The Persecution of Mr. Guan Zhaoqi, Former Deputy Director of the Daqing Petroleum Supply Company's Pipeline Anti-Corrosion Factory

Mr. Guan Zhaoqi, the former Deputy Director of the Daqing Petroleum Supply Company's Pipeline Anti-Corrosion Factory, was detained on several occasions. On September 6th 2002, more than ten officers from the Daqing City Public Security Bureau broke into his home through a fourth-floor balcony window and arrested him. He was sentenced to six years in prison. When he was detained in the Daqing Prison, he was tied up, had cold water poured over him, burned by cigarettes and subjected to other cruel tortures. The captain there said, "There is no such thing as 'too much' when it comes to dealing with Falun Gong."

Mr. Guan Zhaoqi, 51 years old, started practising Falun Gong in May 1996. He believes in "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance" and always thinks of others first. Before he started practising, he had various diseases, such as viral myocarditis, cardiac arrhythmia, pneumonia, strain of lumbar muscles, and running nosebleeds. All of these ailments went away after he started practising. He felt the miracle of Falun Gong deeply. He also shed bad habits of dependency on alcohol. Wherever he is, people can feel his optimism, sincerity and peacefulness. In 2001, he went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa, for which he was detained at the Fangshan District Detention Centre. Mr. Guan's right leg, from the buttock to the knee, was black and blue for two months as a result of beatings by the police.

At around 5:00 a.m. on September 6th 2002, officers from the Daqing City Public Security Bureau, the Provincial Security Bureau and the Daqing City Xibin Police Station surrounded his apartment. At about 5:30 a.m., officers from the Xibin Police Station knocked on his door. Mr. Guan answered it, saying, "You want to persecute Falun Gong practitioners, so I don't want to open the door."

It was the morning rush hour, and many people saw that Mr. Guan refused to open his door. Eventually, the officers called for armed backup. Two of them climbed down from the fifth floor balcony, smashed his windows and broke into his home. One of them then opened the door so that all of the police outside could enter as well. One officer covered Mr. Guan's head with the washing machine cover, while another one brutally beat his head until he passed out. Two officers then handcuffed him and dragged him out.

Three police officers covered Mr. Guan's wife and carried her out. One carried her by holding her handcuffs, and the other two held her legs. While hanging in this fashion she was carried from the fourth floor down to the first floor and then to the police car parked 60 metres away. The handcuffs cut into her flesh so badly that it took a year for them to recover. The police also ransacked their home. They confiscated their computer, printer, video camera, VCR, bank account statements and Falun Dafa books. Mr. Guan and his wife kept shouting, "Falun Dafa is good!" during the entire process. One officer took the black covering off of Mr. Guan's head and said, "Stop shouting, nobody can hear you."

The car stopped at the Security Bureau's rest house where two staff members took him to a room on the first floor. Once there, his hands were cuffed behind his back to the chair and four staff members monitored him. Because he would not cooperate with the interrogation, they tightened the handcuffs so much that they cut into the flesh of his wrists. Mr. Guan was left cuffed to the chair in this fashion for two days and nights. A man named Zhang, the Deputy Head of the Security Bureau, also slapped his face during interrogations. They tortured him in this way for over two weeks.

On September 21st 2002, Mr. Guan was sent to the City Detention Centre. In May 2003, he was sentenced to six years in prison after being convicted of "disrupting enforcement of the law." On June 2nd 2003, he was sent to the Daqing Prison. On November 11th 2003, the police found him in possession of a copy of an article written by Teacher Li. For this offence he was detained in the "small cell" for fifteen days on orders from Wang Yingjie, the Deputy Head of the jail. While in the small cell, he was not allowed to use chopsticks and slept on the iron bed with no bedding.

From the end of March 2004, the Daqing Prison stepped up its brutal forced brainwashing of detained Falun Dafa practitioners. Nearly all of the practitioners were cruelly tortured. Division chief Li Fengjiang, brutally tortured practitioners. One day at the end of March, Li Fengjiang held a meeting to arrange a forced "transformation" (1) plan. It was decided that a practitioner should be transformed in three days and that, "There is no such thing as 'too much' when it comes to dealing with Falun Gong." Prisoners were instigated to carry out the plan. If these goals were not reached, points would be deducted from the prisoners' performance evaluations, and their sentences would not be reduced., Those with outstanding "success," on the other hand, would have their terms shortened. The officials encouraged prisoners to persecute the Falun Dafa practitioners and every night the guards on duty monitored this persecution.

