Non-Practitioner: Policemen from Pingshan County Public Security Department in Hebei Province Brutally Tortured My College Classmate, Mr. Ren Yinhai, in an Attempt to Coerce a Confession

My college classmate, Mr. Ren Yinhai, is an associate doctor and the vice president of the Pingshan County Epidemic Prevention Station. He is well established in his career and has received awards for his research and professional papers. He was one of the best students among our classmates in college. For a while I did not hear from him. When I asked other classmates and learned that because he practised Falun Gong, he was being persecuted, I sincerely wanted to know about his situation in detail, so I went to see him. Although I do not practise Falun Gong, I know that all Falun Gong practitioners are good persons because I know several practitioners. This is why I know about Falun Gong, and also know about the severe persecution against Falun Gong. Ren Yinhai told me how policemen from the Pingshan Police Department tortured him attempting to coerce a confession, even though they did not have any proof. I live in another county, but I still want to document how he suffered from these tortures to let people know how Falun Gong is being persecuted.

On the morning of January 5th, 2002, Mr. Ren had a meeting at work. Suddenly, a person came and told Ren that he needed to go home. It turned out that this person was Feng Qingfang, chief of the Political and Security Section at the Public Security Department in Pingshan. As soon as Ren Yinhai arrived at home, Feng Qingfang was there and asked him, "Do you know anything about the banner that hangs in the county administration building?" Ren answered, "No, I don't know anything about that." After that, Feng Qingfang ordered Huo Jinqiang and Zhu Lijun, who were with him at the time, to search Ren's residence. They also arrested Ren Yinhai. In addition, they confiscated his tape recorder (worth about 800 yuan¹), exercise tapes, his winter jacket, tennis shoes, and more. In the afternoon, they accused Mr. Ren of hanging the banner in the county administration building. He denied the charge. Afterwards, the Public Security Department claimed that Ren Yinhai was dishonest, and detained him. They escorted him to the Pingshan County Detention Centre that night.

On January 7th, at around 8:00 a.m., Feng Qingfang and a few others went to the detention centre. They put Mr. Ren in a Jeep and handcuffed him behind his back. In addition, they covered his eyes with a 10 cm.-wide black rubber band. They took him to a place where they tied him to a headboard. In the evening, Ren had to sit on a wooden chair, and his hands were tied to a chair leg. They forced him to stay awake. The policemen took turns watching him. When they noticed that he was falling asleep, they shocked him with electric batons. Due to the high voltage flowing through his body, Ren's body shook constantly, which caused the chair he sat on to fall over.

The next morning, four people (a so-called "special case team") started to torture him in an attempt to get a confession. They tried to get him to admit that he hung the banner in the county administration building. Mr. Ren Yinhai said that he had absolutely no idea about it. Then they used two high voltage electric batons to shock him simultaneously. When he fell, they dragged him up and continued. At the same time, they used profane language to verbally abuse him, and they beat him. Afterwards, they untied him, pulled up his left arm over his shoulder towards his back, then pulled his right arm from underneath behind his back, and tied his hands together. After that, they hung him up by his tied-up hands. They screamed, "It is nothing if we beat you to death because you are a Falun Gong practitioner. It will count as suicide if we beat you to death." They also said, "The county Communist Party director told us to do this." They continued to torture him, attempting to get a confession that he hung up the banner. Once again, he denied the charge. Then they hung him up again and continued to shock him. Because his body kept twitching, the handcuffs tightened around his hands even more, cutting into his flesh all the way to the bone.

When I heard this, my heart bled for him. The so-called "people's police" did such barbaric things to an ordinary person. I was saddened that these policemen had dishonoured an honourable man. I could not help but look at his wrists. After five years, the scars were still clearly visible. His right arm still had not fully recovered due to the fact that the police tied his right arm behind his back.

On January 9th, 2002, his son got married. These police still tortured him and yelled at him, "Listen, your family is setting off fireworks for the wedding. Confess quickly so that you can go home and attend your son's wedding."

After torturing him like this for five days, they sent Ren Yinhai to a detention centre on January 11th. Mr. Ren's wrists were swollen, his arms were numb and he was not able to move them. The exact location where the police tortured Ren Yinhai was in a room on the east end of the south side of the third floor in the County Public Security Department building. Those who tortured Ren include Feng Qingfang, Chen Wenjin (the police chief of Xibaipo Police Department, temporarily transferred to the special case team), Huo Jinqiang, and X Jianfeng.

