Older Falun Gong Practitioner Mr. Gong Pijian Arrested Again

Name: Gong Pijian
Gender: Male
Age: 58
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Former employee at the Grain and Oil Company in Mengyin County, Shandong Province
Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 26th, 2010
Most Recent Place of Detention: Taian Prison, Shandong Province
City: Mengyin County
Province: Shandong
Persecution Suffered: Sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, hung up, imprisonment, torture, physical restraint, home ransacked, interrogation, detention, denial of toilet use

Around 8:00 a.m. on August 26th, 2010, policemen from the Mengyin County Domestic Security Division broke into Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Gong Pijian's home, ransacked it and arrested him. The police seized Mr. Gong's MP5 and MP3 players, which were worth about 5,000 yuan¹.

During the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) more than ten years of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners, Mr. Gong had been sent to detention centres seven times. He was sent to forced labour camps twice, sentenced to prison without legal procedures once, and his retirement pensions have been withheld for nearly four years.

On July 20th, 1999, the CCP started to persecute Falun Gong. Mr. Gong exercised his legal rights and went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. He was arrested at Tiananmen Square and subsequently taken back to Mengyin County by police from the Public Security Bureau of Mengyin County. He was locked up at his workplace at the Grain and Oil Company. With five people per shift, twenty people, including leaders and managers from the Grain and Oil Company, took turns monitoring him. At that time, the county committee threatened that whoever was on duty watching Mr. Gong would immediately lose their job if he went to Beijing to appeal during that person's shift. Mr. Gong was under surveillance for about twenty days. During that period, there were people who tried to "transform" [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] him and who mentally tortured him every day as they tried to make him give up his faith in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.

In November 1999, Mr. Gong went to Beijing to appeal again and was arrested by Beijing police. The police confiscated his mobile phone (worth four thousand yuan) and two thousand yuan in cash, which they kept. They violently beat him and handcuffed him to a chair with his hands behind his back for a whole night. The next day, he was taken back to the Mengyin County Detention Centre by police from the Public Security Bureau of Mengyin County. The police restrained him with a chain that was a foot long and handcuffs that weighed nine kilograms (about 20 lbs). They also videotaped him. At about 11:30 p.m. that evening, in front of two other policemen, Bian Dayong, the deputy head of the Public Security Bureau, took off his leather boot and savagely beat Mr. Gong's face. He did not stop until he was tired. They took Mr. Gong to the seventh ward and locked him to anchors fixed to the ground (which is also called the "Death Bed"²). They used four handcuffs and the one-foot chain to tightly lock his hands and feet in place. He was shackled like this for fourteen days straight. A criminal inmate surnamed Li fed Mr. Gong for the fourteen days and used a washbasin to collect his urine and bowel movements. Only when all the criminal inmates in the seventh ward protested, did this insulting torture of Mr. Gong finally stop. After being detained for one month, Mr. Gong was released and subsequently locked up at his workplace once again for twenty days. Two days before the Chinese New Year, he was again taken away and imprisoned in a detention centre for one month. After being released, he was locked up at his workplace for the third time for twenty days and was taken back to the detention centre once again. In March 2000, Mr. Gong was sentenced to three years in the Wangcun Forced Labour Camp where he was tortured.

In May 2000, Mr. Gong was released under special permission. After his returning to Mengyin County, the staff from the 610 Office often harassed and threatened him. Mr. Gong had no choice but to leave his home. While working in Shanghai, he was arrested by local police. After being imprisoned in the local police station at Pudong and persecuted for twenty-five days in a row, Mr. Gong was taken back to Mengyin County and was once again placed under watch by the police from the Public Security Bureau. After being imprisoned in the Detention Centre for one month, he was again taken to a forced labour camp for a term of three years. When Gong Jingan, a policeman from the Public Security Bureau in Mengyin County, went to Shanghai to pick up Mr. Gong, he confiscated 1,700 yuan and a mobile phone from him which has so far not been returned.

In the Wangcun Forced Labour Camp, Mr. Gong was tortured both mentally and physically. He once was discovered passing around Falun Gongw articles and was therefore severely beaten by the prison guards and tortured by a method called the "Great Hawk Spreading Its Wings." He was locked up with his body suspended above the ground for seven days and nights. Other people fed him and collected his urine and bowel movements. His legs became so swollen that they did not recover after six months. Mr. Gong was under strict surveillance for over six months and was constantly monitored by several people at all times.

Mr. Gong was released and sent home on May 25th, 2003. On August 4, 2004, people from the Mengyin County 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) and the Public Security Bureau forced their way into Mr. Gong's home and confiscated Falun Gong books including Zhuan Falun, as well as lecture tapes and exercise tapes, four hundred blank cassettes and 10 tape recorders of various sizes. Mr. Gong was taken to the 610 Office in Mengyin County and was once again handcuffed and chained with a foot-long chain for twenty-five days. During this period, Wang Xin from the 610 Office violently beat Mr. Gong about the head and face. He only stopped when his hands got sore and then he took a mop handle and started viciously beating Mr. Gong 's back. Four of Mr. Gong's ribs were broken from the beating.

After being imprisoned in the 610 Office in Mengyin County, Mr. Gong was again taken back to the Mengyin County Detention Centre. He was persecuted there for over four months, and then sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. He suffered enormous mental and physical torture in Taian Prison, Shandong Province.

Since August 2004, the 610 Office in Mengyin County has deprived Mr. Gong of his retirement pension. He went to the 610 Office to demand his pension many times. Li Baoyuan, head of the Mengyin County 610 Office, responded that they would not give him the pension unless he wrote a guarantee statement promising not to practise Falun Gong anymore.

Zhang Yuanxue, Director of Mengyin County Police Department: 86-539-4818801 (Office), 86-13705397128 (Cell), 86-539-4818901 (Home)
Li Baoyuan, County 610 Office chairman: 86-539-4811681 (Office), 86-13953958936 (Mobile)

Zhang Yong, Domestic Security Division Leader: 86-13953906866(Mobile)
Liu Heyan, Domestic Security Division Deputy Leader: 86-13954993678 (Mobile)

Wang Wei, County 610 Office Agent: 86-13563979797(Mobile)

Note

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

2. "Death Bed" torture: A practitioner is tied to a bed with his hands handcuffed above his head to the bed rails, and his legs tied with thin nylon ropes. The rope is then tightly wrapped around the practitioner's body and the bed, from his legs to his chest. The rope is wrapped so tightly that the practitioner has difficulty breathing and eventually loses consciousness.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/9/1/229066.html