In the past eleven years, Mr. Qu Dehong, a Falun Gong practitioner from Yongan Town, Jidong County, Heilongjiang Province, was detained and tortured in prison by the Domestic Security Team of Jidong County. His wife was forced to divorce him, and his mother passed away. The following is Mr. Qu's personal account:
My name is Qu Dehong and I am forty-five years old. Prior to practising Falun Gong, I had a very bad temper. However, since practising, I have been trying to be a good person according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
1. Arrested in Beijing
On July 20th, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to defame and slander Falun Gong and its founder Mr. Li Hongzhi. Eleven local practitioners and I took the train to Beijing to appeal.
We finally arrived at Tiananmen Square when a plainclothes policeman came towards us. “Are you Falun Gong practitioners?” We replied, “Yes.” He then said, “Follow me, I will take you to the right place.” He took us to the Tiananmen Police Station.
We were held in an empty room, and not allowed to talk or use the toilet. The pain and suffering was so great that I could not describe it. Many practitioners were sent back to their hometowns, but I escaped from the police station and went back to Tiananmen Square again.
I saw many practitioners there and we talked to people about the facts of Falun Gong. However, we were reported to the police, and practitioner Mr. Sun Xiaohui and others were taken away.
In August 1999, many practitioners and I were having dinner at a restaurant in Beijing when officers from the local Domestic Security Team found us. Practitioner Ms. Wang Yuhong from Jiamusi City, Heilongjiang Province and I went to the train station in Beijing, where we were illegally arrested. They took away my mobile phone, and we were threatened and interrogated. I managed to escape from the train station and so did Ms. Wang after we were held for an entire night.
2. Tortured by officers of the Domestic Security Bureau
Simply going to Beijing did not appear to have an effect, so a few practitioners decided to write a joint letter to the authorities. About three thousand practitioners signed the letter. With the help of practitioners from Beijing University and Tsinghua University, the letter was translated into English and copied onto three CDs. One copy was sent overseas from Beijing and one was sent from Wuhan City. Mr. Zhang Pengqi and Mr. Zhang Yongqiang were going to take the other copy overseas from Beijing. However, Mr. Zhang Yongqi was arrested at the airport and the police also found another copy. Only one copy was successfully sent overseas. Xiao Yan, a ten-year-old practitioner, contributed a lot of effort during the process of sending one of the copies. Unfortunately, the police seized the mail as well as the names of the practitioners. Many practitioners were arrested, including Xiao Yan, who was held for twenty days.
The regime continued to escalate the persecution. Officers from local police stations went to Beijing to take practitioners back to their hometowns. Practitioner Ms. Wu Guangying from Yongan Town, Jidong County, was terribly beaten by policeman He Wenqing from Jidong Police Station, using a leather belt. Her body was black and blue after the beating. Then she became disabled and was sent back to the local police station in her hometown, where she was further persecuted.
Some practitioners in Beijing and I wanted to let the world know the facts, so we held a press conference, where practitioners shared their experiences with reporters from media overseas. We talked about the beauty of Falun Gong and the brutal persecution in China. They were shocked. On October 27th, CCP head Jiang Zemin slandered Falun Gong on television and the very next day, we held the press conference, which had a positive effect.
Since our phones and pagers were monitored as we prepared for the press conference, a reporter from Australia Daily, practitioner Lin Qing from Jiamusi City, and a practitioner from Beijing and I were arrested when we met up at the Beijing International Post Office around 9:00 a.m. on November 31st, 1999. Participating in the arrest were 20 agents from the State Security Bureau, who arrived in four vehicles. Our bodies were searched, and our phones and cash were seized. Then we were taken to the State Security Bureau Detention Centre, where we were interrogated by three agents. Only the agent in the middle asked us questions, and the person on each side made a written record. They called each other by number. The two on the sides had their own suitcases with a code. After the written record was put into the suitcase, the two exchanged their suitcases and the agent in the middle set up a code for each suitcase. When asked about my name, I refused to answer, so I was shackled to a metal chair. The walls of the interrogation room were made of foam and the floor was really soft. A man said, “You won't be able to kill yourself even if you want to. Everyone who is taken here should listen to us no matter who he is. Jiang Zemin told us to kill you guys.” He was around forty years old and had an accent from Northeast China. Another person said, “We don't need to have his name. Just tell him to keep standing there.” I was made to stand up facing a wall, with my back and the back of my head against the wall; my arms were lifted up, turned around, and my palms were made to touch the wall. The three agents collectively put me in this torture position. The physical pain is hard to describe with words. They kept changing torture methods until dawn, yet they didn't get any information from me. Eventually they were able to recognise me from a photo that was sent to them from the office.