Because the police were unable to coerce a confession from Mr. Ren, they continued to brutally torture him. Around January 17, they once again took him out of the detention centre, covered his eyes, and locked him in another place. Ren was told to sit on a 1.5 metre long bench. The policemen then used a white electric wire to tie his chest and stomach to the middle leg of the bench. His hands were tied to the two end legs. They took off his shoes and socks and raised up his feet and tied them to the space between the back and seat of another chair, thus making it impossible for him to move. After that, about six officers used electric batons charged with high voltage electricity to shock his elbows, chest, mouth, legs, and feet at the same time. Sometimes they shocked him inside his mouth. This was extremely painful. All that could be heard were the sounds of yelling, cursing, and hitting when Feng Qingfang used a book to hit Ren's face. After they failed to get a confession, Feng ordered about eight policemen to shock Ren again. None of them said anything. Only the sizzling sound of the electric batons could be heard. At that time, Ren's eyes were covered, so he did not know for sure how many people tortured him, nor did he know who they were. Afterwards, he learned that besides Feng Qingfang, there were also two women, Hu Yuetao and Xi Yanli. He did not know who else was there.

After this brutal torture, Mr. Ren Yinhai's lips were swollen, and his lip mucous membrane was destroyed. Within five days, a thick layer of skin on his lip pealed off. His legs, feet, and arms were covered with black spots from the electric shocks, which only disappeared after several months. These brutal tortures took place in a suite in front of the stairway on the fourth floor in the Public Security Department building. This room seems to be the room where they conduct physical torture. There were also two smaller rooms with a few chairs, which seemed to be a break room for the policemen when they were tired from torturing practitioners. The inside room had a long bench used for torturing and a chair made particularly for clipping feet. We observed many office chairs in many places. The space between the backs and the seats were too narrow to put one's feet, so we realised that this chair was especially made for torturing people.

Mr. Ren Yinahai was detained for 87 days. On April 1st, 2002, they released him on bail. However, he was directly escorted to the 610 Office of the Metal Magnesium Factory, and they let him go home two days later.

When Ren Yinhai was detained, Feng Qingfang went to his home and bullied Mr. Ren's family members frequently. He extorted 26,000 yuan from them, and took away his son's cellphone, worth over 1300 yuan. In addition, on January 14th, 2002, people in the Pingshan 610 Office² asked the County Epidemic Prevention Station to pay 1000 yuan as a fee for brainwashing Ren Yinhai. They withheld three months of Mr. Ren's paychecks. On April 1st, they extorted another 1000 yuan and even withheld 1200 yuan from his wife's paychecks. On top of all that, they extorted additional 2000 yuan for a "transformation" fee. During the nearly three months of detention, the people of the Pingshan 610 Office extorted a total of more than 7800 yuan from Ren Yinhai. After returning to his work, the director of the Epidemic Prevention Centre, Cao Xueyun, withheld over 3600 yuan from his salary for three months. Cao's excuse was that Ren did not work from January until March.

These are the details of how people from the Pingshan Police Department and the 610 Office brutally tortured Mr. Ren Yinhai in an attempt to coerce a confession from him and how they persecuted him financially.

From Mr. Ren's experience, it appears that every level of the Chinese government is carrying out Jiang Zemin's policy to "ruin their reputations, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically." I am telling people how my classmate, Ren Yinhai, has suffered from this persecution. I hope that people will learn the truth about how the police brutally and barbarically treat Falun Gong practitioners who cultivate "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance." At the same time, I feel sorry for those who have been involved in persecuting Falun Gong, because they themselves are the victims. Eventually, when in the future the truth is revealed, they will have to pay for what they have done. Nevertheless, they still have a chance to correct their actions before the truth is known, but this chance is disappearing quickly.

I have discussed with one of my lawyer friends the issue of "evil practice." He said, "The traitor, Jiang Zemin, was the only one who made irresponsible and untruthful remarks when he answered questions at a press conference for foreign journalists in October 1999, slandering Falun Gong as an evil practice. After that, the government media, Chinese Daily, and the other news media in China rehashed his remarks and hence Falun Gong became an 'evil practice.' As a matter of fact, there is no such legal provision in the Chinese Constitution that categorises Falun Gong as an 'evil practice.' Neither the decision of the National People's Congress nor the government's interpretations state that Falun Gong is an 'evil practice.' Therefore, up till now, according to Chinese law, Falun Gong is still legal in China. In fact, the Chinese police now are the most pitiable. They are the real legal personnel who do illegal things. They have all been betrayed. When Falun Gong's Honor is restored in the future, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will sacrifice the police. Because the CCP deceives the Chinese people and claims itself to be 'great, Honourable and correct,' all of their wrongdoings were conducted by just a few individuals. Hence, in CCP history, after each political movement, the CCP always blamed certain individuals for its crimes."

Finally, I want to warn those who are involved in the persecution of Falun Gong: Article 36 of the Constitution gives citizens the right to freedom of belief. In other words, whether one believes in God or not, he or she is protected by the Constitution. No one should go above the Constitution. Correct your mistakes and wrongdoings now. This is the only path ahead of you. Wake up!

Note

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

2. "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/2007/7/3/158086.html