(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Xu Xiaolong is 52 years
old and is from Tianjin. He used to be employed as an engineer in the Heat
Preservation Factory, which belongs to the Bohai Petrol Industry Trading Company
in Tianjin. This company fired him unjustly. Because he steadfastly practiced
Falun Gong, the management of this company, along with local policemen,
illegally arrested him on October 28, 1999. On March 22, 2000, the
First Level Intermediate Court in Tianjin sentenced Mr. Xu to five years in
prison. Since May 2000, Mr. Xu has been detained in the Tianjin First Prison in
the Liyuantou Region, Tianjin City.
The following is a report from Mr. Xu Xiaolong about his experiences of
persecution and torture while in the Tianjin First Prison in Tianjin.
1. Being beaten for sending the prosecutor a letter
On the first day of the Chinese New Year in 2002, Falun Gong practitioners Li
Qiang, Lu Wen and I spoke about how the persecution of Falun Gong conducted by
Jiang Zemin's regime was illegal. Afterwards, we recorded in several written
forms the illegal nature of the persecution. I wrote down my experiences and
what I had witnessed, and I wanted to send this complaint to the appeals office
of the Supreme People's Court in Tianjin City. During the clean-up time at
night, I put the letter into a mailbox for the prosecutor. During roll call,
three criminal inmates came to me and took me to the interrogation room. There,
they started to beat me severely until I was no longer able to move even a bit.
I knew that the guard Yang Bo, who was on duty that day, had given these orders.
According to the law, the prosecutor's mailbox is not allowed to be opened at
will.
2. The brutal stool torture
In 2002, from the end of May to early December, I was locked up in a small room.
After the guards let me come out, one of the Falun Gong practitioners told me
that the guards would "transform" people according to the bonus they
received; to the prisoner, "transformation" is related to the
deduction of their detention terms. For the evil people, this policy meant that
as long as they persecuted Falun Gong practitioners, they would receive a
benefit from it. Guard Yang Bo introduced a special torture method. He made five
stools of different sizes, the smallest being only about 2x2x3 inches
(width-height-length). Each subsequent size was one inch larger. Normally
people's hip bones are about 3 inches wide. Therefore, a person could only sit
on this stool with one side of the hip bone. In addition, the stool was very
low, so when a person sat on it, the center of gravity was out of the body. It
was very hard to sit in balance. The guards knew that nobody would be able to
sit steadily, yet they forced Falun Gong practitioners to sit like this for 16
hours a day. Many people couldn't endure this torture and were thus forced to be
"reformed." Among the practitioners, one practitioner by the name of
Wang Jiasheng had been tortured with this stool method for two months. Finally,
the guards realized that this method did not work on him and they finally gave
it up.
3. Standing for 23 days, coughing for three and a half years
On April 22, 2002, the guards tried to force us to recite the 58 prison rules.
After I refused, they took five of us who didn't recite these rules to the
interrogation room and forced us to stand for a long time. From that day on,
they forced us to stand every day from 6:00 a.m. Until 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. After
one week, only I was left. I suffered like that for 23 days until they stopped
this torture. By that time, my legs were swollen. From the tenth day of
standing, I started to cough, and the cough lasted several years, until the
beginning of 2006.
4. Being put in handcuffs and fetters
From the middle of February 2001, the prison authorities started a so-called
study program in the hallway. They forced us to face the wall and study articles
that libeled Falun Gong in newspapers such as the People's Daily, and Tianjin
Daily. This program lasted until June. During that time, I learned that my
appeal should have received some kind of feedback within six months. I asked the
guard Cao to give my appeal letter back to me, but he didn't do so. The next
day, I refused to do any cleaning, and didn't go to the hallway either. After 10
days, Cao returned my appeal letter. I modified it and submitted it again. The
prison implemented a tuberculosis examination. I protested against it and also
wrote a protest letter. However, in the end, I was forced to go through the
physical examination, and then forced to face the wall for four months.
