The Chinese Communist Party’s Persecution of Practitioners Who Work in Engineering

In China, practitioners of Falun Gong come from all walks of life and a number of them are engineers who are experts in their respective fields. Having improved their health and elevated their morality through practising Falun Gong, these engineer practitioners are hard-working and responsible employees, but they are being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) simply because of their belief. Below are some representative cases.

Two Cases from Tianjin

Mr. Huang Liqiao was an engineer and important technical employee at the Tianjin Seamless Steel Pipe Company. He suffered from neurasthenia from a young age and often woke up from nightmares. After he took up the practice of Falun Gong in 1996, his health greatly improved and he was deeply grateful to Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong.

Since 2000, because he has refused to give up practising Falun Gong, Mr. Huang has been detained in a forced labour camp three times for a total of seven years. In the labour camp, he was tortured with electric batons; beaten with a wooden club, had his limbs forcefully stretched on what is called a tiger bench, and was hung up by handcuffs. In addition, he was deprived of sleep for long periods of time and forced to sleep naked on a wooden bed without a blanket in the winter. The guards poured cold water on him with the windows wide open, and in the summer he was covered with a heavy insulated quilt.

The last time Mr. Huang was sent to a labour camp in 2008, his company terminated his employment.

Ms. Li Yanxia, from Tanggu in Tianjin, worked as an architect with Offshore Oil Engineering Co. Ltd. and had led many company projects. After she started to practise Falun Gong, she took the initiative to take on projects with heavy responsibilities and tight deadlines. She often had to go on business trips. Her husband was very supportive of her job, as well as her practising Falun Gong. She also had a daughter and had a happy family life.

Ms. Li was first sentenced to prison soon after the persecution began in 1999. On September 30, 1999, she went to appeal in Beijing and was brought back to the Tanggu Detention Centre. After being detained for eight months, she was sentenced to a suspended three-year prison term.

On February 15th, 2001, Ms. Li’s employer took her to the Tanggu District Brainwashing Centre against her will. Three months later, she was again arrested and sent to prison, enforcing the previous suspended sentence. When she was released in September 2003, she was fired from her job.

At around 3:00 p.m. on January 13th, 2011, Ms. Li was arrested by officers from the Tanggu Domestic Security Division and taken to a detention centre where she was detained for six months. Without informing her family, the court sentenced Ms. Li to four years in prison. This is the second time she has been sentenced.

Three Cases from Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province

Ms. Liu Kaimei, born in 1966, was a construction engineer at the Nanjing City Gulou District Education Bureau. Her husband, Mr. Zhang Xuefeng, was born in 1965 and was formerly an official at the Department of Civil Engineering at Nanjing University of Technology. They live in Wushuo Village, Jianning Road, Xiaguan District in Nanjing. They have been arrested numerous times and were fired from their jobs because they practise Falun Gong.

Ms. Liu and Mr. Zhang were last arrested at home on May 16th, 2011. Mr. Zhang was held at the Xiaguan District Detention Centre, and was later sentenced to eighteen months in Fangqiang Forced Labour Camp. Ms. Liu was taken to Nanjing Detention Centre, and was later sentenced to one year in Judong Women’s Forced Labour Camp in Jiangsu Province. Officials at the camp refused to admit Ms. Liu five times due to her poor health. However, the authorities did not allow her to seek medical treatment. Ms. Liu held a hunger strike to protest her treatment and later suffered cardiac arrest. The authorities later forced officials at the labour camp to admit her.

The arrest of the couple left Ms. Liu’s elderly parents and her young child with nobody to take care of them. Her father suffers from memory loss and her mother is in poor health.

Ms. Zhang Aidong, a 60-year-old engineer at the Nanjing Fourteenth Research Institute, was arrested at her home by officers from the Nanjing City 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong), Gulou District 610 Office, Jiangdongmen Police Department, the sub-district office and the community management office at 8:00 a.m. on September 14th, 2011. They ransacked her home and confiscated a computer, Falun Gong books, an MP3 player and other personal belongings. Ms. Zhang is currently being held at Gulou Brainwashing Centre.

This is Ms. Zhang’s seventh arrest since the persecution of Falun Gong began. She was taken to Judong Women’s Forced Labour Camp in Jiangsu Province three times: in 2000, July 2005, and September 2009. The last time that Ms. Zhang was released was at the beginning of 2010.

