Mr. Tang Xiancheng Repeatedly Tortured at Changlingzi Forced Labour Camp in 2002 and 2003

Name: Tang Xiancheng
Gender: Male
Age: Unknown
Address: Handian Town, Shuangcheng, Heilongjiang Province
Occupation: Farmer
Date of Most Recent Arrest: April 19th, 2002
Most Recent Place of Detention: Changlingzi Forced Labour Camp
City: Harbin
Province: Heilongjiang

Persecution Suffered: Electric shock, sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, hung up, imprisonment, solitary confinement, torture, extortion, interrogation, detention

Mr. Tang Xiancheng started practising Falun Gong in 1997. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999. Mr. Tang went to the provincial government to talk about Falun Gong, which was perfectly legal under existing law, and asked for the release of all Falun Gong practitioners. He was arrested by police officers from the Shuangcheng Police Station on August 16th, 2000 and monitored after his release.

Besides Mr. Tang, thirty practitioners were arrested at the Lalin River bank on May 16th, 2001. Zhao Hongsheng of the Handian Town government, Sun Jihua and Li Zhu from the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong), and other town officials are responsible for the arrests. Policeman Xui Guangchen slapped Mr. Tang's face. Cai Chunyu beat Tang Xiancheng with a wooden stick, which broke into pieces. Li Zhu beat Mr. Tang with a stronger wooden stick, injuring his back and tearing his clothes.

The arrested practitioners, including Mr. Tang, were taken to the Shuangcheng First Detention Centre and held in cells with death row prisoners. Mr. Tang was detained for forty-four days and released after they had extorted 400 yuan¹ from him. During his detention, disabled practitioner Mr. Zhang Shengfan was tortured to death.

Li Jihua, Li Zhu and other officials from the town government and police officers broke into Mr. Tang’s home in the evening of April 19th, 2002. They arrested Mr. Tang. His wife and daughter were frightened and burst into tears. They brutally beat him, and took him to a car while still kicking and beating him, wearing no shoes. He was taken to the Handian Town Police Station, where he was handcuffed to a heating pipe. The next day he was transferred to the Shuangcheng Second Detention Centre. While Mr. Tang was here, practitioner Mr. Wu Baowang from Qingling was persecuted to death.

In June, Mr. Tang was transferred to Wanjia Forced Labour Camp in Heilongjiang. The camp refused to take him because of festering and bleeding scabies, so he was taken to Shuangcheng Second Detention Centre and held for a month, after which they took him again to Wanjia Forced Labour Camp.

Practitioners were forced into manual labour. They made Mr. Tang sleep on the damp concrete floor, which was infested with bugs. Insects invaded everything in the cell.

After a week of torture, Mr. Tang was taken to the First Brigade in Changlingzi Forced Labour Camp, Harbin, on August 1st, 2002. Guards ordered prisoners to monitor practitioners and did not allow practitioners to talk or close their eyes. They used brainwashing procedures on practitioners daily, and also forced them to watch materials slandering Falun Gong.

In September 2002, more than twenty other practitioners were transferred to the notorious Fifth Brigade, well known for torturing practitioners. To force practitioners to renounce their belief in writing, police beat them, shocked them with electric batons, and put water over them before shocking them with multiple electric batons. Heart rending cries where heard at all hours. Some were held in solitary confinement cells or tied to an iron chair. Mr. Tang was forced to squat for a long time and not allowed to sleep until midnight, after which he had to squat again starting around 5:00 am. Prisoners would beat him if he moved. When he could not squat, they handcuffed him to a bed frame. The brigade leader was Zhao Shuang and the director was Yang Yu.

Inmates were told to torture practitioners with any means they could think of, as long as it was brutal, and included sticking them with needles in the back, head, and fingernails. Practitioners were injured all over their bodies. They also were forced to march. Mr. Tang’s legs were swollen and he was incapacitated. Practitioners’ property was often stolen by other inmates. Practitioners were brutally tortured just about every day.

Mr. Tang was transferred to several different brigades. He was forced to do hard labour without being paid. He had to haul boxes of chopsticks and toothpicks in the Third Brigade and remove trash in the Fourth Brigade. He was given a quota and was beaten and harangued if he did not meet his quota. The Fourth Brigade leader was Hao Wei and Yang Yu was the director of the Fifth Brigade.

Tang Xiancheng was released in November 2003. While he was detained, his wife and their young daughter suffered a lot of hardship. His daughter wrote in her diary: "Other kids’ parents are with them! Where is my father? When will he be back? I miss my father!"

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://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/12/31/234354.html