Award-Winning Music Teacher Arrested Again after Being Held in a Forced Labour Camp Four Times

Summary of Key Persecution Facts:

Name: Ding Fadong
Gender: Male
Age: 37
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Former music teacher at a middle school
Date of Most Recent Arrest: September 15th, 2013
Most Recent Place of Detention: Zhongning County Detention Centre

County: Zhongning

Province: Ningxia

Persecution Suffered: Solitary confinement, torture, loss of job, physical restraint, home ransacked

Key Persecutors: Wang Mai and Wang Shiyuan

Award-winning music teacher Mr. Ding Fadong was arrested on September 15th, 2013, while visiting another Falun Gong practitioner. The Zhongning County Procuratorate, however, didn't issue their official arrest warrant until December 22nd, 2013. Both practitioners are now in the Zhongning County Detention Centre.

Arrested for Belief

Police officers from the Zhongwei City Police Department and the Zhongning County Police Department broke into Mr. You Haijun's home and arrested him and Mr. Ding on September 15th, 2013.

Mr. Ding, 51, taught music at a middle school in the Yinnan area of Ningxia. One of his music compositions won an award in a national competition. Mr. Ding began to practise Falun Gong in 1998. His long-term illness of 20 years disappeared shorty afterwards.

Since the persecution of Falun Gong began 14 years ago, he has been brutally persecuted for not giving up his belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. He was sentenced to forced labour four times, tortured, and fired from his job. His family has also suffered because of the persecution of Falun Gong.

Tortured in a Detention Centre and Forced Labour Camp

While he was held in the Yinchuan Detention Centre, he was put in solitary confinement and forced to sit on a tiger bench for three days¹ while four inmates monitored him. His hands were cuffed and his feet were shackled under the tiger bench until he lost consciousness.

In the Ningxia Forced Labour Camp, Mr. Ding was tortured to make him "transform," [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] because he refused to renounce Falun Gong. When his family went to visit him, he was emaciated, walked with a limp, and was hunched over. Seeing the state that he was in, Mr. Ding's family began to cry and his sister fainted.

In 2002, Mr. Ding was sentenced to three years of forced labour. When he was released in 2005, his weight had dropped from 140 pounds to about 80 pounds.

Three officers from the Wenhua Street Police Station broke into his home to harass him in the summer of 2007.

In the beginning of 2008, officers Wang Mai and Wang Shiyuan, and another policeman from the Yinchuan Domestic Security Division seized Mr. Ding's wife at work and took her home by force. They ransacked the home and held her overnight. Mr. Ding was forced to leave home to avoid further persecution.

Mr. Ding was sentenced to two years of forced labour for the fourth time in 2011. He returned home in May 2013.

Note

1. "Tiger Bench": Prisoners are forced to sit on a small iron bench that is approximately 20 cm (6 inches) tall with their knees tied together. With their hands tied behind their backs or sometimes placed on their knees, they are forced to sit straight up and look straight ahead without movement for long periods of time.