Release my Eldest Brother, Peng Liang, Unconditionally

The new year is coming and everyone else is preparing for New Year celebrations, but my family was torn apart by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) because of our belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Five of us have been arrested, sent to forced labour camps, and sentenced by the Wuhan 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) many times. My mother and my second elder brother were persecuted to death; my father developed a mental disorder due to the persecution and was recently released from a two-month arrest; I was sentenced to three years' imprisonment when I was 22 years old. My eldest brother, Peng Liang, was seized on December 13, 2010. He was detained for 15 days and then sent to Yangyuan Brainwashing Centre in the Wuchang District, Wuhan City. He has not yet been released.

My eldest brother, Peng Liang, has been arrested many times. He was persecuted to the brink of death three times. At the end of 2001, he was rescued from death by Tongji Hospital after being arrested and tortured. In 2002, he was taken against his will to Yangyuan Brainwashing Centre. In 2008, he was detained in Hewan Forced Labour Camp. This time, I am not sure if he will come back alive.

In today’s society where the craving for material things never seems to be satisfied, my family is rare in that we maintain high moral standards. My eldest brother, Peng Liang, is a good man.

My eldest brother started practising Falun Gong in 1997. He became not only virtuous but also healthy both mentally and physically. He is compassionate, hard-working, and responsible. He never gives a thought to personal gains or losses. No matter what kind of unfairness he encounters, he just faces it with a smile without caring much about it. He has always been very considerate. Once he was doing some construction work in an apartment on the seventh floor to waterproof the walls. He had to work outside with only a rope holding him up, applying concrete to the wall, and then he had to apply the waterproofing.

You can imagine what a big project this was. However, after he finished the work, the owner of the apartment refused to pay him. He said he needed to see whether the work was good enough and he would pay my brother if, after a few heavy rains, there was no water in the wall. My brother agreed without saying anything. After two months, he went to see the owner for payment. However, the owner said the rains had not been heavy enough for him to know how well the work was done. He would not pay until he was satisfied. However, during those two month, it had rained heavily a few times. It was obvious that the owner did not intend to pay. My brother did not say anything, and he did not seek out the owner anymore to ask to be paid.

Every time I saw him working so hard for others while getting nothing in return, I felt angry and sad. But he always said, “It was just a little bit of work and hardship. It does not matter at all.” Whenever our friends, neighbours, or relatives needed help, he would try his best to help them but never asked for anything in return. He felt happy as long as he could help others.

On July 20th, 1999, the CCP started persecuting Falun Gong. Because my family has been distributing leaflets exposing the persecution and telling people the facts about Falun Gong for the past 11 years, we have suffered: Our property has been confiscated, and we have been detained and sentenced to forced labour camps. Two of my family members were persecuted to death.

On February 26th, 2000, my second elder brother was taken to the detention centre in Qingling Township in the Wuchang District for almost a year. He was tortured beyond description. In the harsh winter, he was forced to drink icy water and take cold baths. The director of the detention centre, Xiong Jihua, often instigated a gang of prisoners to beat him.

Instigated by director Xiong Jihua and guards, the prisoners used all kinds of cruel ways to torture my brother. One of the things they did was “setting off fireworks.” Prisoners held his head and hit it so hard against the wall that it sounded as loud as a firecracker popping. My brother almost fainted from the pain and had severe lumps and blisters on the back of his head. Another torture was called “head struck by thunder.” Prisoners punched my brother on his forehead five times, and each time the sound was as loud as a thunder clap. Then there was “kicking the heart firmly.” Prisoners kicked my brother really hard seven times on his chest and eight times on his back. In detention, my brother was often held down by 15 to 16 prisoners on a plank bed with his trousers stripped off while they beat him brutally with shoes with plastic heels. In August and September 2000, he developed two pustules about 13-15cm on his body and his left leg. The detention centre refused to have him treated. Moreover, guard Zhu Donghan even instigated prisoners to further torture him. More than ten prisoners squeezed the pustules on his body in turn, which caused him so much pain that he thrashed in agony and could not fall asleep for a whole month.

On January 9th, 2001, after being abused and beaten viciously by police officers and more than ten prisoners for a whole day, Peng Min’s arms and legs and his fifth vertebrae were fractured. His whole body was almost torn apart and he lost his consciousness. After being taken to the Third Hospital, he regained consciousness but was entirely paralysed. Our mother, Li Xiuyin, then took him home. He kept practising Falun Gong and gradually recovered. However, again he was seized by the 610 Office and the national security team of the Public Security Division in the Wuchang District and taken to the Seventh Hospital in Wuhan City. He was isolated in the hospital and received no treatment. On the morning of April 5th, 2001, he was injected with unknown drugs against his will. He died early in the morning on April 6th, around one o’clock. His body was cremated at around ten that morning. Our family was not informed beforehand. While he was in the hospital, our father was taken from Hewan Forced Labour Camp to see my brother for the last time. Afterwards he was immediately taken back to the labour camp. I was detained in the No. 1 Detention Centre in Wuhan City at the time, entirely unaware of his death.

After my second elder brother was cremated, my eldest brother, Peng Liang, and my mother were picked up by the 610 Office and the national security team of the Public Security Division in the Wuchang District. They were taken to Hongxia Brainwashing Centre in Qingling Township in the Wuchang District to be “transformed” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong]. My mother did not eat for several days and developed a fever. She was beaten viciously by four policemen. As the first-hand witness of my second elder brother’s death, my mother was deprived of personal freedom. During her detention, she stated that the police had persecuted my brother to death and she would remember and record their crimes. In order to get rid of a witness, 22 days after my second elder brother’s death, my mother was beaten to death.

After my mother passed away, the program “Focus,” aired by CCTV, fabricated a story that my brother died because he refused to see a doctor and my mother died from a sudden stroke. After my mother died, her body was cremated by the police when it was still warm. At noon the day my mother died, the Wuchang District Procuratorate sent me an indictment, saying, “There is no place for you to stay here, so we will move you somewhere else.” I was sentenced to three years in prison and tortured in Wuhan Woman’s Prison.

The persecution has lasted for over a decade. Life for our family is still far from normal. My mother and one of my brothers cannot be buried and my eldest brother is still in prison. During the last 11 years of persecution, have those people who were promoted by stepping on our blood ever thought about my five family members, two of whom were killed and one who lost his sanity as a result of torture? Now they have thrown my eldest brother, an innocent man, into the Yangyuan Brainwashing Centre in the Wuchang District. Why have they treated us so cruelly?

A normal government arrests those who are corrupt, murderers, arsonists, robbers, kidnappers, etc. Why did they arrest us who believe in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance? They persecute us in such an inhumane way.

I demand the release of my brother, Peng Liang!

Please, those who have integrity and conscience, help us!

Peng Yan

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/1/26/235351.html