The Persecution and Torture of Huang Lizhong Prior to His Death

Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Huang Lizhong, a resident of the Lianshan District, Huludao City, Liaoning Province, was tortured at Panjin City Prison for over a year. The head of Ward 5, Wang Jianjun, tortured Mr. Huang with an electric baton on April 20th, 2009, almost killing him. More ruthless torture followed on October 20th, 2009 in Ward 7. Mr. Huang died as a result of torture some time around October 25th, 2009. Ward head Zhang Guolin did not inform Mr. Huang's family when he was in critical condition, and neither did he send Mr. Huang to the hospital for emergency treatment.

Mr. Huang Lizhong, a business owner, suffered from heart disease before practising Falun Gong. He also used to smoke, drink heavily and gamble. He had a very bad temper and often fought with his wife, becoming violent. Mr. Huang was skillful with incense technology and he and his wife operated a small incense manufacturing business. Even though their business was doing well, he gambled and lost most of their money. In 1996, Mr. Huang and his wife began to practise Falun Gong. Not only did his heart disease disappear after practising Falun Gong, but he also gave up all his bad habits including gambling. Huang Lizhong changed into a compassionate and upstanding person.

After the persecution of Falun Gong began, the communist officials harassed and monitored Mr. Huang and tapped his phone. He was forced to undergo brainwashing sessions numerous times. In addition, Mr. Huang was subjected to one round of administrative detention and three criminal detentions, was sentenced to hard labour three times, and was imprisoned once. He endured torture during each detention. Each time Mr. Huang was detained, he was not released until having been tortured to near death. The following is an account of the persecution and torture Mr. Huang suffered before his death.

Between his arrest on February 25th, 2009 and October 25th, 2009, when he was tortured to death, the 46-year-old Huang Lizhong had become emaciated and his body was severely bruised.

Arrested and Paraded through the Streets

After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, Mr. Huang went to Beijing with other practitioners to appeal for justice. He was arrested and brought back to Huludao City in mid-September and was detained for nearly a month.

Mr. Huang and a dozen other practitioners were held in the garage of the Xintaimen Township Government courtyard on October 20th, 1999. There they were subjected to brainwashing by officials from the Xintaimen Township Police Station. On the morning of October 26th, 1999, Mr. Huang and three other practitioners were handcuffed on a truck and paraded through the streets, to be humiliated in front of crowds of people. Incarceration in the Huludao City Detention Centre followed, where the guards brutally beat Mr. Huang.

Torture at the Huludao City Forced Labour Camp

Following an appeal in Beijing, Mr. Huang was subjected to three years of forced labour beginning on November 1st, 1999 at the Huludao City Forced Labour Camp. The guards tortured him savagely and shocked him with electric batons.

Mr. Huang and seventeen other practitioners were locked up in the Specially Controlled Division at the labour camp on July 25th, 2000, where they were forced to stand every day from 6:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. They had to keep their legs together, their hands down at their sides, and the body straight; they were forbidden to move, take a break, or use the toilet. After fifty-seven days of standing like this, their legs were swollen, bodies sore, and their backs hurt badly. The room they stood in was extremely hot and humid, and they were soaked in sweat.

Six months later, on January 3rd, 2001, the guards again locked Mr. Huang and fourteen other practitioners inside the Strictly Controlled Division. There were no beds in the unit. During the daytime the practitioners were compelled to sit on the cold concrete floor and had to sleep on the same floor at night with only a thin blanket. The floor was cold and damp in January, the coldest time of the year. Many practitioners suffered back pain, leg cramps, and diarrhoea. They were forced to sit on the floor from 6:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. in a fixed posture, every day for over a month.

Mr. Huang began a protest hunger strike on January 28th, 2001. Guard Liu Guohua handcuffed Mr. Huang onto a bed and tried to force him to eat. A few days later Liu brought in a prison doctor who force-fed Mr. Huang very thin corn soup three times a day. The guards handcuffed Mr. Huang's limbs to the metal bed, and then inserted a nasal feeding tube that was not removed after the force-feeding was done. A week or more later, Mr. Huang became skinny, pale, and fragile and staggered when he walked. He needed two people to help him walk to the toilet. Seventeen days later, when he was at the brink of death, the guards finally released Mr. Huang.

Arrested Twice More

Unable to endure the ongoing persecution and under tremendous pressure from the CCP, Huang Lizhong's wife divorced him less than a year after he was detained at the Huludao City Forced Labour Camp. After this he was homeless for four years, until in June 2004 he and his son moved to his parents' home.

