Chen Xuzhong from Jinchang City Gansu Province Arrested Again after Twice Being Persecuted in Forced Labour Camps

Name: Chen Xuzhong
Gender: Male
Age: 41
Address: Jinchang City, Gansu Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: November 15th, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Jinchang City Detention Centre
City: Jinchang
Province: Province
Persecution Suffered: Detention, home ransacking, being paraded on the street, forced labour, sleep deprivation, long-term standing, brainwashing, forced walking in a military posture, hanging by hands cuffed behind the back, solitary confinement.

Communist officials from Jinchang City Gansu Province arrested Falun Gong practitioner Chen Xuzhong at work at the Jinchang Power Supply Bureau on November 15th, 2011. Five officers from the National Security Division and the Binhelu Police Station participated in the arrest. This was the third time he has been arrested after serving five years of forced labour.

At about 6:00 p.m. on November 15th, Mr. Chen was arrested and his home was ransacked. His computer and mobile phone were confiscated. He was taken to the Binhelu Police Station and interrogated until midnight. He is innocent, and didn't “confess” to anything.

On November 16th, Mr. Chen was sent to the Jinchang Detention Centre. The related organization framed him. Binhe Road Police Station officers confiscated his ID card, driver's licence, bank cards, and keys (they were not listed on the confiscated property list).

On December 14th, approval for Mr. Chen's arrest was issued. At the same time, arrest approval was also given for two more practitioners, Yu Chenghong and Liu Zhiping. Jinchang Municipal Procuratorate took over this case.

Chen Xuzhong started practising Falun Gong in 1998. He benefited both physically and mentally. Since then he had lived according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.

Persecution at the First Forced Labour Camp in Gansu Province

In March 2002, practitioners distributed materials exposing the persecution of Falun Gong widely in the local areas. A total of about 50 practitioners were arrested. On March 24th, Peng Weiping, Political commissar of Yongchang County Public Security Bureau; Li Guoyu, from the Political and Security Department; along with guards, went to Mr Li's work unit. They didn't show any documents before searching his home and office, but found nothing. They ordered Mr. Chen to go with them and said that he would be all right. He believed them. As a result he was detained and sent to a forced labour camp and was held for three years.

On May 14th, a public gathering was held at the Yongchang Municipal Stadium. More than 20 practitioners with boards listing insults hanging around their necks were declared “arrested” and sent to forced labor camps. The stadium was filled with onlookers. Security guards bound the practitioners and forced them to kneel down to hear their verdicts. Mr. Chen was sentenced to three years of forced labour. The guards paraded the practitioners around and made 14 of them sign the verdicts as soon as the parade finished. Neither their employers nor their families were notified of the verdicts. The practitioners were forced into two vans and taken to the Gansu Provincial First Forced Labour Camp, which is located in Pingantai in the Honggu District, Lanzhou City.

In the forced labour camp, practitioners were separated and sent to one of seven divisions. Mr. Chen was in the fifth division. He was searched and his luggage was checked. Two drug addict inmates were assigned to follow him. He was not allowed to speak to anyone, especially other Falun Gong practitioners. Political instructor Li Zhenggang instigated team leader Ma Jingzhou (a drug addict) to torture Mr. Chen by depriving him of sleep for four days. They also forced him to stand for a long time. By midnight Mr. Chen was very sleepy and he started to sway back and forth. As soon as he closed his eyes, the inmates poked him awake. It was very agonizing. He was forced to do slave labour during the day, was not allowed any break during lunch time, and still had to stand at night. Mr. Chen's health deteriorated dramatically. He became traumatized and lost consciousness. The inmates said this method of torture was called “Let the eagle suffer,” and they learned it from the notorious Masanjia Forced Labour Camp in Liaoning Province. Practitioners were tortured like this until they broke down, gave in, or gave up their belief.

In May 2003, the labour camp tried to “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] practitioners collectively and launched another torture campaign. Team leader Li Wenhui made Mr. Li do the heavy work of manually pushing carts loaded with bricks during the day, and didn't allow him to sleep at night. This lasted for four days and nights.

In 2002 and 2003 the living conditions in the labour camp were extremely poor. Only one bucket of water was provided to each cell with about 20 people. Muddy water was provided for brushing teeth. Hot water was not boiled, and after drinking it, their bellies swelled up. Cold water was limited, and practitioners were only able to bathe once a month. Food was very poor and barely enough, while the workload was huge. There were no breaks during the day. After one day of slave labour, practitioners could hardly stand up up straight. In the harvest season they had to leave for work at 6:30 a.m. and didn't finish until 9:00 p.m., 13 or 14 hours. Their clothes were soaked with sweat again and again. Grains of salt crystallized when their clothes dried.

