Senior Engineer Qian Shiguang Persecuted at Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre, Gansu Province

Mr. Qian Shiguang is 63 years old. He was a senior engineer at the PetroChina Exploration and Development Research Institute (Northwest).

Qian Shiguang

After the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20th, 1999, Mr. Qian was arrested and taken to Taoshuping Drug Rehabilitation Centre. He held a hunger strike for over 10 days to protest the persecution. He became extremely weak and near-death, so the police left him in front of his home in an attempt to avoid responsibility and left haughtily. In great pain, Mr. Qian knocked on the door. He was skin and bones and could not eat or drink. Whenever he tried to drink water, he would start choking and spit it all out. His family thought that he could not live very long.

Through studying the Falun Dafa teachings and doing the exercises, he gradually regained his health. In May 2000, Mr. Qian was sentenced to forced labour for a year and a half. He was put in Gansu Province First Forced Labour Camp, also known as Ping'antai Forced Labour Camp. During this time, he held a hunger strike to protest for 28 days and his weight dropped from 130 lb to about 70 lb. He was hospitalised for a month in Dashaping Forced Labour Camp Hospital. He was diagnosed with the malfunctioning of numerous internal organs. The labour camp did not want to pay the medical fees, so Fifth Brigade Captain Wang of the representing labour camp arranged for his family to take him home on medical parole.

In December 2001 Mr. Qian was taken home. He practised Falun Dafa and after more than a month, he returned to normal.

On June 2nd, 2002, Mr. Qian went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa. He was arrested on the same day and sentenced to forced labour for two years. He was sent to Tuanhe Forced Labour Camp in Beijing, where he suffered inhuman tortures during those two years.

In the camp, the guards instigated criminal prisoners to torture Mr. Qian. They used toilet plungers and flyswatters to slap Mr. Qian's face; they pushed his head into the toilet and demanded that he drink the dirty water; they pulled out his whiskers and eyebrows; they brutally beat him and then threw him into the urinal. In the winter, they tied him up and put him under a bed (he was unable to turn over because the beds were very low); they only allowed him to relieve himself there, and then they would pour cold water on him. Sometimes at night, the guards instigated criminal prisoners to take him outside, take off all his clothes, pour cold water on him, and then bury him in the snow.

The guards there already knew that Mr. Qian's lumbar vertebra was fractured as a result of beatings and that he could not even walk anymore, but they still instigated two criminal prisoners to force him to do the morning exercise drills.

In May 2005, Mr. Qian again practised the exercises at home. Gradually his health was getting better, but he still had difficulty walking. In the afternoon on May 27th, Mr. Qian walked out of his village and was stopped by the police, who had been waiting there. They searched Mr. Qian and found his house key. Then, eight people from Lanzhou City Police Department, Section 26, including seven men and one woman, opened Mr. Qian's home and madly searched his home. They also video-recorded everything. Mr. Qian's family home was turned inside out. The things they took away filled up two vehicles.

At around 7 p.m. on the same day, policemen from Section 26 used the excruciating tiger bench to torture Mr. Qian, attempting to force him to tell the names of the practitioners who had contacted him. When he would not tell them, the police continued to torture him with the "tiger bench¹" and brutally beat him. They ended up getting nothing. At 9 p.m., he was sent to the brainwashing centre in Gongjiawan. Mr. Qian's family did not find out about all this until July or August, when they were finally informed. During the intervening months, they had been trying to find Mr. Qian everywhere and could not get any information.

After Mr. Qian was taken to the brainwashing centre, the officers continued to torture him. He was hung in the air for more than ten days. After that, he could not raise his arms for three or four months.

On October 10th, 2005, Mr. Qian's family brought him some food and clothing (including trousers and shoes), but they were never given to Mr. Qian, so he had to go through that winter wearing only single-layered clothing and shoes. After October 2006, the brainwashing centre did not allow Mr. Qian's family to visit him until May 5th, 2007.

In the winter of 2005-2006, Mr. Qian was detained in a basement, where there was no bed or heating system, while wearing single-layered clothes and shoes. He was not given water at all, and every day he was only given one bun to eat. There was no toilet so he had to relieve himself in the basement. They also brutally beat him. He again held a hunger strike in protest for over 20 days. He was in the basement for two months.

Also in the winter of 2005-2006, after people from Mr. Qian's workplace visited him, they blamed Mr. Qian's family for not bringing him winter clothes and letting Mr. Qian go through the winter with only single-layered clothing. When the family asked the brainwashing class about it in a visit, the people there said, "We put the clothes that you brought on the shelf and forgot to deliver them."

In the winter of 2006-2007, they attempted to force Mr. Qian to write the so called "transformation statement²." Mr. Qian refused. Because the information was strictly blocked, and also because they didn't allow his family to visit him, we don't know the details of the persecution during that time. We hope that anyone who has information will bring it forward.

In May 2007, Mr. Qian wrote down Teacher's [Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa] writings that he could remember and passed them to other fellow practitioners. He was dragged to the office by Qi Ruijun and brutally beaten. This caused Mr. Qian's old injury in his lumbar vertebra to become worse again. He could only walk with a cane, and he had to take a rest after every few steps. On May 5th, when his family visited him, they saw that he was having much difficulty walking.

Qi Ruijun's phone number: +86-93-2860011, +86-133-99315065

Note

1. "Tiger Bench": Prisoners are forced to sit on a small iron bench that is approximately 20 cm (6 inches) tall with their knees tied together. With their hands tied behind their backs or sometimes placed on their knees, they are forced to sit straight up and look straight ahead without movement for long periods of time.

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")

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/5/24/155471.html