55-Year-Old Mr. Ma Rongqing Passed Away Due to the Persecution He Suffered in Jixi Forced Labour Camp

Mr. Ma Rongqing, 55, worked at a cooling storage company in Hulin City, Heilongjiang Province. In late 2000, he went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. After being sent back to his home city, he was detained in the Hulin City detention centre and sentenced to one year of forced labour. During his detention in the Jixi City forced labour camp, he was brutally force-fed. Authorities made him run after force-feeding him with salt water. He was locked into a small cage and tortured with electric-shock batons. He refused to give up his practice of Falun Gong, so he was detained an extra month in the Hulin detention centre after his labour camp term ended.

On April 2nd, 2004, Mr. Ma Rongqing was arrested again when he was distributing exposing the persecution and hanging banners. He was sentenced to two years of forced labour and was again sent to the Jixi City forced labour camp. He contracted a severe heart problem in the labour camp and was sent home because the labour camp officials feared he might die in their custody, and they did not want responsibility for his death.

On December 26th, 2005, the labour camp officers went to his home and took him away under the pretence of medical inspection. At that time, Mr. Ma's wife was paralysed in bed and had no one at home to take care of her. On January 8th, 2006, Mr. Ma was released.

After several years of persecution, Mr. Ma Rongqing was in very poor condition, both financially and physically. On August 27th, he died on his way home. His family members said that he hadn't had heart problems before ¡V his heart problems were due to the beatings he had suffered in the forced labour camp.

In the Jixi City forced labour camp, under the name of "education assistance", the officers often beat practitioners with police batons and plastic pipes, causing the practitioners' skin to tear and flesh wounds to widen. Officer Qi Min said, "We just want to use batons to educate you." Officer Zhang Guide said, "One can't use reason in this place. If you want to reason, go to the US."

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/9/3/136956.html