One day, I told Cao that I refused to face the wall any longer. The next day,
the guards put me in a small room. In order to maltreat me, Cao created many
difficulties for me without any reason. Just because he saw me murmur something
once, he said that I violated the rules by doing the exercises. Then he put
handcuffs and fetters on me and wanted to control my mind. After a week, I
started a hunger strike to protest the handcuffs and fetters. The next day, they
wanted to force-feed me. They ordered about 10 prisoners to force-feed me, but
instead of force-feeding me, they just kept beating me up.
5. Beaten for speaking
Practitioner Mr. Song Zhishan, 59 years old, was locked in the same room with
me. One day in the morning, after getting up, prisoners were ordered by the
guards to watch Falun Gong practitioners around the clock, and beat Mr. Song in
the face several times. I told them not beat the old man. Then a group of people
started to beat me for a long time, and they beat me over and over again. My
head was bleeding, and my hands were also bleeding. My face was swollen very
badly as well.
In order to cover up their crimes, they locked me into a small room.
6. Forced me and my wife to get a divorce
In 2001, after my wife, Xu Jie and Mr. Chen Xi's wife, Wei Xiuqing were
"transformed," the authorities used them to try to
"transform" Mr. Chen and me. In May 2002, after my wife Xu Jie was
released, she came to see me. She didn't talk about anything else, except trying
to persuade me to also be "transformed." When she noticed that it did
not work, she told me that she wanted a divorce. One day, guard Fan Yasheng
asked me to follow him without telling me the reason. When I met my wife Xu Jie
and two other people from the court, I realized that they were there to
implement the divorce process. After we filled out the form, the two of us were
given 15 days to make a decision. Fan Yasheng was afraid that we would change
our minds. He told my wife that people who are not "transformed" will
receive an additional one or two years of prison time. After she heard this, Xu
Jie signed the form immediately and just like that we were divorced.
7. Tortured because I refused to read slanderous propaganda
On the afternoon of October 21, 2002, guard Lu Wenyuan ordered inmates to force
me to read news articles that slandered Falun Gong. I refused to read them, so
they made me sit on a small stool. When I refused to sit, they pulled me into
the interrogation room and started to beat me up. I refused to sit on the stool,
no matter what they tried. Then they grabbed me and pushed me onto the stool,
thereby breaking the wooden support on the side of the stool. They beat me again
and again. They used rotten bean water (used to water flowers) and made me smell
it, poured cold water over my clothes, and then turned on an electric fan to
blow cold air on me. In the middle of the night, I went to the toilet. I ended
up struggling with a person who was monitoring me out of self-defense, and he
started to shout very loudly. All of a sudden, a lot of people came out and beat
me severely. In the end, they put me on torture instruments and dragged me up
and down the stairs. They did this sometimes once a day and sometimes twice a
day. Every time they dragged me, my body was horribly mangled and bleeding.
After several days, my wounds started to fester and generated odorous fumes.
They did not treat my wounds until they had dragged me for several days. Every
time they dragged me, my broken wrists were bleeding. I couldn't take a shower
for about 50 days, because my wounds couldn't heal. My wounds finally started to
heal slowly after about three months.
Another time, because I refused to read newspaper articles slandering Falun
Gong, the monitors started to beat me up. They kicked my lower back and I felt a
sudden pain that was so intense and extremely sharp. However, the prison doctor
told me that it was not serious. He said I would not die and suggested that I
drink some water. He said it was not because of the beating but rather
gallstones.
8. The persecution situation of other Falun Gong practitioners
In 2000, five Falun Gong practitioners were illegally sentenced to the First
Prison. Guard Li Qiang tried several times to forcefully "transform"
them, but to no avail. Then he ordered prisoner Zhang Jun to continually beat up
Mr. Zhao Guang for 50 days. Mr. Zhao's face was beaten out of shape and was
swollen very badly.
After that, the similar cases of beatings were countless. Practitioner Mr. Zhao
Zhishan was more than sixty years old. Guard Dong Kun beat his head.
Practitioners Mr. Cao Chengming, Mr. Wang Jiasheng and also many others
practitioners, of whom we don't even know their names, had their teeth loosened
due to the beatings. Many experienced extreme pain when they were eating. One
prisoner called Li Jin put a stainless steel cup filled with boiling water on
the back of practitioner Mr. Cao Baoyu's hand. The skin on Mr. Cao's hand
suddenly burned very badly.
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