One Case from Shanghai

Mr. Zhang Qin was a key engineer at Shengde Plastic Ltd. in Shanghai. He was head of the Quality Control Section and a general engineer. Since the CCP started to persecute Falun Gong in July 1999, Mr. Zhang has been arrested many times.

On June 5th, 2009, police officers from Xuhui District arrested Mr. Zhang. It was the sixth time he had been arrested. On March 31st, 2010, he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Although he said he would appeal, the Intermediate People’s Court did not review his case and just issued a “final decision.” He was soon secretly transferred to Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai and his family didn’t find out his whereabouts until October 2010.

One Case from Beijing

Mr. Liu Yongwang, in his late 30s, was once a department manager and chief engineer of a foreign company prior to his arrest.

Mr. Liu was sent to Jidong Prison in Tangshan City on June 16th, 2006 to serve an eight-year term. During his detention, prison guard Zheng Yajun once locked him up in a room on the top floor for a total of eight months. Every day, six inmates were assigned to torture him with whatever methods they could devise. Under the incitement and protection from guard Zheng Yajun, these inmates’ activities were so obscene that it would be hard for people to accept.

Mr. Liu’s wife Ms. Qi Shuying was an instructor at the Baoding College Department of Physical Education. She was arrested on the night of October 7th, 2011. The couple has a daughter in grade 7 who has been left behind, alone at home.

One Case from Kunming City, Yunnan Province

Mr. Li Peigao, 77, was an engineer at Jiangong Installation Private Ltd. in Yunnan Province. Before he began practising Falun Gong, he suffered from an enlarged prostate gland, colitis, and other illnesses. He felt cold all the time, and even on hot days he needed to wear several layers of clothing. Climbing the stairs to his apartment left him winded. After he started practising Falun Gong in 1994, he learned the real purpose of life and embarked on the path of cultivation. All the symptoms of his illnesses subsequently disappeared.

Mr. Li was arrested by the police before the 2008 Olympics in China. On April 2nd, 2009, he was sentenced to three years of imprisonment and subsequently sent to the Fifth Prison Ward of Yunan Province No. 1 Prison. He was released in January 2011 before the Chinese New Year.

One Case from Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province

Mr. Hu Chunqing, 50, is a civil engineer who designs and builds roads and bridges. After he started practising Falun Gong in 1997, all his illnesses went away without a trace. During the 12-year, persecution of Falun Gong by the CCP, Mr. Hu was sentenced to a forced labour camp for a term of two years. He never gave up his belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. In the forced labour camp, he was brutally tortured. The officers deprived him of sleep for a period of nine days by forcing him to stand outside in the freezing cold. They poured cold water over him and then shocked him with electric batons. They also pushed his head into the toilet and force-fed him urine.

One Case from Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province

Mr. Li Yequan, 38, was an engineer at the Bullet Factory at Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province. He started practising Falun Gong in September 1996 and has since been living by the principles of Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance. He had been well recognised as an exceptional cadre at the factory.

After the persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999, Mr. Li suffered mentally, physically and economically. His family suffered, and his work unit also experienced huge losses for not being able to use a technical expert like him. He has been imprisoned, detained, and sent to forced labour camps and brainwashing centres, as well as extorted financially and tortured brutally.

On March 17th, 2006, Mr. Li was transferred to the Suihua City Forced Labour Camp, which was designated as the Falun Gong “Transformation” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] Centre for Heilongjiang Province. He went on a hunger strike to protest, and the labour camp finally released him after seeing he was on the verge of death.

While Mr. Li suffered from repeated detentions and mistreatment, his company removed him from his position and transferred him to the “Office of Elderly Employees” to work as a custodian. On the morning of August 16th, 2011, Mr. Li was working when a group of people led by Zheng Dongsheng (610 Office head of his company) and Kan Deping (Security Department Secretary of Daqing Oil Field Equipment Manufacturing Group) arrested him and sent him to Wuchang Brainwashing Centre.

Concluding Remarks

The above are just excerpts from published Clearwisdom reports on engineer practitioners who were repeatedly sentenced and/or sent to labour camps and brainwashing centres.

Despite the brutal persecution, these engineers held firm to their belief and took every opportunity to tell people how they improved their health and elevated their morality through the practice of Falun Gong. It is important to expose the lies that the CCP has fabricated against Falun Gong. These practitioners were simply exercising their rights of freedom of belief and speech, as granted by the Chinese Constitution. The regime is circumventing the law as an excuse to suppress honourable citizens.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/10/23/247980.html