Han Weixin Persecuted for Seven Years

Name: Han Weixin
Gender: Male
Age: 46
Address: Anxin County, Hebei Province
Occupation: Staff member at the transportation department

Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 27th, 2002
Most recent place of detention: Hebei No. 4 Prison
City: Shijiazhuang
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: Living under surveillance, beatings, interrogation, detention, electric shock, torture, sleep deprivation, forced labour, denied visitation, imprisonment, brainwashing.

Mr. Han Weixin, a staff member at the Anxin County Transportation Department in Hebei Province, was targeted for persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for his belief in Falun Gong. Below is an account of the persecution he has suffered.

Mr. Han started practising Falun Gong prior to the start of the CCP's persecution in July 1999. Beforehand, he had suffered from acute inflammation of the pancreas and diabetes. Soon after he started practising, he quit smoking and drinking, returned to a healthy weight, and regained physical strength and enthusiasm for life.

In May 1999, when the CCP started to suppress Falun Gong practitioners, Mr. Han went to the Anxin County government with two fellow practitioners to appeal for the right to freely practise Falun Gong. Following their appeal, Wang Guozeng, the leader of the Transportation Department where Mr. Han worked, and director Meng Jianshe ordered about a dozen people to watch them around the clock. They detained Mr. Han in the department building for 20 days. In September 1999, they detained him in the department for another 20 days, allegedly to stop him from going to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. In July 2000, Wang Jinshen and Meng Jianshe put him under surveillance outside of the department for 8 days. When he subsequently returned to work, secretary Liu Xiaojiang asked him if he would continue to practise Falun Gong. Mr. Han insisted that he would maintain his belief, and from then on he was continuously harassed by the authorities. In November 2000, he became homeless in the effort to avoid further persecution.

Arrested and Beaten for Exposing the Truth

On August 27th, 2002, Han Weixin and other practitioners went to Xushui County, Hebei Province, and showed a DVD exposing the persecution of Falun Gong. On their way home, they were stopped by the Xushui County police. Five of the six practitioners were arrested and beaten. One of them was beaten so severely that his head was punctured from being beaten with a stick. Mr. Han was taken to the Xushui County Police Station, where officers interrogated and tortured him. They tied him to a bench, beat him with batons and shocked him with electric batons. They targeted his back and ankles, and used so much force that one of the batons actually broke on impact. That night, they also instigated criminal detainees to deprive Mr. Han of sleep.

The next day, they beat Mr. Han again, and then forced him to pack matchboxes. Officials did not allow his family to visit him. He was separated from other practitioners and put under constant video surveillance. He and other practitioners were also forced to work in the yard. Every time practitioners were taken away for questioning, they returned with wounds all over their bodies. Officers also coerced other detainees to viciously beat practitioners. Mr. Han went on a hunger strike for 21 days to protest the persecution. Criminal detainees forced him into the toilet and splashed cold water on his face, and beat him every time he would attempt to go to sleep.

Sentenced to 15 Years, Tortured in Prison

Mr. Han stopped his hunger strike when he received notice of a court hearing. In court, several practitioners asked for the DVD exposing the persecution to be played so that the facts about the persecution could be revealed, but the court refused. Practitioners subsequently received their sentences in October 2002. Mr. Han was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment and sent to the Baoding No.1 Prison. Seven days later, four practitioners, including Mr. Han, were transferred to the Hebei No.4 Prison.

Mr. Han was detained in the No. 4 Section, where the lead guard was Gao Junling. A few days after Mr. Han refused to do forced labour, he was sent to the brainwashing centre of the prison. There, he was subjected to brainwashing sessions every day. Three to four prisoners were assigned to monitor him. They forced him to sit on a small bench for long periods of time and beat him if he didn’t comply. Li Like, who was in charge of the brainwashing sessions, told the prisoners to beat him in the back and buttocks with sticks. The sticks broke from the beatings. They forced him to sit until midnight in order to deprive him of sleep, and then forced him to get up at 5 a.m. He was given only one small steamed bun for breakfast, two buns for lunch and two for dinner. His eyes became badly sunken due to the hunger. He was forced to pick up food that others had thrown out for nourishment.

In 2005, Han Weixin became seriously ill due to the persecution. The hospital informed him that his diabetes had returned. In 2006, he was found to have tuberculosis of the lungs, and was detained in a small yard for inmates with infectious diseases in the prison. By November 2008, his condition deteriorated further and became life-threatening. He could no longer take care of himself and was sent to the Shijiazhuang Hospital, where he was diagnosed with severe accumulation of fluids in the chest, partial lung failure, and rapid heart beat. By this time, he had also gone blind in his right eye and couldn’t digest any food. The prison didn’t want to pay the hospital fee, so they informed his family of his hospitalization, and Mr. Han’s wife, son, sister and brother-in-law came to the hospital to care for him. They were shocked to see the condition that he was in. He had been a strong man, but was just skin and bones at that point. The prison sent four guards to monitor him in the hospital and forbade people other than his family to visit him. Mr. Han’s family were forced to pay 20,000 yuan¹. They asked for his release on medical grounds three times, but were turned down each time by the prison.

On March 6th, 2009, the prison authorities informed the family that they could take Mr. Han home, as officials didn't want to take responsibility for the deterioration of Mr. Han's condition. Mr. Han's family took him home, but he has not recovered from the long-term persecution and his condition remains serious.

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/2011/1/25/235324.html