60-Year-Old Mr. Li Yukun Dies as a Result of Persecution in Shandong Province

Mr. Li Yukun

Mr. Li Yukun, 60, lived in Weifang City, Shandong Province. During the past nine years, this quiet farmer endured unimaginably cruel torture. In October 1999, when his family had not yet planted their wheat, Officer Cao Jinhui and others ransacked his home and arrested him. Three officers brutally beat him in the morning and afternoon of the next day and took him to the detention centre in the evening. These three officers went to the detention centre during his detention and cruelly beat him for more than an hour in the centre office. They beat him down to the floor, and then struck his face and head with a broomstick. They beat him so hard that the broomstick broke into pieces. They also pulled out a big bunch of his hair. They declared, "We want to beat you until several layers of your skin peels off and you lose some weight. We failed to beat you last time when you went to Beijing to appeal, because there were no such orders from upper levels. Now we can beat you to death without being held responsible." Mr. Li had two black eyes from the beatings. After his detention was over, they detained him in the community office for a long time. He was placed under strict surveillance after that.

In 2000, Mr. Li went to Beijing with six other fellow practitioners on their bikes to appeal. They endured many hardships on the road, but in Beijing, brutal beatings again awaited them. The local officials beat Mr. Li in the Weifang City Liaison Office in Beijing. They were taken back home overnight, and officer Qin Jie used all sorts of torture methods, including shocking his head with an electric baton and beating him with a spiked rubber baton from his upper back to his ankles. His body was covered with dark bruises. He was rolling and screaming on the floor from the pain.

Officer Qin Jie kicked Mr. Li's head, face, chest, and collarbone, and stepped on his calves while wearing leather boots. It was a hot summer day, and Qin Jie forced practitioners to remain in the sun with no water to drink, and he forced them to eat salt. If any of them refused to eat the salt, they were cruelly beaten. In the afternoon, Qin Jie took Mr. Li to the community office to continue to beat him. Qin told Mr. Li, "I want to beat you to death." Officer Cao Jinhui also came to beat Mr. Li. At dusk, Mr. Li was taken to the detention centre. When he entered the vehicle, Qin Jie used a wooden stick to stab at his chest. Mr. Li turned his body, and the stick broke his flesh at his elbow and left a permanent, moon-shaped scar. His chest and calves also became infected during the detention.

In Spring 2001, the persecution escalated. Mr. Li returned home from a personal trip and was forcibly taken to the local police station to be beaten. Qin Jie kicked out his front teeth with one kick, then hit his head with a stool, shattering the stool in the process. Qin claimed that he wanted to kill Mr. Li because the police couldn't find him when he went out of town. He then stomped on Mr. Li's head with his leather boots.

Demonstration of the torture methods: Officer Qin Jie kicked out Mr. Li's front teeth with one blow, hit his head with a wooden stool, then stomped on his head

Mr. Li was tortured repeatedly like this into the next evening. He steadfastly refused to write the guarantee statement giving up Falun Gong, so he was taken to a detention centre for a month. He was closely monitored, and he was often deceived into detention at the community office.

At around 10:00 a.m. on November 9th, 2007, seven officers came to Mr. Li's home to ransack it again, but they couldn't find Mr. Li. On November 12th-13th, 2007, they went there again and threatened his family to have Mr. Li report to the local police as soon as he returned home. On December 4th, 2007, they harassed his household again and said they would keep looking for him.

In the summer, before the wheat harvest, the police came to his home twice trying to arrest him, but he was not home. Before the Olympics, they went to his home twice in one day, found him, took his photo in his yard with handcuffs on, but they did not take him into custody.

On August 3rd, 2008, five days before the Olympics Opening Ceremony, Mr. Li heard that his uncle was dying and tried to visit him in Qingdao City with his two older brothers. When they were going through a security ID check in the Gaomi Train Station, the computer system showed that he was a Falun Gong practitioner. He was then arrested and taken to the local police station, and the police forced his family to pay five thousand yuan¹ to bail him out. His family tried desperately to borrow five thousand yuan, wrote a statement guaranteeing that he wouldn't go anywhere, then bailed him out on August 5th, 2008. He was forced to call the local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary's phone at the local police station twice every day.

This mistreatment was highly stressful to Mr. Li Yukun. He became severely depressed, and he was startled whenever his family spoke loudly or slammed the door. He was worn down from being constantly harassed by the officers. His wife wore street clothes to sleep due to the frequent harassments when officers would storm into their home in the middle of the night. His family was living in poverty due to the extortion, and he was not able to support his family. It was difficult for him to bear this intensive persecution, and he died on September 17th, 2008.

Note

1. "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://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/9/28/186736.html