First Hand Account of Falun Gong Practitioner Yang Zhonggeng – Tortured in Ruian City, Zhejiang Province

Name: Yang Zhonggeng
Gender: Male
Age: Unknown
Address: Ruian City, Zhejiang Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: December, 2000
Most Recent Place of Detention: Yantai Detention Centre
City: Yantai
Province: Shandong
Persecution Suffered: Detention, beating, electric shock, forced-feedings, forced injection, long-term standing squatting, sleep deprivation, food deprivation, hanging by handcuffed wrists, physical constraint, extortion.

When Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Yang Zhonggeng was distributing leaflets exposing the persecution ten years ago, he was arrested by the police of Rushan City, Shandong Province. He suffered inhumane torture – shocked with a high voltage electric baton, injected with unknown drugs and brainwashed. He tells his story first-hand below:

“A fellow practitioner from Shanghai and I were distributing leaflets exposing the persecution in Rushan City, Shandong Province. We were also talking over a loudspeaker, disclosing the truth of the evil persecution of Falun Gong and demanding an immediate end to the persecution. We were arrested by the police from Shanghai, Yantai and Rushan Cities.

“At Rushan detention centre, I was slapped by the police with their shoe bottoms and my face became swollen and very painful. They removed my clothes and pushed me outside the door. I was left standing in the snow for a long time.

“The next day the Shanghai practitioner was taken away by police from Shanghai and I was detained at Yantai detention centre. The police at Yantai detention centre were very brutal. They hit me with batons, shocked me with electric baton, deceived me, threatened me, force-fed me and injected me with unknown drugs. Several days later I was brought to a place alone (like a hotel on a hillside adjacent to the sea), where I was forced to stand and squat for two days and one night without sleep, food or drink.

“I was dragged to the fourth floor by police in the evening and I was hung up by handcuffs. Only my toes could touch the ground. The electric baton was eighty centimetres long. It could apparently generate a million volts. Several policemen took turns shocking my whole body with the electric baton. My mouth burnt and smelled like smoke. I felt very upset and extreme pain. As a result of this torture, my mind became blank and the only sense I had was “Falun Gong is good”.

“After a while, another person came and he shocked my head with the electric baton from my face to the back of my head. It was unbearably painful. This person suddenly threw the baton and ran away. I stumbled and realised later that Master had saved me again. I found that the police were attempting to kill me. To survive I jumped from a fourth floor window, hid underneath a stack of firewood and twice escaped from the police search. My heart raced a third time when I heard the beep sound from the police equipment. I was detected by the police. I was very frightened and my wounds continued to bleed. I lost consciousness and a lot of blood, and then I was caught and detained on the fourth floor again.

“The police deceived me saying that if I signed the document with the statement, “My jumping off the building has nothing to do with the police”, and then I could go home. I was forced to sign it in a dazed state. Police Yu Shujian said, “You'll be released tomorrow. How can you see your family with blood all over your body? To avoid making your family sad, you'd better clean the blood stains first.” Since they repeatedly told me that I would be released the next day, I believed them. In order not to have my family worry, I cleaned the blood stains with a lot of water. I heard Yu Shujian tell another person, “With blood all over his body, the detention centre wouldn't dare to keep him.” At this moment I realised that I had been tricked.

“I was taken to the detention centre the following day. My teeth were loose. Lying in the detention centre I did not drink or eat. To the eighth day I was force-fed. I was held down by prisoners and a rubber tube was inserted into my stomach through my nostrils. My nose and throat were bleeding and it was extremely painful. Force-feeding like this is life threatening and I would rather die than live like this. If I choked on food in my lungs, it would cause death. They failed to feed me no matter what they tried and finally had to give up.

“The police did not give up torturing me and handcuffed me to a metal chair. I was unable to move and they began to inject me with unknown drugs. After the injection I lost consciousness. I could not think clearly. I was distressed and did not know who I was. I was monitored by prisoners at night.

“I was called out from the cell by the guard one day in January 2001. I was told that two people from Ruian, Zhejiang Province would come to pick me up. The police kept telling me that I would be released, but in fact I was transferred to a local detention centre. I was persecuted by the police in Yantai, Shandong Province so severely that my consciousness was not clear and I did not know who I was. I was lost and unable to think. I became feeble minded.

“During that period I was repeatedly deceived by the police. They also took advantage of my family's concern and forced me to write a statement to give up my belief, and then I could go home. In order to go home, I pretended to write a so-called "transformation" [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] statement and said some words disrespectful of Falun Gong. I deeply regret this. I was deceived by police once again, as after I wrote the statement, I was not released.

“Later I was sentenced to three years in prison and a five year probation. When I was released I was blackmailed by the police on medical parole and bail. The bail deposit was not returned to me.

“The CCP police have made up rogue means to persecute me over the years and they are still harassing my family every year. They threaten, deceive, incite rumours, cheat my family and continue to persecute me. Over years of persecution, my wife divorced me and I became homeless.”

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/3/31/38358.html