The next morning, with my eyes covered, I was sent to the No. 7 Division of the Beijing Police Department, where Lin Qing and I were interrogated separately, non-stop. We were not allowed to sleep. I was not allowed to walk upstairs on my own; instead, two policemen carried me upstairs by my arms, with my feet barely touching the ground. Then they threw me on the floor in the pre-trial room, where I was bound to a metal chair. They threatened, “Do you know where you are now? The Beijing No. 7 Division! Few people can survive. We always deal with the 'big problems.'” There were two policemen. One was in his 30s and the other one was in his 20s. I was interrogated multiple times. Each time I was interrogated, I was sworn at and beaten. Once, they asked another policeman to help kick me. My body was bruised all over, my face was bleeding, and some of my hair was yanked out. I lost consciousness several times.
At the end of December, practitioners who were held in No. 7 Division were transferred to other detention centres. Those who were part of the press conference were sent to the Qiaozhuang Detention Centre in Tongzhou District. We were tortured badly. Practitioner Zhang Yongli from Jidong County was once shocked by 4-5 electric batons. On January 16th, 2000, six practitioners were sentenced, and I was sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment by the Tongzhou Court. I was transferred to the Tianhe Prison “Transfer Post” in February 2000, and transferred to Harbin Prison on April 18th, 2000.
3. Tortured in Harbin Prison
On April 19th, 2000, I was brought to Harbin Prison. Yang Jingang, head of the labour team in Harbin Prison, said, “You are the first Falun Gong practitioner here and you must be 'transformed' [forcibly renounce Falun Gong]. Don't talk to anyone today. Four criminals will continuously watch over you.” Whenever I was using the toilet and sleeping at night, there was always an inmate following me. Furthermore, they took notes of what I did every day and reported to the guards. All the packages that my family mailed to me were taken away. Guard Gong Dawei ordered Yang Jingang to make me stand for a long time and sit on a small chair.
On August 20th, 2001, I was transferred to the Second Team, where team leader Zhang Xuebin ordered two inmates to follow me all the time. One day, I was talking with someone about the facts of Falun Gong when Zhang Xuebin told me to go to his office. He said, “Do not talk about anything related to Falun Gong any more.” I replied, “Falun Gong is good. I am telling you the truth.” He was so angry that he kicked me in the groin. It hurt so much that I could not move, and then I was slapped by two guards.
In the winter of 2001, guard Zhan Yinqing ordered two criminals to monitor and torture me because I refused to do forced labour. I was only in shorts and a T-shirt despite the cold weather. I was given only two and a half spoons of corn soup every day and I was held there for an entire month.
In the winter of 2002, I was reported when I gave fellow practitioner Bu Dongwei some recent Falun Gong lectures. I was then confined in a solitary confinement cell by prison deputy head Yang Jiangyun. I was only given a flimsy piece of cotton cloth to sleep with and given two spoons of corn soup a day. I was often interrogated by Zhang Xuebin, “If you tell me where you got your Falun Gong lectures, I will set you free.” I refused to tell them, so I was tortured more seriously. On the tenth day, I was in critical condition, so the prison doctor took me to the hospital, where I stayed for sixteen days before my physical condition was stable.
In 2003, right before I was set free, Chen Shuhai, a 610 Office member (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong), locked me up in a small cell. Several guards threatened me with electric batons, handcuffs, and a metal chain. However, I refused to write the three statements to renounce practising Falun Gong. The next day, four guards, including Chen Shuhai, put handcuffs on me and sent me to the local police station.
4. Tortured by the Domestic Security Team in Jidong County
On October 27th, 2004, twenty policemen from Yongan Police Station and the Domestic Security Team of Jidong County arrested practitioner Zhang Yongli and me. At about 6:00 p.m., Huang and Li from the Yongan Police Station, along with another ten officers, came and ransacked my home.
I was held on the fifth floor of the Jidong Police Department, where the deputy head ordered thug Yu Hongjun to torture me. He said, “It is so easy for me to kill you. It is like killing a chick. I don't want money because I have enough money. I only want political achievements.” Then two policemen, He Wenqing and Cui Guangri, took off my shoes and socks, and started to beat me with a length of rubber tube. My feet were swollen and became black and blue. Then Yu Hongjun used an awl to stab me.
Ten policemen held me down when He Wenqing used a rubber tube filled with cement to beat me. I could even hear the sound when it impacted my bones. The cement was scattered all over on the ground. I cannot use words to describe how painful it was. I lost consciousness multiple times. Then they poured cold water onto my body until I woke up. I did not say a word. He Wenqing also took my wide leather belt, dipped it in water, and beat my back. Whenever I was unconscious, they used cold water to wake me up. They also tied my hair on a high stand. My eyes were kept opened with matchsticks and tape, and they used an awl to stab me all over my body. A deputy police chief came over with a prison doctor and said, “Do not let him die.” Yu Hongjun said to me, “You will not die even if you want to. We have the doctor to control the situation, we just want to make you suffer.”