At around 1:00 p.m., on March 22nd 2004, Yang Guojun, the head prisoner of Section Number Thirteen, told Mr. Guan, "All Falun Gong practitioners must be transformed within three days and write the Three Statements (2). Otherwise, you will not be allowed to sleep for twenty-four hours, and will be forced to stand until you transform. Because we are friends who have been here together for many months, we won't beat you; but if you refuse to write the statements you will not be allowed to sleep. If we don't enforce this, points will be deducted from our performance evaluations and we will be ineligible for reduced terms, so I have no choice."

They didn't make any progress from March 22nd to March 24th. When Li Fengjiang noticed that some of the prisoners didn't want to torture practitioners they knew, he exchanged the practitioners between the two sections.

At around 1:30 p.m. on March 24th Mr. Guan was sent to Section Number Fourteen. Head prisoner Fan Zhaorao took him into the storeroom, and asked, "Do you still practise?" When Mr. Guan answered that he did, Fan Zhaoqi repeatedly slapped his face. The forcefulness of the beating loosened his teeth and caused his face to become swollen and deformed.

When Fan Zhaorao grew tired, he let other prisoners torture Mr. Guan in the corridor. They beat him with fists and sticks. Li Dawei beat his knees with a board. Li Dawei and Li Laiquan then burned his ten fingernails with cigarettes, and asked, "Are you going to write it or not?" Mr. Guan still refused. Then they held him on the ground and beat him with sticks and tubes until he passed out. After that, they dragged him to the washroom, poured cold water over him to bring him back to consciousness and then beat him again.

Mr. Guan Zhaoqi passed out three times. Each time they poured cold water on him to revive him. His back was black and blue. They did this until 3:20 p.m., when they were tired and it was also lunchtime. They tied him to the ladder of the bed, where he passed out once more. When he woke up, he found he was lying on the bench in the study room. He heard Fan Zhaorao say, "Captain Li said that there is no such thing as 'too much' when it comes to dealing with Falun Gong." Mr. Guan asked to see the guards on duty. His request was refused, and the guards also hid themselves. Mr. Guan was unable to stand as the result of the torture. They made two people hold him in a standing position, and he was neither allowed to sleep or sit. In order to appease the higher authorities, they let prisoner Fan Zhaorao write the "Three Statements" instead of Mr. Guan.

On the morning on March 28th they forced Mr. Guan to take a test that slandered Falun Dafa. He tore it up at once. They gave him the same paper again the next day and told him that it had to be completed and submitted to the Head of the jail. Mr. Guan answered questions with responses that were in accordance with his own understanding of the truth. Because he didn't do what the guards wanted, they tortured him yet again. This time his feet and limbs were swollen, and turned black and blue as a result. He couldn't even put on his shoes. He was not allowed to sit or sleep for eight days and nights, until March 28th.

Almost all of the Falun Gong practitioners detained in Daqing Jail were brutally tortured. The brutal beating of Mr. Zhao Yuan perforated his eardrum. Mr. Jin Sheng was stripped naked. Then they poured cold water over him. Mr. Li Lizhuang had a plastic tube inserted into his anus. Then they filled it with cold water. He was also force-fed with faeces. On June 7th 2005, Mr. Xu Jishan was tortured to death on the orders from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members Li Fengjiang and Zhang Dezhi. CCP member Pan Shaolin, the head of the infirmary, incited prisoner Zhen Yingje to strangle Mr. Cheng Peiming with a rope. He also threatened, "We have a quota of deaths every year, so your deaths will all belong to the normal death count!"

Zhen Yingjie, together with other prisoners, tied Mr. Cheng to a pillar. They then let ten more prisoners beat and abuse him. Mr. Cheng was not allowed to sleep at night. Chang Fengbao, a prisoner, was encouraged to kill Mr. Cheng, but he didn't want to. Instead he reported this to the prison authorities. For what should have been considered a righteous act, Chang Fengbao was sent to Section Number Five, and the higher authorities covered up Zhen's actions. Jiang Shuchen, who was in charge of the Falun Gong issue, said to Mr. Cheng Peiming, "Watch how I will punish you later for this."

Practitioners' lives are in no way safe in the Daqing Prison. In some sections, practitioners are not allowed to leave their cells for years; they are deprived of even the most basic human rights.

Note:

(1) "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")

(2) "Three Statements": Practitioners are coerced under brainwashing and torture to write "Repentance Statement," "Guarantee Statement" or 'Dissociation Statement" as proof that they have given up their belief. In the statement, the practitioner is forced to admit remorse for practising Falun Gong, promise to give up Falun Gong, and never again associate with other practitioners or go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/7/28/107156.html