Director of Retirement Home Dies as a Result of Persecution in Panjin Prison, Liaoning Province

Name: Fan Zhenguo
Gender: Male
Age: 50
Address: Tianshenghao Township, Lingyuan City
Occupation: Director of a retirement Home
Date of Death: September 11th, 2011
Date of Most Recent Arrest: July 29th, 2008
Most Recent Place of Detention: Panjin Prison
City: Lingyuan
Province: Liaoning
Persecution Suffered: beatings, imprisonment

Mr. Fan Zhenguo, previously the director of Tianshenghao Retirement Home, was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2008 for practising Falun Gong. Some three years later, on September 11th, 2011, he died as a result of persecution in Panjin Prison at the age of 50. On September 13th, prison authorities forced his family to cremate his body.

Mr. Fan was arrested several times for practising Falun Gong after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution in July 1999. On June 28th, 2000, while he was watching TV with around a dozen other people, Mr. Fan was arrested by Sanjiazi Town police. He was detained for eleven days and was dismissed from his post as the director of Tianshenghao Retirement Home.

In February 2007, Mr. Fan was arrested by Sihedang Town police officers for putting up banners that exposed the truth of the persecution about Falun Gong. He was interrogated for two hours. On July 20th, Sihedang Town police and Sanjiazi Town police went to Mr. Fan's home and attempted to arrest him. Mr. Fan managed to escape. In November, officers from the Lingyuan Domestic Security Division went to Mr. Fan's home and attempted to take him away, but failed to do so.

On the night of July 19th, 2008, about ten practitioners from the towns of Sanjiazi and Tianshenghao were distributing Falun Gong materials in the Pingfangzi and Taohuachi areas of Kazuo County. When they were about to drive back, around 1:30 a.m., they were stopped by police from Pingfangzi Police Station.
The director of the police substation, Wang Xiaofeng, took out a gun, while another policeman held an electric baton and forced the practitioners' car door open. They found literature exposing the persecution and forced everyone to get out of the car and get into the police cars. The officers held his head down so that Mr. Fan could not talk. Afterwards, two police cars took the ten practitioners to Pingfangzi Police Station.

Mr. Fan climbed over the fence of the police station and escaped. The police conducted three searches, but didn't find him.

On July 29th, under the command of Wang Xishan, the Communist Party committee secretary of Sanjiazi Township, Lingyuan City, Li Bin and Li Qin teamed up with police from Pingfangzi Police Station to arrest Mr. Fan. The police broke into Mr. Fan's home and arrested him. The police beat Mr. Fan, threw him to the ground, and stomped on his head. Mr. Fan was later severely beaten at Sanjiazi Police Station.

Four months later, Mr. Fan was secretly sentenced to eight years in prison, and was incarcerated in Panjin Prison. While in prison, he was subjected to forced labour, and he lost consciousness several times due to abuse.

Mr. Fan became unconscious for the last time at around 7:40 p.m. on September 11th, 2011. He was sent to the prison hospital and was later hurried to the Lingyuan City No.2 Hospital. He died at 9:40 p.m. that night. The prison authorities sent a text message to Mr. Fan's wife at 12:45 a.m.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/9/18/246885.html