Painting: The Tiger Bench

“Tiger Bench” by Wang Zhiping (39in X 27.5in), 2004

[Editors’ Note: After the Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin and his regime started persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in the 20th of July, 1999, Falun Gong practitioners who are artists by profession hope to express the joy of Falun Gong practitioners have experienced since they started their Falun Gong cultivation practise, their invincible righteousness that helps them brave the cruel tortures and bloody persecution, their continuous pursuit of Falun Gong’s cultivation principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance, and their faith that righteousness shall ultimately prevail over evil.]

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This painting portrays one of the cruelest tortures that the Chinese police subject Falun Gong practitioners to, the "Tiger Bench". During this torture, police tie the victim’s legs tightly to the tiger bench using belts. They then put bricks or some other hard objects under the victim’s feet. They keep adding layers of bricks until the belts break. Victims endure excruciating pain and often pass out during these torture sessions.

Other tortures are often used on the victim at the same time, including shocking the victim with stun batons, cuffing the hands behind the back, burning the body with cigarettes, inserting wood slivers under the fingernails, stabbing the ribs with a sharp pen, hitting the cheekbones with a screwdriver, slapping the face, pricking thumbtacks into the face, and “reining” the mouth tightly with a rope (oftentimes the victim cannot close his mouth since the two corners have been badly torn.)