Only a few days after coming home from detention, Mr. Huang started receiving calls from officials at the Jinjiao Township Police Station. He therefore decided to leave home to avoid the harassment and possibility of arrest. Agents from the city 610 Office [an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong], the Lianshan District Police Department, and the Jinjiao Town Police Station looked for Mr. Huang everywhere. He had to constantly move from place to place, sometimes sleeping in farmers' woodpiles. He lived like this for about four months.

Linshan District police officers arrested Huang Lizhong in May 2001 at Cimeihua Valley in Xintaimen Town. He was transferred back to the labour camp where he held a hunger strike beginning September 5th, 2001. He was taken to a hospital on September 20th, 2001 and was released from the labour camp on October 25th, 2001.

Mr. Huang was once again arrested on the evening of April 2nd, 2004, on his way home from a vegetable market. This time he was held at the Huludao City Detention Centre and was transferred to the Huludao City Labour Camp a month later. While there, he staged a hunger strike, and was released the following month.

Ongoing Persecution

At the end of 2002, the city 610 Office issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Huang; hence he was unable to find a job locally. He lost his source of income, without which he could no longer support his son. He could not go home to see his parents during the holidays, for his parents' residence was under police surveillance.
Mr. Huang's son had lived with his grandparents since 2001, after his mother left. His son quit school before he even finished middle school. Eventually, he left home, too, and took up with gang members. He almost died in a couple of incidents. His grandparents were constantly worried about his safety and were on tenterhooks whenever someone knocked on their door.

It wasn't until the spring of 2005 that Mr. Huang finally found a job in the water protection field. He remarried in 2006, and in March 2007 his son moved in with him and his new wife. However, their peaceful life lasted less than one year. At around 6:00 a.m. on February 25th, 2008, Mr. Huang was arrested at home, and once again, this new family was broken up.

Arrested, Residence Ransacked, Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison

In 2008, under the pretext of "security for the Olympic Games," Chinese Communist Party officials arrested Mr. Huang and 12 other practitioners in Huludao City and held him at the Huludao City Detention Centre.

While Mr. Huang was detained, Lianshan District Court agents covertly sentenced him to ten years of incarceration on May 12th, 2008, without benefit of a trial. (The judge was Wei Aijun; her office number is 0429-2163962.) Mr. Huang's family members have never seen the verdict. Mr. Huang decided to appeal; however, intermediate level court judge Gao Ensi (office number is 0429-3166449, mobile phone number 13898995566) upheld the original verdict on June 12th, 2008.

Shocked with Electric Batons

It was sometime in the summer of 2008 that Mr. Huang was detained in Ward 5 at Panjin City Prison in Liaoning Province. His wife went to the prison hoping to see him on May 2nd, 2009, but prison guard Ma Ying told her that because Huang Lizhong had "violated the prison rules" he was forbidden to see any visitors for five months. She went once again in mid-June to Panjin City Prison but was once again denied the right to see her husband.

Five months later, on October 20th, 2009, when Mr. Huang's wife went to Panjin City Prison, she discovered that Huang had been transferred to Ward 7. When she went there, ward head Zhang Guolin told her that because she also practises Falun Gong he could not let her see her husband. Zhang said that Mr. Huang was "the most stubborn." After the guards took Mr. Huang's Falun Gong books away, on October 18th, he began a hunger strike, in order to get his books back. On the morning of the third day of his hunger strike, the guards transferred him to the prison clinic because they found out that he was unwell. Eventually, Mr. Huang's wife's pleadings got through to Zhang, and he let her see her husband that afternoon.

When two inmates brought Mr. Huang into the visitors' room at about 2:00 p.m., his wife could barely recognize him. He looked very pale. He was emaciated and his teeth were damaged. He did not have any strength to speak, and he trembled. In a span of only five months, the prison had tortured a healthy, forty-seven-year-old man to the point that he looked like a frail, old man. The last time she had seen him in April, her husband was fine and full of energy. How could he have changed in such a short time? He told her, "They almost shocked me to death with electric batons. I gradually came back." She asked, "When was that?" He replied, "On April 20th." She asked again, "Who shocked you?" He said, "Wang Jianjun." He also told her that after being shocked his ears hurt, and sometimes he could not hear anything. Because he was very weak, he had a hard time talking and kept trembling. According to the guards, Mr. Huang also had heart problems.

