Older Practitioner Mr. Meng Fei from Shandong Province Persecuted for 10 Years (Part 1)

Name: Meng Fei
Gender: Male
Age: 51
Address: Xinxing Town, Cangshan County, Shandong Province
Occupation: Chemistry teacher at Xinxing Middle School in Cangshan County, Shandong Province
Date of Most Recent Arrest: September 7th, 2009
Most Recent Place of Detention: Shandong Province Wangcun Men's Forced Labour Camp
City: Zibo
Province: Shandong
Persecution Suffered: Detention, beatings, force-feedings, physical constraint, home ransacked, extortion

Mr. Meng Fei received many awards for being an outstanding teacher during his 32-year career in education. Three students from his class won the province-level first prize in the chemistry competition.

Over the past 10 years, Mr. Meng was arrested twice and detained in a forced labour camp. He was tortured to near death, as a result of which his physical condition has severely deteriorated and he now suffers from constant headaches and stomach aches, dry eyes, ringing in his ears, and short-term memory loss. He also cannot eat without choking and coughing, and a bloody secretion constantly runs from his nose.

Brutally Beaten and Sentenced to Forced Labour

Since the autumn of 2000, police officers from the Xinxing Police Station and the Cangshan County Public Security Bureau have harassed Mr. Meng, interrogated him, restricted his freedom and demanded that he renounce Falun Gong.

On June 20th, 2006, Wang Fang from the Cangshan County Public Security Bureau, Chang Jian from the Xinxing Police Station, and five other officers came to the Xinxing Middle School and arrested Mr. Meng. They interrogated and tortured him in the Cangshan County Public Security Bureau for 48 hours, taking turns to beat him and hitting his head with a wooden rod until it broke.

Mr. Meng was then taken to a detention centre for 20 days. Officer Wang Taiyuan extorted 200 yuan¹ and a guard robbed him of 520 yuan. Subsequently, he was sentenced to two years at the Wangcun Forced Labour Camp in Shandong.

Mr. Meng's salary, awards, and bonuses for the previous 20 months, which added up to about 40,000 yuan, were confiscated and distributed to the members of the county's political and legal commission, the county police, and Jiao Zhonghua, principal of the Xinxing Middle School.

Detained and Tortured Again

In the afternoon of August 19th, 2009, Wang Ping, deputy director of the Xinxing Police Station, and two officers broke into Mr. Meng's house, ransacked it and arrested him. Afterward, close to 50 officers from the Cangshan 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong), the Cangshan County Public Security Bureau, and the Xinxing Police Station searched his and his neighbour's house for two hours without showing a search warrant or any identification. The police confiscated Mr. Meng's Falun Gong books and materials, diaries, computer, printer, DVD player, DVDs and CDs, mobile phones, camera, and 400 yuan.

The police also arrested his wife Wang Baozhen and his son Meng Defeng, and took them to the Xinxing Police Station. His wife and son were threatened, interrogated, handcuffed to the iron chair and beaten until they signed the documents the police gave them. They were released at 1 a.m. the next day.

Mr. Meng was taken to the Cangshan County Public Security Bureau. Feng Kangning, head of the county 610 Office, and Chen Xinguo, captain of the Domestic Security Bureau, took turns interrogating him. They handcuffed him to an iron chair and beat his head, face, chest, arms, and legs with wooden and plastic batons. Chen also pulled out some of his hair. Feng then ordered several officers to force him to sign on the forged deposition, but Mr. Meng did not cooperate. The officers yelled at and beat him for five hours and almost broke his fingers, but Mr. Meng still did not sign.

Late at night, the officers took Mr. Meng to the Cangshan County Detention Centre, which refused to take him because he had a high fever. Police officers then locked him up in the Xinxing Police Station, handcuffed him to a chair and deprived him of sleep.

In the morning of August 20th, 2009, officers took Mr. Meng back to the Cangshan Detention Centre, but the centre again refused to take him because there wasn't any document signed by him. At 2 p.m., the officers took him back to the Xinxing Police Station. Several police officers then went to Mr. Meng's wife and demanded money for his release.

At 6 p.m., Chen Xingguo ordered Mr. Meng to sign a deposition, but Mr. Meng refused again. Chen then announced to the police, Mr. Meng's wife, and Yang Maofu, the village secretary, that he would be placed under house arrest. Mr. Meng still refused to sign the deposition. He was later released.

Taken to Forced Labour Camp and Tortured to Near Death

On September 1st, 2009, Mr. Meng went back to work at the school. On September 7th, Wang Ping and three officers from the Xinxing Police Station arrested him at the school. Feng Kangning, Chang Jian, and two other officers took him to the Second Men's Forced Labour Camp in Shandong. When Mr. Meng questioned why he was taken there, Feng told him it was because he was a Falun Gong practitioner. When Mr. Meng asked him which laws he had broken, Feng told him, “The Chinese Communist Party owns the country and it ordered the arrest!”

At the labour camp, guard Sun Fengjun and others who had renounced Falun Gong dragged Mr. Meng into an office, causing him to lose a shoe in the process. They stole his money and keys, and locked him in a storage room. Sun slapped him, hit his head and kicked him. The guards often kicked or punched Mr. Meng.

Mr. Meng went on a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment. At 4 a.m. on September 8th, a guard came into his cell, punched him in the head and left. An inmate then yelled at him and forced him to sit on a small stool. Mr. Meng refused to eat breakfast and did not eat lunch that day. The guards ordered several prisoners to take him to the prison clinic, force-feed him some drugs and then take him back to his cell.

Sun Junfeng had two guards, two prisoners, and someone who had renounced Falun Gong return him to the cell. They picked him up, threw him to the cement floor, kicked him between his legs, grabbed his hair and hit his head against the wall. Then they handcuffed him to an iron chair, separated his legs and fixed them on the handles of the chair. The guards stood on his legs so that the iron handles dug into his legs. Sun also ordered two prisoners to pull down the handcuffs, which then cut into Mr. Meng's wrists. Then they pulled his hair back and held his head. Sun hit his head, chest, and ribs until blood came out from his nose and mouth. The guards threatened that if he did not eat, they would torture him with electric batons. Mr. Meng tried to reason with them that he simply wanted to practise Falun Gong, but Sun brutally punched his leg, causing excruciating pain.

To be continued in Part 2.

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/2010/12/6/233330.html