Engineer Mr. Tang Yi Dies in Chongqing as a Result of Persecution

Name: Tang Yi
Gender: Male
Age: 46
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Bridge Engineer of Fifth Company under China Railroad 11th Bureau
Date of Death: September 22nd, 2009
Date of Most Recent Arrest: May 2nd, 2008
Most recent place of detention: Xishanping Forced Labour Camp
City: Chongqing
Persecution Suffered: Forced Labour, Brainwashing, Beatings, Solitary Confinement, Torture, Force-Feedings, Extortion, Fired from Workplace, Home Ransacked, Interrogation, Detention

Mr. Tang Yi had a master's degree from the Southwest Transportation University. He began practising Falun Gong in 1995. After the persecution started in July 1999, his employer put him under house arrest for two months. He went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in October 1999. He was detained for 15 days, during which time his work unit dismissed him. Prior to that, his work unit also cancelled Mr. Tang's promotion to a high-level engineer, which was previously approved. In order to support his family, he had no choice but to leave home and work at odd jobs. His mother, 69, who came from the countryside, depended on Mr. Tang for support, since she did not have an income.

Mr. Tang went back to Chongqing City and was arrested by police while eating in a restaurant in May 2001. He was sentenced to three years of forced labour and brutally tortured in the Chongqing City Xishanping Forced Labour Camp. He was detained in a small cell for three months in May 2002, where guards and prisoners brutally force-fed him. He was repeatedly beaten and cruelly tortured by prison guards and prisoners who were assigned to monitor him. He became disabled from the brutal torture, and developed pneumothorax, tuberculosis, chest abscess, and bone tuberculosis. In 2003 he became incapacitated and incontinent, and had to depend on the assistance of others. Nevertheless, the forced labour camp would not release him. After his mother visited many government officials to request her son's release, Mr. Tang was finally allowed to be released on probation for medical treatment. Mr. Tang's health improved and he no longer faced death after his mother spent two years taking care of him at home.

Mr. Tang then went to work in Guiyang City, Guizhou Province. On May 2nd, 2008, he was intercepted by police while taking a train from Guiyang back to Chongqing. The police searched his bag and found a copy of the Falun Gong book, Zhuan Falun, a notebook computer, four CD's, and about six hundred yuan¹ in cash. As a result, he was taken to the Hangzhou City, Zjejiang Province Railway Police Station by train on May 4th, 2008, and detained in Hangzhou Railroad Detention Centre from May 5th to 27th, 2008.

On May 20th, 2008, the police station in Hangzhou City sent three police officers to Chongqing City. Officers from Mr. Tang's local police station, the Xinqiao Police Station, and another officer from the Shapingba District 610 Office² forced Mr. Tang's mother to lead them to her home. They ransacked her home and took pictures, yet they could not find anything they were looking for. The officers from Hangzhou City opted not to penalise Mr. Tang due to insufficient evidence, and ordered the Xinqiao Police Station to take Mr. Tang back to Chongqing City. On May 28th, 2008 officers from the Xinqiao Police Station took Mr. Tang from Hangzhou back to Chongqing.

The Xinqiao Police Station, Shapingba District 610 Office, Chongqing City Forced Labour Committee, and the 610 Office sent Mr. Tang directly to the Baihelin Detention Centre in the Shapingba District. On June 5th, 2008 they sentenced him to serve two years of forced labour in the 2nd Team of the 7th Ward in the Xishanping Forced Labour Camp in Chongqing City.

Mr. Tang started a hunger strike on May 2nd, 2008, and refused to wear a name tag, a prison uniform, or undergo force feeding through a tube. He had already been brutally persecuted for a long time before, and became extremely weak and emaciated, with his weight dropping from 175 lbs. to about 110 lbs. He couldn't lift his right arm, which constantly oozed pus and bled from his injuries. His body was completely disfigured, and he looked terrible He was weak and could no longer take care of himself, and he needed assistance to walk.

They had been force-feeding Mr. Tang through a tube, since he had been on a hunger strike for months, which caused him to pass out repeatedly, and his health gradually deteriorated. Guards often pushed and held him down on the floor. They dragged him on the floor back and forth, which caused dislocation of his joints. Drug addicted prisoners would conduct force-feeding while slapping him, punching him, and holding him down on a very dirty floor. This resulted in Mr. Tang bleeding all the time. At a meeting held at the end of July 2008, Mr. Tang shouted "Falun Gong is good", for which he was cruelly beaten again.

In November 2008, the camp administration notified his family to pick him up since they were afraid to take responsibility for his life. Mr. Tang died on the morning of September 22nd, 2009.

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/2009/9/25/208982.html