprived him of sleep for long periods of time, took his clothes off, hung him on an iron door, beat and shocked him with electric batons, put him into a freezer and much more. Mr. Li did not renounce his belief. He was forced to do slave labour.

Some practitioners shared information they remembered about Mr. Li Xiaoyuan: On April 25th, 2002, to protest the torture, Mr. Li Xiaoyuan, Wang Jinmin, Zhang Zhenwu and other practitioners refused to wear the prisoners' uniform and perform hard labour. Cheng Diankun, the director of the Zhangshi Forced Labour Camp, directed the guards to form a "persecution team." Team Leader Yang Shu selected a dozen prisoners and made Team Room 401 into a torture chamber. They claimed that whoever entered that room would be skinned alive, even if he survived the torture. Mr. Li Xiaoyuan was tortured in that room for four days. Yang Shu and others shocked him with a 120,000-volt electric baton. Afterward, Mr. Li's entire body was swollen and covered with injuries. He could no longer walk.

But guards at Zhangshi Forced Labour Camp did not "transform" Mr. Li Xiaoyuan. In May or June of 2002, Mr. Li was secretly transferred to Liaoning Guanshan Forced Labour Camp.

Murdered at Guanshan Forced Labour Camp

The Guanshan Forced Labour Camp guards are known for using barbaric torture and blocking of messages. It is the worst of all forced labour camps in Liaoning Province. It is located at Luanshishan, Changtu County, Liaoning Province. All prisoners who are labelled "non-reformable" are taken there.

The Guanshan Forced Labour Camp reduces the sentence of prisoners who participate in the torture of Falun Gong practitioners. Some guards encouraged prisoners to beat practitioners cruelly. Guard Yu Li, responsible for the so-called "small cells" [small isolation cells] often was drunk in the evenings. He told the prisoners on duty, "It is your call as to how you want to torture the practitioner. I will back you up."

A released prisoner, who paid 30,000 yuan² as a bribe for his release, said later: "It is hell. The guards gave handcuffs and electric rods to us. They tell us who to torture and we do it."

Before Mr. Li Xiaoyuan's died, the torture grew ever more cruel at Guanshan Forced Labour Camp. In July 2003, the No. 7 Team, which was used for detaining Dafa practitioners, bought new pulse-type electric batons. On October 16th, 2003, Mr. Zhu Xiaofei, a practitioner from Dalian, refused to wear a prisoner's uniform. Guards shocked him with electric batons and imprisoned him in the "small cell." On the 18th, Mr. Zhu wrote a statement about refusing to wear prisoner's uniform. He was beaten by team leader Wu Zhanjun and prisoners for a day and night. He became unconscious and his blood pressure was 0. He was rushed to the hospital for emergency rescue. Several days before Mr. Li Xiaoyuan's death, another practitioner from Tieling was cruelly tortured and seriously injured by inmates who were instructed by Guard Gao Qilong.

At the beginning of November 2003, Mr. Li Xiaoyuan was taken from his cell of the No. 2 Team. On November 9th, the news of his death was made known. At that time, practitioners were under strict control and they were not allowed to leave the cells. The cause of the death was made known by regular prisoners. Some said Mr. Li "hung himself" in the toilet, and others said he "cut his neck with a razor."

"These two claims contradict each other and none of them sounds true," said a practitioner who also had been detained at the Guanshan Forced Labour Camp. "In there, every practitioner is closely monitored by prisoners around the clock, even when he had to use the toilet. How could he get a razor? There is group shaving time every week and all razors are taken back by the guards."

Reporters tried to get information from Guanshan Forced Labour Camp staff. A male who answered the phone asked the reporter to come to the camp and then hung up. Police from Shenyang First Police Station confirmed the death of Mr. Li Xiaoyuan. Someone who had inside information revealed that there were multiple injuries on Mr. Li's legs and stomach.

Those who are responsible for Mr. Li's torture are the unit director Gao Qilong and the main team leader Tian Guojun. The director of the labour camp is Gao Lei.

Four Family Members Died As Result of the Persecution

During Mr. Li's detention and imprisonment in the forced labour camp in October 1999, Mr. Li's mother missed him so much that she got very sick. She died calling "Xiaoyuan," Mr. Li's given name.

Both Mr. Li's parents-in-law used to practise Falun Gong and benefited from it. After the persecution started in 1999, the two elderly people were too scared to continue because of the pressure and harassment by the local Chinese Communist Party. They suffered long-term depression and one died in 2002 and the other in 2003.

Mr. Li's uncle took the deaths very hard and died three days after Mr. Li's mother's death. .

Mr. Li's wife is jobless and now lives a very difficult life with their son.

It is the CCP's persecution that caused this happy family to be broken apart. Five people died. The tragedy of Mr. Li's family is only the tip of the iceberg of the atrocities that have taken in the eight years of persecution. At least 3,084 practitioners are confirmed to have been killed during the persecution.

Note

1. "Reform or Transform" Implementation of brainwashing and torture in order to force a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong. (Variations: "reform", "transform", "reformed", "reforming", "transformed", "transforming", and "transformation")

2. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/9/11/162478.html