70-Year-Old Falun Dafa Practitioner Tortured to the Brink of Death in Hebei Province

An elderly gentleman by the name of Mr. Shi Zhimin is a retired management clerk from Hebei Province Textile Factory, located in Langfang City, Hebei Province. He was detained seven months in the Mengzhou City Detention Centre and the Zhengzhou City Prison in Henan Province (his hometown is in Henan Province). Before detention, he weighed over 110 lbs, but now he weighs only about 55 lbs.

Mr. Shi Zhimin, "They force-fed me while they tortured me on the Dead Person's Bed (1), with four limbs cuffed very tightly."

Mr. Shi Zhimin is 70 years old and started cultivating Falun Dafa in 1995. After that his severe heart disease was miraculously cured. When the persecution of Falun Dafa began in 1999, Mr.Shi went to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa, giving his own personal testimonials. He was arrested more than ten times by the police and government agents, had his home ransacked, and was put in detention and sentenced to forced labour. In December of 2004, he went back to his hometown of Mengzhou City, Henan Province to distribute leaflets exposing the persecution. There he was arrested by the local police and detained in the Mengzhou City Detention Centre. Mr. Shi went on a hunger strike to protest this treatment and was then put in handcuffs round the clock. Once he was restrained on the Dead Man's Bed for three entire days. He lost so much weight that he looked emaciated and was unable to move on his own. He often would faint, could not talk and developed an enormous boil near his tailbone.

Mr. Shi Zhimin said, "They found a large, hard lump inside my stomach, and both my feet were badly swollen. They thought I could not live longer than a week, so they removed the force-feeding tube."

The Mengzhou City in Henan Province is located south of Taihang Mountain, north of the Yellow River, and at the centre of the triangle formed by Zhengzhou City, Loyang City, and Jiaozuo City.

Since 1999 when Jiang and his regime began persecuting Falun Gong, Mengzhou City, a small, rural city that once promised "For the People, Build a Sunny Government," has actively pursued the persecution of Falun Dafa. Before the Chinese New Year of 2000, Mengzhou City government officials drove three bound Falun Dafa practitioners around the city in an open truck to humiliate them and intimidate other practitioners. The City Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Political and Judiciary Committee Secretary Li Jianzhong (male) led an action group called "Criticising Falun Gong," which called for large meetings to be held in every township. The goal was to get all Falun Dafa practitioners to write three statements (2), disassociating themselves from Falun Gong. Those practitioners who refused would be arrested. At the time Falun Dafa practitioner Ms. Geng Juying was 32 years old and lived in Chengbo Township, Mengzhou City. In October 1999, she was pregnant. The police detained her in the Mengzhou City Detention Centre. The prison guards forced her to have an abortion and then sentenced her to three years at forced labour, which she served in the Henan Province Women's Labour Camp in Shibalihe, Zhengzhou City. There are still dozens of Falun Dafa practitioners locked in labour camps or prisons in Henan Province.

Currently, Mr. Shi Zhimin is recovering with determination. He said that, as a seventy-year-old man, he has been arrested, detained, sent to forced labour camps and to prison for having faith in Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance and for wanting to be a good person. He plans to file lawsuits in the International Courts and with World Human Rights Organisations for the inhuman treatment he has suffered and for the violation of his human rights at the hands of Chinese government agents. Mr. Shi calls on all kind-hearted people of the world to stop the persecution of Falun Gong and to return justice to Falun Dafa and practitioners.

Note:

(1) The four limbs of the practitioner are stretched out and tied to the four corners of a cold metal bed frame. The practitioner cannot move at all. He is not allowed to get up to eat, drink, or use the bathroom. This treatment would last from several hours to more than a dozen days. As one can imagine, his type of cruel torture causes severe damage to the practitioner's mind and body. See the illustration of this form of torture at http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/12/15/55600.html.

(2) "Three Statements": Practitioners are coerced under brainwashing and torture to write "Repentance Statement," "Guarantee Statement" or 'Dissociation Statement" as proof that they have given up their belief. In the statement, the practitioner is forced to admit remorse for practising Falun Gong, promise to give up Falun Gong, and never again associate with other practitioners or go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/8/10/108085.html