Senior Citizen Li Baolin Was Hung Up by One Arm for Ten Day

Name: Li Baolin
Gender: Male
Age: 67
Address: Pingyuan County, Shandong Province
Occupation: Unknown

Date of Most Recent Arrest: June 28th, 2006
Most recent place of detention: Wangcun Forced Labour Camp
City: Zibo City
Province: Shandong Province
Persecution Suffered: Detention, Interrogation, Home Ransacked, Extortion, Re-education through Labour, Forced Labour, Hung Up, Beatings, Torture.

Mr. Li Baoline has been harassed several times by the police for practising Falun Gong. He has been sentenced to forced labour camp for a year and nine months. The then 66-year-old Mr. Li Baolin was hung up by one arm for ten days, and he was also forced to stand for a long time. As a result, his right arm was left with sequelae.

Mr. Li Baolin was born in 1942. He started to cultivate Falun Gong in June 1996. Since then he has been healthy both physically and spiritually.

In July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party, headed by Jiang Zemin, started the nationwide persecution of Falun Gong. Mr. Li Baolin's employer (Pingyuan County Beer Factory) asked people to talk to him. The police warned and forbade him from practising Falun Gong, but he still continued to study the Falun Gong teachings and do the exercises.

Three people suddenly broke into his home at 6:00 p.m. on May 20th, 2003. One of them claimed that his last name was Wang and he came from the Chengguan Police Substation. The other was a Chief of the police substation, and the third was a driver. The three arrested Mr. Li Baolin and took him to the Chengguan Police Substation because he practises Falun Gong. Mr. Li Baolin did not co-operate with their interrogation. Instead, he told them about Falun Gong and the persecution. By 10 o'clock they still couldn't get anything they wanted out of him. They instructed someone to keep an eye on him and the rest of the people left. At around 3:00 a.m., Mr. Li Baolin left the police substation.

In order to avoid being arrested and harassed again, Mr. Li Baolin became homeless until the end of November 2003, when he eventually went home. During this period of time, the police harassed his family several times.

A staff member from the National Security Team named Li Changzhong, and a very thin man, and driver Chen Guang, arrested Mr. Li Baolin when he was seventy metres away from home on June 28th, 2006. The motor vehicle that he was driving was confiscated. He was searched at the National Security Team premises and the 33 yuan¹ that had messages dispelling communist party propaganda about Falun Gong on it were confiscated. They later ransacked his home, took away a video recorder, five DVDs, a large recorder, a medium-size recorder, five small-size recorders, 64 tapes, a DVD player, a small-size DVD player, and Falun Gong materials.

The police put Mr. Li Baolin into the detention centre. The police on duty tried to force him to wear a prisoner uniform and do labour. He refused to wear the prison uniform, do labour or write a guarantee statement to renounce Falun Gong. When his wife and daughter went to the National Security Team to ask for his release, a police named Li Changzhong not only disallowed them to meet with him, but also threatened that if they came to ask for his release again, the police would also arrest them. Li Changzhong and Jiao Hongxia asked him to pay three thousand yuan and write a guarantee statement, and said they would allow him to go home if he wrote it. He determinedly refused to co-operate with them.

After one month of detention, the police of the National Security Team again sentenced him to one year and nine months at the Wangcun Forced Labour Camp.

At that time, the Wangcun Forced Labour Camp was moved to Zhangqiu and Mr. Li Baolin was jailed at Team Seven. The police team leader Luo Guangrong, the director Li Gongming, some other police team leaders and several inmates, tried to force Mr. Li Baolin several times to write the three statements². Mr. Li Baolin continuously told them good will be rewarded with good and evil will inevitably be punished. He refused to write the three statements or do labour.

One evening in September 2007, when they were doing roll call (they have to answer "here"), Li Baolin refused to say so and said that he is a Falun Gong practitioner. The police named Li Gongming detained him in the washroom, where he was hung by his right arm up and stood there for ten days. During this time, the police slapped him several times and he was left with sequelae. Mr. Li Baolin was then sixty-six years old. His right arm kept shaking and could hardly hold anything steadily.

In July 2008, Mr. Li Baolin finally left the forced labour camp. His right hand mostly returned to normal with continuous exercises after coming home.

At 10:00 a.m. on July 18th, 2008, seven police including Liu Jianhui, Xie Zhuanzhuan and Zhang Yugang used the pretence of Olympic Games to ransack Li Baolin's home. They confiscated Falun Gong articles, an MP3 player, and an exercise music tape. They also arrested and took him to the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) and the Joint Defence Team of the Transportation Bureau. The police asked his family to pay money and said if they paid the money, they would release him. His family did not pay the money and Li Baolin refused to sign anything. After three hours, he was released and went home.

Note

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

2. "Three Statements": Practitioners are coerced under brainwashing and torture to write "Repentance Statement," "Guarantee Statement" or 'Dissociation Statement" as proof that they have given up their belief. In the statement, the practitioner is forced to admit remorse for practising Falun Gong, promise to give up Falun Gong, and never again associate with other practitioners or go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2009/11/11/212410.html