Mr. Liu Yongwang in Critical Condition After More Than 15 Days on Hunger Strike to Protest Unjust Prison Sentence

Officials from the Baoding City Security Bureau, from the Baoding City Police Department, the Xinshi District Procuratorate and Xinshi District Court in Baoding City colluded in framing four Baoding Dafa practitioners who were sentenced to prison on May 11th, 2006. Practitioners Zhi Zhanmin and Zhang Rongjie were sentenced to 12 years in prison; Liu Yongwang was sentenced to eight years in prison, and Wei Haiwu was sentenced to four years in prison. Liu Yongwang has appealed with the Baoding City Intermediate Court.

While the appeal is pending, Liu Yongwang has been on hunger strike since May 24th to protest the unjust detention and persecution. Authorities at the Baoding City Detention Centre are force-feeding him, and his life is in constant danger.

Each morning, except during times of extreme weakness, Liu Yongwang always shouted, "Falun Dafa is good! Truth-Compassion-Forbearance is good! Restore Dafa's reputation! Many people learned the truth about Dafa because he resisted the persecution.

National Security Bureau agent Sun Lizhi who persecuted the four practitioners secretly entered practitioner Liu Yongwang's home several times and installed monitoring devices. He accessed Liu Yongwang's laptop computer used for work, and fabricated charges against the practitioner. After Liu Yongwang was arrested, Sun Lizhi even told him about what he had done inside Liu Yongwang's home and his computer, trying to intimidate him and extort a confession.

The following is Liu Yongwang's application for medical parole submitted to the Xinshi District Court and to the Baoding City Intermediate Court, which exposes the persecution. Some names are omitted.

On December 10th, 2001, I was sent to the Baoding Forced Labour Camp. I had by then been on hunger strike for nearly three months and was extremely weak. My weight had dropped from 150 jin [165 pounds] to about 90 jin [99 pounds]. At first, I received IV infusions for about 20 days, and on January 1st, 2002 they brutally force-fed me. They pried my mouth open with a pair of medical tongues; they pinched my nose and poured fluid into my mouth. I tried to breathe but my nose was pinched shut, and my mouth was filled with the fluid. My mouth was immobilised and I could not move; some fluid went down to my stomach while much more was choked down through my throat to the stomach.

In late January 2002, they force-fed 46-year-old practitioner Feng Guoguang from Yi County the same way they did with me. Feng Guoguang constantly vomited blood, and he died after about 15 days.

After I was force-fed, my whole body was cold, my heart rate went up to 120 beats per minute, and my breathing was more than 50 times per minute. I became unconscious at dusk during a toilet break. I didn't know how long I was unconscious, but when I came to I saw the room was filled with people. I was incontinent and my bowel movement was on the quilt. Around 10:00 p.m. the next day I vomited blood all over the floor. The doctor came to me and said it was blood from my lungs.

At midnight the people who monitored me saw my bloodshot eyes and took my temperature. It had shot to the top of a thermometer with maximum reading of 42 0C [107.6 0F]. They switched to another thermometer, and the reading was past 43 0C [109 0F]. I was immediately sent to the emergency at the No. 2 Hospital. I was brought back to the labour camp the following day and received an IV infusion. One week later my temperature had dropped below 41 0C [105.8 0F]. I was muddle-headed in those days and my life was hanging by a thread. I continued to vomit blood for more than one month, and the pain in my chest never went away. I was locked in the same quarantine room as a late-stage tuberculosis patient. In February 2002 I was diagnosed with tuberculosis. I lost feelings in my left leg after a long-term fever. In September 2002 the diagnosis was "nerve damage in the left leg." My hunger strike had lasted total 108 days.

On October 13th, 2002, they carried me into a room where they used to torture determined Dafa practitioners. They shocked me with electric batons and hit me with rubber clubs and coerced me to attack Dafa and "reform¹," [renounce Dafa]. I told them, "It's against the law to beat people." They hog-tied me and then whipped my face with rubber clubs and leather belts and they knocked out one of my front teeth. They shocked the top of my head, the inside of my thighs and other sensitive body parts with electric batons until the smell of charred flesh permeated the room. They tortured me for three days. I went on hunger strike on the first day of the three-day torture. After the three-day torture, they tied me spread-eagle in a metal bed 24 hours a day for 21 days. My back was scraped by the prickly metal grids on the bed. When I rubbed my back, my hand was covered in blood. Many reports of so-called "former Falun Gong practitioners' exposure and attack against Falun Gong" programmes on TV were produced this way after the practitioners were brutally tortured and yielded to the tremendous pain and pressure.

They saw that I refused to "reform" so they sent me to the Tangshan City Forced Labour Camp for further persecution. My hunger strike lasted until the 72nd day. In early spring 2004 I recovered some feelings in my left leg, but both legs started hurting and being numb. In early May 2004, I was diagnosed with "neurological damage in both lower limbs" that would progress to paralysis. In mid June 2004 I was released on medical parole.

This time, they arrested me again for the August 2 Special Case. My feet started hurting in late September 2005. On October 25th, 2005 they took me to the No. 252 Hospital for a nuclear magnetism exam, and found the location for the vertebra pathological change spot. Despite my condition, the Special Case Group openly tortured me on seat No. 9, Row 1 inside the Baoding City Detention Center library from November 7th until November 13th, although I had by then been on hunger strike for two-and-a-half months. They were trying to make me go along with false charges and create another tragedy. They immobilised me in the interrogation chair, shined high-intensity flashlights into my eyes and shocked me with electric batons for seven days, keeping me from sleeping. After my legs were held in the same position for a long time they swelled and my condition worsened. As the weather became warmer, the numbness and pain in my legs reached such an extent that I often could not fall asleep at night. This time, my hunger strike had lasted 81 days.

My experiences, during much of which I hung at death's door includes several hunger strike sessions: 108 days, another 72 days as well as another 81 days of hunger strike; coma, incontinence, vomiting blood, high fever of 43 0C that lasted one week, tuberculosis, disability in my left leg, one front tooth being knocked out, ropes cutting into my flesh, three days of nonstop torture, being tied in a metal bed for 21 days while on hunger strike, nerve damage in both legs, seven days of torture, incessant pain in both legs...

I suffered from all this violence and persecution only because I refused to give up my belief in Truth-Compassion-Forbearance.

Baoding City Detention Centre:
Address: No 328 East Qiyi Road, Baoding City, Zip code: 071000
Cui Jiming: head of the detention centre, 86-312-5027634(Office), 86-312-5028774 (Office), 86-13931223558(Mobile)

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")

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/6/11/130146.html