Radio Free Asia: Former Government Official Imprisoned for Practising Falun Gong

Radio Free Asia reported on December 28, 2004 that Mr. Liao Yuanhua, former Discipline Committee Secretary of Wuxue City, Hubei Province has been imprisoned because of his practice of Falun Gong. According to news exposed on the Internet, Liao Yuanhua has been beaten and tortured during his imprisonment. However, the official People's Daily denied this statement. At the same time, Falun Gong practitioners from Hubei Province revealed inside stories about the mistreatment experienced by Falun Gong practitioners in Fanjiatai Prison, Hubei Province.

The report said that after a period of silence, China's media once again set off a new round of propaganda. According to reports from Xinsheng.net last month, Liao Yuanhua has been imprisoned in Fanjiatai Prison in Shayang, Hubei Province because of his practice of Falun Gong. Over the past four years of imprisonment, he has endured various kinds of torture. Whether he is still alive or not is still unclear.

Tuesday, an RFA correspondent interviewed Wuhan Falun Gong practitioners and happened to learn from practitioner Ms. Du Wenli that her husband, Mr. Ni Guobin, was incarcerated in the same prison with Liao Yuanhua. The prison employed torture on practitioners such as Ni Guobin.

Du Wenli: He has experienced all kinds of methods of torture. The prison where Liao Yuanhua is held is called Fanjiatai Prison. He has endured all kinds of torture including "dead person's bed" and brutal force-feeding. They are forced to work consecutively more than 10 hours in a brick kiln with temperatures of several hundred degrees.

Du Wenli said that Ni Guobin was an instructor from the Wuhan Physical Education Institute. When the June 4 democratic movement took place, he appealed for the petitioning students and was thus discriminated against. Shortly after, he quit his job and started a business. Ni Guobin started practising Falun Gong in 1996. In the second half of 1999, he went to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong, but was consequently sentenced to three years of reeducation through forced labour. On the morning of December 7, 2004, he was once again abducted and his whereabouts remain unknown.

Du Wenli: When he'd just left home and was only about 200 meters away from home, four strong and tall men rushed out of a dark grey van whose vehicle number was 2A54534. The four men threw him to the ground and beat and kicked him. They then handcuffed and shackled him and threw him onto the van. Those people claimed that they were police officers. Our family members still have not received any legal documents. We learned from Secretary Cao Yunsheng that it was the National Security Department of the Wuhan Bureau of Public Security that arrested Ni Guobin.

The Secretary Cao Yunsheng that Du Wenli mentioned is in charge of the local subdistrict (government) office. This reporter phoned the National Security Department of the Wuhan Bureau of Public Security to find out Ni Guobin's whereabouts.

Reporter: May I ask about Ni Guobin's situation?

Wuhan Bureau of Public Security: We cannot tell you anything.

In Wuhan, there are quite a number of Falun Gong practitioners like Ni Guobin who are abducted and mistreated to different degrees or even tortured to death. 33-year-old Falun Gong practitioner Huang Zhao was an employee from Wuhan City Qiaokou Grain Bureau. Her family members told RFA Tuesday that Huang Zhao was summoned without any legal documents by the National Security Brigade of the Qiaokou Police Substation, Wuhan on April 1, 2004. Two weeks later, she passed away.

Huang Zhao's family member: On April 15, we were notified that she committed suicide and the rescue attempt failed, so she died.

Reporter: She died because of suicide?

Huang Zhao's family member: No! We don't acknowledge the suicide, because that was impossible! When her body was to be cremated, we needed to sign the official document on which was written, "to be executed". She was executed and therefore, it was not suicide at all!

Huang Zhao's family entrusted a lawyer from Shandong Province to file an appeal to the Wuhan Court, demanding the Qiaokou Police Substation to compensate them for Huang Zhao's death due to their illegal administration. However, the court refused to accept the case.

The above was transcribed and translated from an RFA report.