Their finger joints were painful after shovelling for a long time, and the practitioners couldn't extend their fingers, which curled into a fist. They had to do farm work, including planting corn and vegetables, weeding, and ploughing. The guards assigned jobs, demanded quick work, and didn't allow any breaks. Practitioners had to work harder than the peasants. Their jobs also included carrying bags of cement and sand, shoveling trenches, digging out seedlings, moving bricks by cart, and building with cement. The inmates' cheap labour earned income for the guards in the forced labour camp. The workload was very heavy and time was tight. The practitioners had to do hard labour that ordinary labourers were not willing to do. Digging trenches was such a hard job that after a day's work, the practitioners were dehydrated and dizzy. But the next day the were forced to continue digging trenches. They had to carry bricks by cart a long distance. Their feet blistered and their legs went into spasms. The next day they had to continue carrying bricks.

Mr. Chen was transferred to a cell in a new building in late 2003. The labour camp continued torturing Mr. Chen with hard labour and military training in an attempt to force him to give up his belief.

In March 2004, the labour camp sent all the practitioners to the sixteenth team under the Sixth Brigade (Falun Gong special team). In May the team tried to force practitioners to write the three statements promising to give up their beliefs. Mr. Chen didn't cooperate, so the deputy team leader instigated drug addict Hou Jun to torture Mr. Chen. He forced Mr. Chen to march and then stand for an entire night. Team leader Bian Yunsheng handcuffed Mr. Chen's arms behind his back and hung him up from the iron window bars by the handcuffs, with the tips of his toes barely touching the ground. His entire body weight was on his wrists. The handcuffs cut into his wrists. It was extremely painful every minute, and he was soaked in sweat. After some time he lost sensation in his arms. He was hung like this for an entire night, until the next morning. When he was released, he felt like his arms were not his. The scars left on the backs of his hands by the handcuffs didn't disappear until a year later. He was not able to lift heavy objects and felt sharp pain and numbness in his fingers before he gradually recovered after about six months.

Team leader Li Wenhui put Mr. Chen into solitary confinement for not giving up his belief. He was also deprived of sleep for six days and nights. His arms were handcuffed behind his back and attached to a heating pipe. He was not able to squat nor stand up. He felt numb in his legs after a short while, and he had to adjust his body and put weight on one leg and then on the other leg. But after some time both legs became numb. Every minute was torture. In order to transform practitioners, guards used the torture of “let the eagle suffer,” lifting up arms behind the back, handcuffing arms behind the back, and not allowing practitioners to use the toilet to torture practitioners.

Persecution in the First Labour Camp for a Second Time

On October 12th, 2006, Mr. Chen was sent to the Gansu Provincial First Forced Labour Camp for a second time. He was locked in solitary confinement in November for eight or nine days and was deprived of sleep. The persecutors brainwashed him. The person in charge of the persecution was political instructor Li Wenhui (guard number 6222238). In May 2007 criminal inmate Zhang Hongniu reported Mr. Chen to the guards and falsely accused him, so Mr. Chen was punished by being forced to stand for a long time every night, being brainwashed, and not being allowed to sleep until after midnight. This lasted for a week. Two other practitioners, Li Yuanji and Cao Qiang, were also punished because of Mr. Li. The person who instigated the persecution was team leader Han Ximing (guard number 6222219)

After 2007 the labour camp no longer forced practitioners to work so hard. Some of the guards had changed their attitude towards Fal;un Gong and practitioners. The labor camp launched the so-called “civilized management.” Because the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net) published these officials' evil doings, they had to restrain themselves somewhat. They used different methods at different times to persecute practitioners. Their basic evil nature didn't change, however. Their methods of torture were then not so violent, but more brainwashing tactics were used. When practitioners weren't working, they had to attend lectures, watch videos, and write reports. Those in charge kept brainwashing them and slandering Falun Gong. Periodically “criticizing meetings” were held, and Falun Gong practitioners were “transformed,” in attempts to break them from their beliefs. They were ordered to write “mind reports” and “study reports,” and to give their stance. They put newly-arrived practitioners in solitary confinement, intimidated them, and ordered them to write the “three statements” renouncing Falun Gong. Though on the surface the hard labour, beatings, curses, insults, and physical punishment were greatly reduced, and bullying and extortion became less, the persecution of determined practitioners was still very severe. Determined practitioners were put into solitary confinement and tortured secretly. Threats and intimidation, deceit, and brainwashing were used, as well as the “eagle suffering” torture, physical punishment, brutal beatings, and shocking with electric batons. Drug addict inmates instigated by the guards tortured practitioners unscrupulously. The labour camp persecuted practitioners systematically on a long-term basis.

In August 2008, Chen Xuzhong was released after having endured tremendous torture. When he went back to work, he was treated unfairly in his work unit. He was given a salary of only six hundred yuan¹ per month and worked in the administration area as a doorkeeper.

Related article:
“Ten Years of Persecution; Five Years a Captive (Photos)”

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/2012/1/3/251426.html