Falun Gong Practitioner's Elderly Parents Arrested For Trying to Rescue Their Son

Name: Zhou Xiangyang
Gender: Male
Age: 38
Address: Tangshan, Hebei Province
Occupation: Engineer at Third Tianjin Railway Survey & Design Institute Group in Tianjin
Date of Most Recent Arrest: March 5th, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Binhai Prison (formerly Gangbei Prison)
City: Tianjin
Persecution Suffered: Interrogation, detention, imprisonment, forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, torture, hanging by handcuffs, shocked with electric batons, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, forced-feedings, physical restraint, denied toilet use

March 16th was visitation day for Binghai Prison, formerly known as Gangbei Prison.

Zhou Xiangyang's parents, wearing clothes covered in writing requesting release of their son, arrived at the prison gate on their tractor at 8:30 in the morning. The elderly couple was telling passersby about their concern for their son's situation.

At 9:00 a.m., a number of guards came out of the prison, three holding long batons, and began circling the old couple. They videotaped them, and drove the couple's relatives and friends away.

At around 10:00 a.m., a dozen guards dragged them into the prison. Their tractor was also driven into the prison yard. That afternoon, the guards took them to Changli Brainwashing Centre.

Zhou Xiangyang, an engineer for the Tianjin Third Exploration and Design Institute, was arrested in May 2003, and eventually sentenced to nine years in Tianjin Gangbei Prison, where he was badly tortured, beaten black and blue at night, not allowed to sleep for 30 consecutive days, and even chained and locked in a small cabin on several occasions., He was once tortured by a guard named Zhang Shilin for four months. Zhou went on a hunger strike for over a year to protest the maltreatment. He was treated at the Xinsheng Hospital in April 2009 and taken to the prison hospital in May. Due to his extremely weak condition, he was medically paroled on July 28th, 2009.

On March 5th, 2011, Zhou Xianyang was again arrested and jailed. He again went on a hunger strike. On January 16th, 2012, after not eating for approximately 330 days, he was taken to Xinsheng Hospital for emergency treatment. Because of his extremely weak condition, he was unable to accept food or receive infusions. He had faecal incontinence, a pulse of 40 beats per minute, was unable to walk, and was on the verge of dying.

Repeated requests to take Zhou Xianyang home so he could be nursed back to health were denied. Xianyang's parents, on January 16th, drove their tractor to Binhai Prison in Tianjin City, a trip that took one and a half days. On their clothing they had written their complaints and a request for their son's release, as they stood at the gate waiting for an answer from prison authorities. On the third night, Zhou Xianyang's parents were dragged out of their tractor by about 20 prison guards, and taken in an ambulance to the Changli Brainwashing Centre. Eventually, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agents took them back to their home town.

Related report: http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2012/2/25/131747.html