On March 5th, 2009, police officers from the Hujiazhuang Police Station and the Laishui Township government arrested practitioner Mr. Xia Hongmin from Laishui County in Hebei Province. The following day, he was taken to Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp. Mr. Xia is being forced to go through re-education (brainwashing) through forced labour.
Mr. Xia Hongmin, a resident of Dongguan Village in Laishui County, worked in construction. In the past, he had to stop working because of illness from time to time. After practising Falun Gong, he became well physically and mentally. He no longer suffered any illnesses. He has been a firm cultivator, following the teachings of his practice. He has been treating others kindly, and many people thought very highly of him.
After July 20th, 1999, when the persecution of Falun Gong began, he has been abused and tortured by the authorities because he has refused to give up his belief.
In late July 1999, Li Qibao and Xia Shuyan, two officials from the Dongguan Village Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Committee, took him and other practitioners from their respective homes early in the morning, and took them to the Laishui Township Government. Then, they were transferred to the brainwashing centre in the Laishui Township School.
At the brainwashing centre, practitioners were divided into different groups and then detained in different classrooms. There were no beds. Desks were used as beds, but no covers were provided. They also kept the lights on at all times. They were monitored day and night, even when they went to the toilet. During the daytime, employees from the Laishui Township Birth Control centre were on duty. They not only watched the practitioners, but also demanded that they write guarantee statements to renounce Falun Gong, read papers defaming Falun Gong, and pull weeds at temperatures as high as 42 degrees Celsius. Thorns scratched the practitioners as they worked, and they were soaked in sweat and not given anything to drink.
In the morning, the person responsible for persecuting practitioners was Wen Yaling from Laishui Township. In the evening, after the Secretary of the CCP Committee in Laishui Township Hu Yuxiang and Township Head Liu Zhengfu had dinner, they carried out forced brainwashing on steadfast practitioners. They shouted, "If the Party doesn't want you to practise, you don't practise, otherwise we'd have to beat you." They used clubs and sticks to beat practitioners, and while beating them they kept asking whether they would continue with the practice. More than 10 days later, after people from Laishui Township had extorted 300 yuan1 from Mr. Xia's family, they released him.
During the busy harvesting season, he was called to the village office again. Village cadres demanded that he report three times daily and write guarantee statements. The Secretary of the County CCP Committee Han Yasheng went to the office of the Dongguan Team to threaten practitioners.
On March 7th, 2000, Mr. Han went to Beijing to appeal to the government. After arriving in Beijing, he asked for the location of the appeals office, and he was immediately arrested by local police officers. At the time, plainclothes police officers were everywhere, and the Beijing Appeals Office became a trap to arrest practitioners. After Ms. Xia was arrested, people from Laishui Township came to take him back. On their way back, those people cruelly beat Mr. Xia. After their return to Laishui Township, the CCP officers forced Mr. Xia to kneel in the Township office for the entire morning. Then, he was beaten cruelly by Liu Zhenfu, Hu Yuxiang, Li Dawei, Su Sheng and others. They held his hands on the table and then beat them with a stick. They also took off his clothes and hit his upper body with a stick until it broke. On April 7th, 2000, Mr. Xia was transfered to the Laishui CCP School.
Another wave of persecution was organized by the Deputy Secretary of the Laishui County CCP Committee Sun Guijie, Political and Judicial Committee Zhang Haili, Laishui County Police Bureau Member Liu Yaohua, Political and Security Department Member Li Zenglin, Dai Chunjie and others. They used implements such as shovels, ropes, rubber sticks, rubber batons, nails, and wooden sticks to torture practitioners. After several days of cruel torture, practitioners still refused to be "transformed"2, and Sun Guijie ordered that the torture be escalated.
The practitioners were divided into three groups. They were tortured by people from the police bureau, Procuratorate, and the courts. Mr. Xia was tortured by the police bureau staff. He was stripped of all of his clothes, pushed to the concrete floor by police officers and beaten. Once the belt they were using to whip him broke, they grabbed a chair and used the chair legs to beat him. They forced him to roll all over on the ground, while swearing at him. Female practitioners were forced to watch some of those male practitioners as they were stripped and beaten. Police officers also stuck steamed buns into Mr. Xia's mouth and then filled his mouth with water. They put a dirty barrel over his head and then used a wooden stick to beat the barrel, hoping to force him to give up Falun Gong. CCP Committee Deputy Secretary Sun Guijie lit a cigarette to burn Mr. Xia's lips, causing blisters, which later festered. Police officers also forced Mr. Xia to kneel down. Then they put shovel sticks on his lower legs and had three to four police officers step on the shovel sticks. Mr. Xia was screaming from the pain. After 13 days of brutal torture, they demanded 2,300 yuan3 from Mr. Xia's family and only then was he released.
On the morning of July 4th, 2000, Mr. Xia was arrested at home by CCP officers from the Laishui Township. He was taken to an abandoned kitchen in Laishui Township. The windows were welded shut, the door was locked and it was extremely dark in the room. He was denied family visitation and not given any food. During his detention, Mr. Xia was often beaten by Liu Zhenfu, Hu Yuxiang, Li Dawei and Su Sheng. Once, because he tore up a book defaming Falun Dafa, he was brutally beaten by Liu Zhengfu. Liu Zhengfu also ordered people working in the township to beat Mr. Xia, who was badly injured. In the evening, Liu Zhengfu, Liu Yaohua and Li Zenglin continued to torture Mr. Xia, until he was near death.
On December 26th, 2000, Mr. Xia Hongmin and other practitioners were taken to the Laishui Detention Centre. On December 27th, they were forced to hang boards around their necks and walk around in public. There was also an open trial in the Laishui Square. After that, they were forced to parade around Laishui County with boards hanging around their necks.
On March 15th, 2001, Mr. Xia was transferred from the detention centre to the Laishui CCP School. Because he tried to stop people from the court from cruelly torturing young practitioners, he was beaten brutally.
In April 2001, Mr. Xia was detained again, and he was only released after his family was forced to pay 1,000 yuan. After that, police officers frequently searched and ransacked his home and monitored him. His family is harassed during each politically sensitive period by the police, causing them to be unable to lead normal lives.
On December 24th, 2008, in order to help more people get to know the facts about Falun Gong, Mr. Xia took advantage of his vacation time to hand out leaflets exposing the persecution of Falun Gong in Laishui County. As he did this, police officers from the Huajiazhuang Township Police Station arrested him. On January 1st, 2009, he was transferred to the Laishui County Detention Centre.
At the detention centre, prisoners poured barrels of cold water over him, claiming that they were giving him a shower. He had to work 12 hours a day. He had to wrap coloured paper around metal wires and make them into flowers. If he failed to meet the quota, prisoners would kick or slap him with leather shoes.
Because he went on a hunger strike, on January 31st, 2009, he was released. However, the next day, Laishui Township's Liu Jinlong arrested Mr. Xia again. This time they took him directly to the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp.
Mr. Xia is now being detained at Gaoyang Detention Centre.
Related article: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2009/3/26/105935.html
Note
1. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.
2. "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")
3. "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/2009/4/2/198242.html
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