Mr. Wang Xiaoguang from Songyuan City Tortured and Sentenced to 10 Years of Imprisonment

Falun Gong practitioners Mr. Wang Xiaoguang and Ms. Song Xiaoyan were arrested in August 2007. Participating in the arrests were officers from the Jilin Provincial Police Department and the National Security Bureau, Siping City Police Department and its National Security Division. Both practitioners suffered from ruthless torture during interrogation at the end of September 2007. Mr. Wang was sentenced to 10 years and is currently in Jilin Prison. The following is an account of the persecution he has suffered.

Arrest by plain-clothes police

At around noon on August 6th, 2007, while Mr. Wang was at his temporary residence in the Nanguan District of Changchun City, he and a female practitioner were on their way to run errands at the tech-centre on Changjiang Road. As they walked downstairs, several individuals who had waited by the roadside accosted and arrested them. Mr. Wang had more than 3,000 yuan¹ and an expensive camera in his bag, as well as a personal phone book. The men took it all, tied up his legs with his belt and put him in handcuffs.

These men were in plain-clothes. Mr. Wang asked them why they were arresting them and asked to see their IDs. They did not answer him and only asked him if his surname was Wang. They then took his keys. Mr. Wang discovered later that they used the keys to enter his apartment and ransacked it.

Then these officers covered his head with a cloth and pushed him into a black car. As they spoke with the driver, he learned that the names of some of the people who were arresting him were Yao, a section head from the Jilin Province Police Department; Yang Chengfu, a retired but re-hired police officer; and a young officer named Lei Yang.

Interrogated with torture at the Siping Detention Centre

After arriving at the Siping Detention Centre, they took off the cloth used to cover his head and took him to the No 3 interrogation room. He asked them why they had arrested him, but they did not answer. He asked them where they were from, and one older person said they were from the provincial police department. They handcuffed his hands and feet, spread-eagled, with his toes slightly touching the floor, until they took him to cell No. 3.

During this time, they tortured Wang Xiaoguang by feeding him a mixture of hot pepper juice, mustard oil, and water mixed with pepper powder. They force-fed him four water bottles of this concoction and then covered his head with a plastic bag. When he lost consciousness, they poured cold water on him to revive him. They also inserted a lit cigarette into each of his nostrils. Mr. Wang's lungs felt like they had exploded, and he fainted in agony. They brought him around again by pouring cold water over him. They hit his toes hard with an unknown object.

On August 6th, 2007, while he was being tortured, he heard another practitioner, Ms. Song Xiaoyan, screaming in an adjoining room and realized that she was also being held. When he was tortured to unconsciousness, four detainees carried him into cell No 3. He regained consciousness a few days later. He asked several times to see the head of the detention centre to request the immediate release of Ms. Song.

Wang Xiaoguang made a list of the things that had been confiscated, including two notebook computers, a colour ink jet printer, four external hard drives, two external recorders, a Sony camera, over ten Falun Gong informational CDs, over ten Falun Gong books, two MP3 players, two e-books, ten mobile phones, over ten data lines, ten mobile phone calling cards, and over 10,000 yuan in cash.

Mr. Wang was severely abused during a six-month period of his detention. He was unable to turn in bed without the help of others. In the first three months he could not eat, and others had to pull him up from the bed to feed him. The guards and detainees tried to cover up the facts. Detention centre Head Shi said, "There is nothing wrong with Wang Xiaoguang." Then why did centre officials designate two detainees to take care of him, including feeding him, helping him relieve himself and wash his clothes? His family had deposited a total of 1,300 yuan in his account. The first time they deposited 700 yuan, 250 of it was spent by detainees Shang Jinbao and Han Shuang. Another 450 yuan was kept by the officials for a "luggage keeping fee." Mr. Wang learned later that the rest of the money was used to buy miscellaneous items and snacks for other detainees.

Sentenced to ten years of imprisonment

On September 28th, 2007, Yan Zhi and Shen Shuhe from the Siping National Security Division and others took Ms. Song Xiaoyan to see Mr. Wang in the No. 2 interrogation room. She brought him some clothes. Their aim was to get her to persuade him to "confess," but she defied them and said nothing. They then asked her what time her train was to leave. She told them, "Four o'clock." They also said to her, "You'd better talk him around." Later, when they saw that she was not going to get them the information they wanted, they let Ms. Song go.

They then scolded Mr. Wang and said, "It does not matter that you don't confess anything. We can still charge you and send you to court. You'll get at least ten years."

Additional interrogations followed, conducted by different individuals from various organizations: Officials from the provincial police department, from the Siping National Security, Tiexi District National Security, and Tiexi District Procuratorate. He had to be carried in and out, requiring four people. There was no confession and no fingerprinting.

Based on one-sided testimony from a former practitioner named Li Xiaoyan and from Yi Guangzhou from Songyuan County and Liu Chengda from Jilin, they carried Mr. Wang Xiaoguang to the Siping City Tiexi District Criminal Court, where he was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment. The court officials referred to Article 300 in the Criminal Law Code and charged Wang Xiaoguang and ten other practitioners in the Siping region with being chief organizers of Falun Gong practitioners.

Wang Xiaoguang refused to cooperate with the police's demands to give up his belief, including not answering roll call. He was taken to the Siping Detention Centre and brutally tortured. His back was injured from forcible stretching. He could not walk by himself and could not take care of his daily needs. At least two people had to carry him.

Detained in Ward 10 of Jilin Prison

On April 24th, 2008, practitioners Mr. Wang Xiaoguang from Songyuan, Ao Yongjie from Tongliao, and Mr. Zhang Kejiang from Siping were transferred to team 12 in Ward 10 in Jilin Prison. That day Mr. Wang wore a new pair of shoes. Two detainees from Jilin Prison came to pick him up. They each held one of his arms and dragged him to the clinic for a health check-up, as he could not walk. When they got there, his new shoes were torn apart and the good track pants he wore were also torn. In recent days, fellow practitioners had had to carry him to the toilet and take care of him with everything.

Mr. Wang has now been transferred to Ward 11 for old and crippled detainees and is currently in the hospital. His arms and fingers are numb, and he can barely move.

Mr. Zhang Kejiang is detained in Ward 8, and Ao Yongjie in Ward 9.

Mr. Zhang Kejiang and his wife Ms. Dou Lina from Siping City were arrested on July 13th, 2007 by agents from the Political and Security Section of the National Security Bureau and taken to the Siping Detention Center. Their home was searched and ransacked. Participating in this were Lin Dejing, Piao Taogen, and Yan Chunhe from the Political and Security Section, who confiscated the following personal belongings: 12,300 yuan in cash, two notebook computers, one laser printer, one ink jet printer, one DVD copier, one box of CDs, and many Falun Gong materials and books.

Mr. Zhang Kejiang went on a 70-day hunger strike at the detention centre. Those in charge began force-feeding him on the fourth day, handcuffing him behind his back. He was later sentenced to eight years imprisonment and transferred to Jilin Prison on July 24th, 2008. His wife Ms. Dou Lina was sentenced to three years of imprisonment and transferred to Heizuizi Prison in Changchun.

Practitioners sentenced at the same time included Mr. Wang Xiaoguang, Ao Yongjie, Zhang Yongsheng, Hu Yuxian, An Shuyun, Li Fengqin and Song Jinyu.

Note

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

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/9/14/185879.html