That meeting lasted about 20 minutes; after that, Mr. Huang's family finally understood why they had been forbidden to see him; Wang Jianjun and the other guards wanted to hide the fact that they had tortured Mr. Huang so severely. Five days after the visit, however, at around 9:30 p.m. on October 25th, Zhang Guolin (police number 2193104) called Mr. Huang's son and told him that his father had died, and they should go to Panjin City Prison to handle Mr. Huang's affairs.

Family Members Fight for Justice

On the morning of October 26th, 2009, Mr. Huang's family went with a lawyer to Panjin City Prison. They arrived at around noon. After meeting with Ward 7 head Zhang Guolin and Ward 5 doctor Zhang Yawei, they went to view Mr. Huang's body. After taking pictures of the body, his family members demanded to speak with the prison head, who said that Mr. Huang died from "sudden death."

Mr. Huang's family members asked the prison authorities to provide them with a written document, to prove that Mr. Huang died of natural causes. They also petitioned for an autopsy, but the Chengjiao District Procuratorate officials denied their request.

Zhang Guolin urged the family members on October 28th, 2009 to go to Panjin City Prison to have the prison perform an autopsy at the prison's cost, but the family members refused to go because they knew that it would be impossible to trust the result of an autopsy made by someone that the Chenjiao District Procuratorate provided. In order to seek justice for the diseased and to punish the perpetrators, the family was determined to appeal.

Zhang Guolin Is Personally Responsible for Mr. Huang's Death

Zhang Guolin constantly threatened and harassed Mr. Huang's wife and told her on the phone, "You posted my phone number online. My mobile phone kept ringing for 24 hours yesterday [practitioners called him to explain the truth to him]. I've already reported you to the higher authorities. I have nothing to do with this matter."

Mr. Huang was in critical condition on October 20th, 2009, but died on the 25th. Prior to his death, he was paralyzed. Zhang Guolin was in charge of the entire proceedings for those five days. He delayed treatment and did not send Mr. Huang to the emergency department when he was clearly close to death. Furthermore, he did not inform the family when Mr. Huang was in critical condition, and covered up the fact that Wang Jianjun, Ma Ying, Sun Yongjin and he himself, had tortured Mr. Huang. Had they given Mr. Huang timely medical attention on October 20th, or had Zhang Guolin told Mr. Huang's family to take him home for medical treatment, Mr. Huang might not have died.

Zhang Guolin is the head of Prison Ward 7. He is in charge of all of the inmates detained in his ward. An informed source revealed that Zhang takes the lead in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in Panjin City Prison.

Under heavy pressure, Mr. Huang's family finally allowed the prison officials to cremate the body.
Huang Lizhong's elderly parents, in their 70s, are weak and sick. Frightened, they were worried that Panjin City Prison officials would forcibly cremate Mr. Huang's body without their permission. They were also distraught that their son had died without compensation. Two weeks quickly passed, and Mr. Huang's parents could no longer stand Zhang Guolin's constant threats and harassment. At the same time, Mr. Huang's wife's security was in jeopardy, too, since the Huludao City Politics and Law Committee had issued an arrest order for her.

Under pressure from Wang Haijun and Zhang Guolin, Mr. Huang' family members had no choice but to accept the prison's offer on November 10th, 2009, that the prison would pay them 50,000 yuan¹ to close the case without going through any legal procedures. Also, as part of the agreement, his family had to sign a document stating that Huang Lizhong "died of natural causes," and then his body would be cremated. The Panjin City Prison also reimbursed the family for expenses in the amount of 7,000 yuan including travel, burial clothes and the cinerary casket, plus 1,300 yuan for cremation costs. In addition, the prison paid the family 50,000 yuan more as a compensation for Mr. Huang's death.

Afterwards, however, Huludao City Political and Law Committee officials and agents from the 610 Office would still not let Mr. Huang's wife alone and attempted to arrest her on December 8th, 2009. Mr. Huang's elderly father went to the provincial government to sue them. However, as of this time they still have not heard any response.

Panjin City Prison:
Address: Xinsheng St., Xinglongtai District, Panjin City, Liaoning Province, zip code 124106
Tel: 86-427-5637355; fax: 86-427-5637777
Zhang Guolin, Ward head: 86-13390270703
Zhang Yawei, prison doctor of the clinic in Ward 5, 86-13390273366 (mobile)
Wang Haijun, head of the Prison Political Section, office number: 86-427-5637369; fax: 86-427-5637351
Song Wanzhong, prison head: 86-427-5632100
Huang Zhongqing, political head

Related article: "Autopsy Request Denied after Mr. Huang Lizhong Tortured to Death"
http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2009/11/10/112226.html

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/2010/3/17/219896.html