The Persecution Experienced by Older Falun Gong Practitioner Mr. Lei Anxiang Since 1999

Name: Lei Anxiang
Gender: Male
Age: Sixties
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Key technician at Chenzhou City Air Conditioner Manufacturing
Date of Most Recent Arrest: June 7th, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Jingshi City Prizon, Hunan Province
City: Chenzhou
Province: Hunan
Persecution Suffered: Forced labour, beatings, imprisonment, torture

Because he persists in practising Falun Gong, Mr. Lei Anxiang has been arrested and detained several times in the past 12 years. He has been subjected to forced labour twice and sentenced to jail once. He has been detained for a total of approximately eight years, during which time he was subjected to brutal torture. The following are details of the persecution to which he was subjected.

Mr. Lei Anxiang worked as a key technician at Chenzhou City Air Conditioner Manufacturing. He is now in his sixties. He started to practise Falun Gong in April 1995 and soon recovered from multiple diseases, including bone proliferation, arthritis, and tracheitis.

When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, Mr. Lei went to Beijing to appeal. He was arrested and detained in Beijing Stadium along with ten thousand other practitioners.

Mr. Lei was arrested on May 9th, 2000, while he and several other fellow practitioners practised the exercises at Dongfeng Square, in Chenzhou City. Dozens of practitioners were arrested at the group practice site that day. Mr. Lei was detained in the Chenzhou City No. 2 Detention Centre for 56 days and was brutally beaten.

Mr. Lei was arrested again on December 20th, 2000, after posting posters exposing the persecution of Falun Gong. He was detained in the No. 2 Detention Centre for more than six months, and was then subjected to two years of forced labour. He was sent to Xinkaipu Forced Labour Camp in Changsha City, Hunan Province. Upon his arrival, the inmates were instigated by the guards, and viciously beat him.

In Guangzhou City Shifeng Police Station – Five Ribs Broken and Internal Organs Injured

On the afternoon of October 24th, 2004, when Mr. Lei was posting posters exposing the persecution of Falun Gong on Chifeng East Street, in Guangzhou City, he was arrested by police from the Chifeng Police Station. While his hands were cuffed together, several officers beat him hard before they dragged him to the police car.

While held at the Chifeng Police Station, Lei was beaten again to the point where his life was in danger. During a medical examination, the doctor stated that his internal organs were injured and five of his ribs were broken. He asked the doctor to allow him to do the meditation exercise. While in the hospital he serenely meditated for three days, and without any medical treatment his condition improved and his life was no longer in danger. Two months later he had almost fully recovered.

Tortured in Guangzhou Forced Labour Camp – Legs Pressed with Wooden Boards and Fingers Crushed

Three months later, Mr. Lei was sent to the Guangzhou City No. 1 Forced Labour Camp and later to Guangzhou City No. 3 Forced Labour Camp. In order for the CCP to achieve its 100% "transformation rate," each practitioner in the forced labour camp was detained in a cell and surrounded by several inmates. Instigated by labour camp guards, the inmates attacked and tortured the practitioners. When Mr. Lei was brought in, the guard threatened him, saying, "You will surely be killed here if you don't give in." Then he ordered five or six inmates to beat and torture Lei. They kicked and punched him. He was forced to kneel down on the ground. They put a wooden board on top of his lower legs and rolled and pressed down on them. As a result, the skin on his legs was torn off and the flesh was ripped open.

One day, six or seven inmates tortured him again. They held him tight and shoved a towel into his mouth so that he could not cry out. They inserted a pencil between his right index finger and middle finger and kept turning it while pressing his fingers together forcefully. Eventually, his fingers were broken open and the bones stuck out.

On May 8th, 2005, Mr. Lei was also brutally beaten by an evil guard named Bi. Zhang Liangwei and Wang Deming also often tortured the practitioners using methods such as forcing them to sit on a small stool for days without moving, using wooden boards to press their lower legs, puncturing their legs with needles, burning their flesh with cigarette butts, as well as other methods.

In Jingshi City Prison – Beatings, Sun Exposure, and Handcuffed Day and Night

Mr. Lei was arrested on May 9th, 2008 by officers from the Chenzhou City 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) and Chenzhou Police Department, and was detained at the Chenzhou Detention Centre. He was beaten at the detention centre and his head bled profusely.

Mr. Lei was sentenced to three years in jail by the Beihu District Court on August 20th, 2008. He was detained in the No. 5 Ward of Jingshi City Prison. Three inmates were arranged to monitor him around the clock.

In January 2009, because he refused to do slave labour, prison guard He Xuanzhi beat him, causing a big cut on his head.

On June 20th, 2009, when Mr. Lei was reciting Master's articles, guard Zhan Jianhua began kicking and punching him. Due to the beating, his face became swollen. Guard Zhan called several inmates over and told them to continue beating him. After the beating, Mr. Lei was forced to stand in the burning sun for six to seven hours. He was then subjected to another round of beatings, and then handcuffed to a railing outside for three days and nights. His entire body was covered with mosquito bites.

On the night of January 7th, 2010, because Mr. Lei refused to kneel down to the guard to answer the roll call, guard Li Renwei slapped his face and called two others, one of whom was Liu Yiguang, to beat him. His right knee became so swollen due to the beatings that he was unable to walk, and he had to be carried.

Sent to a Forced Brainwashing Centre

On June 7th, 2011, less than one month after Mr. Lei was released from Jingshi Prison, four police officers from Chenzhou City came to his home and demanded that he go to a forced brainwashing centre. He refused. His son-in-law was ordered by the police to trick Lei and take him to the brainwashing centre. The police car followed behind their car at a distance. When their car neared the brainwashing centre, Mr. Lei realised where they were and jumped out of the moving car. When the police surrounded him, he held tightly to a metal wire fence along the road and called loudly, "Falun Gong is good." He called out for two hours while police tried to take him off the fence. He continued clinging to the fence even though his fingers were bleeding and the wires of the metal fence were cutting through them. The police cut the fence and took him to the brainwashing centre. He started a hunger strike to protest and was released eight days later.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2012/2/6/252762.html