Practitioner Mr. Guan Ziping from Lanzhou City, Gansu Province Imprisoned for 7 Years

Mr. Guan Ziping, in his 30s, was a worker at Vinylon Factory in Hekounan Town, Xigu District, Lanzhou City, Gansu Province. He practises Falun Gong and tries to be a good person. He was arrested by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) police and was imprisoned for 7 years, from 2000 to 2007. He was once hung in the air by a pair of handcuffs and tortured for over ten days.

On November 7th, 2000, Mr. Guan was arrested by officers from the Xincheng Police Station in Lanzhou City when he was distributing leaflets exposing the persecution and telling people the facts about Falun Gong. He was taken to Siergou Detention Centre in Xigu District, Lanzhou City. During the detention, the warden took away his coat, sweater, shirt and other personal items, and gave him a dirty winter jacket and another shirt. He was handcuffed and his feet were shackled. He was forced to lie on a bed and separate good water melon seeds from bad ones. He often had to get up at 4 or 5 a.m. and worked until 11 p.m. or midnight. Mr. Guan was near-sighted but was not allowed to wear his glasses. He was also forced to lie on his stomach on the bed to work, and as a result he was not able to see clearly after the sun set. Later on, the guards agreed to let him work only during the daytime.

Mr. Guan was later sentenced to 5 years in prison and was taken to the Tianzhu County Prison in Gansu Province. A guard from the investigation department, Zhang Xuewu, used electric batons to electrocute Mr. Guan in the head, neck and other parts of his body. Mr. Guan was not allowed to practise the Falun Gong exercises. One week later, he was transferred to the First Section of Dashaping Prison in Lanzhou City. The guards tried to force him to give up his belief but they failed. In order to get him to do hard labour and to attend various prison activities, the guards forced him to sit on a stool for several days without letting him sleep, shined a several-thousand-watt light bulb in his eyes, and poured cold water on his head. After two days of not eating, drinking or sleeping and being exposed to the bright light, Mr. Guan's face became dark, he looked skinny and old, his eyes were red, and his lips were cracked.

All sections in the Lanzhou Prison played videos slandering Falun Gong to all the prisoners on a regular basis. Those guards who made practitioners renounce their belief would get at least one thousand yuan¹ as a reward, and they be given free vacations by the provincial government. All sections also established a system which linked criminals who helped guards mistreat practitioners to a decreased sentence. If a particular prisoner helped the guards torture practitioners, this prisoner was rewarded or got a reduced sentence.

Mr. Guan was forced to attend the so-called "technical studies." He refused to write the final exam, so the guards dragged him outside and beat him. After he fell to the ground, the guards ordered him to stand up. Mr. Guan ignored them so they pulled him up, beat him again and made him squat. This was repeated several times. Later on, he was again beaten by a guard from his own ward. One punch hit his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He was then handcuffed to a tree in front of the office building for several days. Mr. Guan went on a hunger strike until he was released from the handcuffs.

After more than one year, Mr. Guan was forced into a solitary confinement room. The guards handcuffed him and dragged him over 100 yards of concrete floor into the room. His pants were ripped and his wrists were injured. The guards shackled Mr. Guan's feet and linked the shackles to the handcuffs. This is called "cuffs through the heart." When cuffed like that, one cannot stand up straight and can only move around in the squat position.

November 6th, 2005 was to be the last day of Mr. Guan's term. However, the guards claimed that he had not given up cultivation and used this excuse to take him to Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre that day. After they failed to brainwash him, they locked him in a solitary confinement room at the centre. The torture there was much greater than in the prison. There were dozens of confinement rooms with each room holding one practitioner. There was no heat during winter and it was extremely cold. Mr. Guan wore only a thin wool sweater, a jacket and thin pants. His back was against the cold iron door while his hands were handcuffed up above his head and attached to the door. He shivered while eating. Each time, he was locked in solitary confinement for two or three months. Sometimes he would be hung up twenty-four hours a day for anywhere from seven days to several months. In the summer it was very hot and he was bitten by bugs and mosquitoes.

Once, after Mr. Guan was hung up for more than ten days, he was released and given a mattress. He was locked up for almost one month before he was released from the room. He was then returned to the second floor of the brainwashing building. In March 2006, Mr. Guan did not cooperate with the guards so he was handcuffed to a bed on and off for a month.

In the spring of 2007, the personnel in the brainwashing centre told Mr. Guan to go outside for some prisoner activities, but he refused. They dragged him from the bed to the office, beating him and cursing at him in the process. Mr. Guan said, "This is persecution. I have been illegally locked up for more than 6 years. I want to go out, I want to go home." They said, "If you want to leave, you have to write the guarantee statements to give up Falun Gong and sign them." Mr. Guan asked, "Why? What crime have I committed? Even if I had committed a crime, I have served my sentence and I have not been released. I was taken straight here, what does this mean, is this another prison? If this is a school, what kind of school would take your freedom away? This is a persecution centre, you guys are persecuting me." They said, "We want to persecute you. If you don't write the guarantee statements, we will keep persecuting you until you are dead. You can complain about us as much as you want. Go out to attend the prisoner activities, or else just keep standing here."

Mr. Guan was imprisoned for five years, and locked in Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre for one year and seven months. He was released in July 2007.

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://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/11/25/190398.html