5. Injected with drugs
I was forced to take in a bottle of water laced with drugs. I was dragged over and Yu stepped on my head and shoulders, and stabbed a broom handle into my mouth. The police also used a water sprayer to fill my ears with water. I became unconscious as a result of the drugs.
One night in November, the guards tried to deceive me with biscuits and fruit, but it did not work. Then Cui Guangri put a very thick book on my chest and hit my body. They also used a lit cigarette to burn my hands. When they were tired, they said, “All right, give him some water.” I did not realise that there were drugs in the water. On another day, Sun and Yu asked me, “On that day when you and another person went to pass out flyers, you dropped someone off from the car. Who was that person?” I refused to tell them, so Sun used my leather belt to whip my hands until the belt broke in two.
On May 13th, 2005, I, along with eleven practitioners in the detention centre, started a hunger strike. We demanded to be set free immediately. The guards then forced food into our mouths. All the male practitioners were beaten with the rubber tube. Practitioner Liu Haiqiu was beaten by Ma and another guard hundreds of times with the rubber tube. They put a feeding tube into my nose to force-feed me. Additionally, they added a lot of salt into the milk. I was shackled to a metal ring on the ground and only when they force-fed me, did I have the chance to be taken out of the room. However, every time when they took me out, the guards purposely slammed me into the door's metal part. My back was often black and blue. Eventually they asked my family for ten thousand yuan1 in order to release me. But my family did not have that much money. On July 5th, they sent me to the hospital of the Bureau of Justice. The criminals in the hospital used a metal spoon to open my mouth and force-fed me. My nose was bleeding and my eyes were also injured. Furthermore, they poured a lot of water onto my bed cover so that I could only lie on a wet bed. I continued the hunger strike, and the guards later sent me back to the detention centre.
Wang Yanhuo, deputy head of the detention centre who went to the hospital to take me back, said to the two inmates, “You don't need to lift him. Just put him on the ground and drag him back, since there is some distance to the car.” My body was bloody and my clothes were stuck to my body from the dragging. After we got back to the detention centre, two guards put hot mustard oil into my nose and I almost choked to death. When I regained consciousness, they did it again. Moreover, they put the oil on my private parts, and I was in severe pain.
After three days, Ni Peng and Wang Yanguo plotted to have me undergo further persecution. They said, “He will be set free tomorrow, so if we really want to do it, we should do it tonight.” They used two ropes to tie me up. Two criminals pushed my head back and poured cold water onto my face continuously. I nearly choked to death.
But instead of being set free the next day, I was sentenced to an additional six years' imprisonment.
6. My six hellish years in Jiamusi Prison
On April 5th, 2006, three practitioners and I were sent to the Mudanjiang City Training Team, where we were held for two months. In June, I was transferred to Mudanjiang Prison. I said to team head Wang Dexiang, “I am not a criminal, nor did I break the law. I cannot work for such an evil party which persecutes innocent people.” I started a hunger strike. Three days later, the prison doctors and guards began to force-feed me. They put a lot of salt into the milk. On the eighth day, I was in critical condition when the guards took me to the hospital where I was given an IV.
Cao Jianwu, deputy head of the Reformation Division, requested that my family come to persuade me to do the forced labour, but I refused. After I was sent back to prison, Liu Huan did not allow me to have meals with other practitioners. One day, he discovered that I was doing the Falun Gong exercises with other practitioners. He and Chen Xiqiang whipped my shoulder with a rubber tube.
In 2007, I was transferred to the No. 4 Ward, where Zhang Zhenlu ordered inmates to swear at and beat practitioners.
In 2009, I was sent to the No. 9 Ward, where Liu Wenge did not allow practitioners to purchase groceries or leave the hallway.
7. My family harassed by the CCP
In 2003, on the 50th day after I returned home, policemen from Yongan Police Station broke into my home and told me to write the “three statements.” I refused. My mother Zhang Shiqing was in the middle of getting an IV when the policemen came. She was so petrified from the experience that the anxiety contributed to her passing away twenty days later. In the autumn of 2004, I was arrested, and the policemen threatened me by saying that my child would not be allowed to go to college. In the end of October 2005, court officials told me to divorce my wife Zhang Yongli, also a practitioner, but I refused. They said, “It is not up to you, you must divorce her.”
Had I not experienced the persecution myself, I could have never imagined how brutally the Communist Party persecutes Falun Gong.
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/2010/12/25/234070.html
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