Four Falun Gong Practitioners from Liaoning, Hebei, and Heilongjiang Provinces Die from Persecution

1. Mr. Chen Jixiang was 46 years old and lived in Yongling Town of Fushun City, Liaoning Province. Mr. Chen's job was to fluff the cotton stuffing in quilts. Before Mr. Chen started practising Falun Gong, he had various diseases. His abdomen hurt all the time and he had diarrhoea 6-7 times a day. There was blood and pus in his stool. Though he visited many famous hospitals, he was never cured. Mr. Chen also had a very bad temper. The neighbours knew that he often beat his wife. He weighed about 108 pounds, smoked, drank and fought with his wife after drinking. Sometimes he would cry for no reason and his daughter was often afraid. His family lived a hard life.

Mr. Chen started practising Falun Gong in July 1997. He then understood the principles of how to be a good person. He began living by those principles and became very healthy. He quit smoking and drinking and his family life became peaceful. He no longer sold used fluffed old cotton for the price of new cotton.

After the persecution against Falun Gong started, the police arrested Mr. Chen five different times and sent him to a brainwashing centre once. Each time they tried to force him to renounce Falun Gong. In August 1999, Mr. Chen went to the local government and then to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa. After he returned from Beijing, Director Zhang Rongqing of the Yongling Police Station sent him to a brainwashing centre. Zhang also ordered Mr. Chen to be brought to the police station every day to clean the glass windows, remove weeds, wash quilts and process bed covers. Mr. Chen did not receive any pay for his work. The police station fined him 200 yuan¹ before he was released.

On September 11th 1999, Zhang Rongqing and others from the Yongling Police Station again arrested Mr. Chen and placed him in a detention centre. The prisoners there beat him until his face swelled up so much that he couldn't eat. The beating also injured his back. Under this severe torture, Mr. Chen compromised and paid 4,000 yuan to be released.

In August 2000, Guo Huawei and others from the Yongling Police Station arrested Mr. Chen for the third time and again put him in a detention centre. Mr. Chen was awakened before dawn to cut wood and process ginseng. Mr. Chen finally succumbed to the persecution and wrote a guarantee statement never to practise Falun Gong again and paid a 3,000 yuan fine to be released.

In December 2000, Officer Wang Yongping and others from the Xinbin County Police Department broke into Mr. Chen's home to confiscate his property. The police confiscated an answering machine, an incense burner and 7000 yuan in cash. Once again, they took Mr. Chen to a detention centre. This time Mr. Chen's family spent 3000 yuan on presents to bribe the police for his release.

Twenty days after Mr. Chen returned home and one day before the Chinese New Year, Guo Huawei and policemen from the Yongling Police Station came to arrest him again. He was imprisoned for more then 10 days. On February 1st 2001, the police put Mr. Chen in the Fushun City Brainwash Centre. They forced Mr. Chen to "transform"² again by torturing him. One month later, they extorted more than 10,000 yuan from him to gain his release.

In the autumn of 2003, Officers Guo Huawei and Cao Sixin from the Yongling Police Station arrested Mr. Chen. They took him to Fushun City's Luotai mountain village to brainwash him.

After Mr. Chen was released from the Luotai mountain village brainwashing centre, his eyes started to itch severely. A month later, the severe itching moved to his neck. Later, he felt uncomfortable in his chest, like his oesophagus was being blocked. The hospital diagnosed it as uraemia. Chen died on August 20th 2005.

Mr. Chen's daughter is in college now and his son is in high school. The whole family depended on him to bring in money.

Phone numbers:

Song Junlin, Secretary of the Xinbin County Political and Judiciary Committee, 86-413-5080010, 86-413-5086001 (Home)

Zhang Rongqing, 86-413-5080595
Guo Huawei, 86-413-5032955
Cao Sixin, 86-413-5156798

2. Mr. Wang Tiliang, 66 years old, was a Falun Gong practitioner from the Fengrun District in Tangshan City, Hebei Province. Mr. Wang started to practise Falun Gong in 1996 and benefited from the practice. After the persecution started on July 20th 1999, Mr. Wang insisted on continuing the practise. The police station and his work place constantly harassed him. Someone reported him to the police when he was delivering leaflets exposing the persecution about Falun Gong. At about 12:10 p.m. on August 25th 2001, more than ten people from the district's police department and police station broke into his home and confiscated his property. The police tried to take the 67,000 yuan cash Mr. Wang had saved for his son's wedding and housing. Mr. Wang tried to stop them, but they arrested him and locked him in a detention centre. He did not get any food for twenty days out of four months. Mr. Wang was as thin as a stick when his work place bailed him out. The police department still withheld 5,000 yuan from him. Mr. Wang was extremely traumatised and had difficulty eating. He died on August 25th 2005.

3. Ms. Zhang Guizhi, 72 years old, lived in the Fengrun District of Tangshan City in Hebei Province. Ms. Zhang started practising Falun Gong in 1996 and was healthy from then on. After the persecution started officials from the neighbourhood administration office and the residential committee went to her home many times to confiscate her books, harass her and force her to write a guarantee statement to renounce Falun Gong. Ms. Zhang was easily intimidated to begin with and got even more scared from the constant persecution. She died on July 21st 2005, from fear caused by the persecution.

4. Ms. Liu Qianqian, 33 years old, was a Falun Gong practitioner from Shangzhi Town of Shangzhi City in Heilongjiang Province. In 2002, before the Dragon Boat Festival, Ms. Liu went to Shangzhi City to sell vegetables and tell the facts of Falun Dafa to people who had been misled by the government propaganda. Someone reported her. Later, officers from Shangzhi City's 610 Office³ arrested her. They secretly sentenced her to three years in prison and locked her up in the Heilongjiang Province Women's Prison. While in the Women's Prison, she was forced to work beyond her physical ability every day and was subjected to brainwashing.

Ms. Liu weighed less than 50 lbs. when she was released and allowed go home. She weighed more than 90 lbs when she was arrested. Her skin was tightly wrapped against her skull and her veins showed. Her oesophagus and stomach were infected. Her family paid over 5,000 yuan for treatment at a hospital. However, on August 6th 2005, just five days later, she died at the Jinzhou Hospital. The details are still under investigation.

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

2. "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")

3. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/9/17/110597.html