Persecution Suffered by Mr. Li Zhenxing from Baoding City, Hebei Province

Name: Li Zhenxing
Gender: Male
Age: 31
Address: Daxingzhuang Village, Xiantai, Gaokai District, Baoding City, Hebei Province
Occupation: Pipe Welder
Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 7th, 2008
Most Recent Place of Detention: Balizhuang Labour Camp, Baoding City
City: Baoding
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: Shocked with electric batons, sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, hung up, imprisonment, solitary confinement, torture, physical restraint, home ransacked, interrogation, detention

Li Zhenxing was born in October 1981. He is from Daxingzhuang Village in Xiantai, Gaokai District, Baoding City, Hebei Province. The following, in his own words, is Mr. Li's experience of being arrested, tortured, and sent to a forced labour camp:

* * *

In January 2004, I read the Falun Gong book Zhuan Falun. My heart was filled with indescribable joy. Later at work, when the accountant gave me 800 yuan¹ more than what I should be paid, I returned the extra money on the spot. I would not have done so if I did not practise Falun Gong.

Assaulted, Arrested, and Interrogated

As my understanding of cultivation deepened, I realized the severity of the regime's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and that the public had been deceived by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lies. I started to tell people around me the facts about Falun Gong. Before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, I was harassed by local authorities and forced to leave home. Subsequently my house was ransacked and I was robbed of personal belongings worth several thousand yuan. When my family asked for the return of confiscated items, the local police station and township government tried to shirk responsibility.

On August 7th, 2008, I was posting and distributing information exposing the persecution at night when a jeep suddenly stopped in front of me and several men rushed out to surround me. One of them strangled my neck and I nearly suffocated. Another person grabbed by bag and pushed me into the back seat of the vehicle. I was then taken to Xiantai Police Station.

At the station, they handcuffed me to the heating radiator and interrogated me throughout the night. I was handcuffed behind my back for the entire night and forced to have my photo taken. On the night of August 8th, Shi Junbao from the police station brought me to Mancheng Detention Centre.

Tortured in the Detention Centre

When I was brought to the detention centre, Shi Junbao searched my body. When the police ordered me to sign a document and I refused, one of them repeatedly hit me in the back, elbow and ankle with a rod.

Early in the morning the next day, the guards put a torture instrument on me. My ankles were fastened with two iron rings welded onto both ends of a rod. There was another ring in the middle of the rod. My wrists were fastened to this ring, crisscrossed. There was a small hole below the middle ring and this ring was secured to the rings on my legs using a 20-cm long wire. Once this instrument was put on me, I could only squat with both hands hugging my knee caps. I could not stand upright. Guard Xu Huilai viciously beat me with a broomstick and the bruises sustained from the beatings took a very long time to heal. To force me to give up practising Falun Gong, officers ordered convicts to monitor me. I was not allowed to sleep and had to sit leaning on the wall. It was difficult for me to eat or go to the toilet.

After several days they transferred me to another prison cell. The torture instrument was taken off of me only after another day had gone by. That afternoon, I was made to carry out forced labour. The next day, when I refused to perform the labour, a convict slapped me. The guard put the same torture instrument on me again and I was transferred to another cell.

On the morning of August 19th, 2008, head of Mancheng Domestic Security Division Li Dang and two other officers handcuffed my hands behind my back and took me to Baolizhuang Labour Camp in Baoding City. Between the night of August 8th and the morning of August 19th, there were only two nights and half a day when I did not wear the torture instrument.

At the detention centre, practitioners were forced to admit to the false charges brought against them by signing or placing their thumb prints on documents. Every day, we had to perform forced labour. The food was very bad. One convict said, “Even a pig would not eat it!” There was sand and worms in the food.

Torture Subjected to at Balizhuang Labour Camp

The perpetrators at the labour camp used all kinds of torture methods to persecute practitioners. Several practitioners were tortured to death. The second division was specifically formed to abuse practitioners.

On the morning of August 19th, Li Dang and two other officers brought me to the labour camp and then to the third hospital in Baoding City for a physical examination. Afterward, I was taken back to the labour camp. At the hospital, I was forced to take off my clothes for the exam. At the labour camp, the prison guards ordered convicts to search my body.

Those who refused to give up Falun Gong were not allowed to call or see their family. On visitation days, my parents came to see me but were refused.

On the afternoon of October 24th, my parents and younger brother came to the labour camp and shouted my name outside the high walls. I heard their shouts and was able to briefly meet them, separated by the metal fence. We managed to shout a few sentences before convicts pulled me away. It never occurred to me then that this would be the last time I would see my mother.

At night, many guards holding electric batons first beat me and then shocked me with the batons. Wang Lei shocked me in the neck and face. The muscles in my neck area twitched intensely. They handcuffed my hands behind my back and Wang Lei proceeded to shock my neck, turning a circle, moving along my chest, down my body through the inside of one leg, then back up the inside of the leg and to my stomach. As a result, I lost control of my bowels. Zhang Peng even shocked my mouth with the baton. After this torture, for several days, I could not hear any sound in my left ear, and my skin was red and swollen as well as lacerated.

I was handcuffed to the heating radiator 24 hours a day. The handcuffs were only taken off me when I went to the toilet or had a meal. I was subjected to this form of torture until the night of August 30th. After being made to stand for a week, my hands, my feet and other areas had become very swollen. My wrists and thumbs became numb.

Forced Labour at the Labour Camp

I was given an increasing work load such as assembling security locks for luggage bags, and others. Most of the time, I was given the task of weaving ropes used to tie storage bags for fruit and vegetables. If I did not finish a set quota, I had to work overtime.

In the No. 2 Division, practitioners were either confined in a cell individually or with a group of 2-3 people. They were monitored by one or several convicts and often forced to sit on a small stool for long hours. Practitioners were forbidden to talk to each other and they had to ask for permission in order to go to the toilet.

The Persecution My Family Suffered

On January 20th, 2010, my family brought me home. My father told me that after I was arrested, my parents and younger brother were all arrested too. My mother became ill while she was held at the detention centre and consequently my parents were released. My younger brother was taken to a brainwashing centre and released after the Beijing Olympics ended in 2008. Later on, when my mother, who was nearly 60 years old, heard of the torture I was subjected to at the labour camp, she was so worried that she became severely ill. Despite being admitted to hospital four times, and being in critical condition, my mother insisted on going to the Baoding City Labour Camp to see me. When she arrived she asked to see me but her request was turned down. She passed away on the way back home.

On the third day after I was released, Ms. Cui, township Party head, brought two other people to my home and told me to sign my name on a form. I refused. When my father told her the persecution our whole family had gone through, she said, “You asked for it!”

Just before the Chinese New Year in 2010, village official Zhao Jianli and officers from the police station came to harass me at home. During the last two years, on sensitive dates, the village committee would send someone to harass us at home. Even today they continue to send someone to secretly watch us.

Mancheng County Xiantai Police Station:+86-312-7012202
Mancheng County Domestic Security Division: +86-312-7071191
Baoding Labour Camp:+86-312-2191000, +86-312-5939110

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.