(Minghui.org) Summary of Key Persecution Facts:
Name: Dong Guangwen (董广文) Gender: Male Age: 60 Address: Qingan County, Heilongjiang Province (黑龙江省庆安县) Occupation: Worker in boiler installation factoryDate of Most Recent Arrest: April 21, 2009 Most Recent Place of Detention: Jiamusi Prison (佳木斯监狱) City: Jiamusi Province: Heilongjiang Persecution Suffered: Electric shock, sleep deprivation, forced labor, brainwashing, illegal sentencing, imprisonment, solitary confinement, torture, force-feedings, physical restraint, interrogation, detention, brutal beatings, extortion
Mr. Dong Guangwen, 60, is a Falun Gong practitioner from Qingan County, Heilongjiang Province. He was persecuted for believing in and living by the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. During the past decade, he has been detained three times, sentenced to a forced labor camp once, and imprisoned once. He has been subjected to various tortures, including brutal beatings, sleep deprivation, and being handcuffed behind his back.
His wife was also arrested while he was in detention. Their two daughters were left alone with no financial support, and were traumatized by the persecution.
Mr. Dong was released from Jiamusi Prison on April 20, 2013.
Falun Gong practitioners who are not “transformed” during detention are usually arrested by the 610 Office when they are released from prison, and immediately taken to a brainwashing center where the persecution continues. However, Mr. Dong's family and his work place wrote a guarantee statement and were extorted of 20,000 yuan before they would release him. He he was thus spared from being sent to a brainwashing center.
The following is Mr. Dong's description of the persecution that he and his family has suffered over the past decade.
Mr. Dong Guangwen
Beijing Detention Center: Drenched with Cold Water, Beatings, Iron Chair Torture, Sleep Deprivation
Three plainclothes officers from the Yanqing County Police Department broke into my office and arrested me on April 21, 2009. They took away my cell phone and house key, entered my house, and confiscated two computers, an LCD TV, DVD burner, two printers, over 300 DVDs, and other belongings.
I was taken to the Yanqing Detention Center that evening. A young man poured bucket after bucket of cold water on me until my entire body was shivering. Approximately five men later came up and started punching my head and back non-stop. I fell to the ground, blood flowing down my head. I was sent to the hospital and stitched up.
Two men from the preliminary hearing bureau in Yanqing County came to interrogate me the following night. They put handcuffs on me and fastened me to an iron chair torture device. My arms and legs were also bound. I was interrogated all night, and only allowed to return to my cell at dawn.
http://www.minghui.org/mh/article_images/2013-6-22-minghui-persecution-kuxing-02.jpg Torture device: Iron chair
The two men from the previous night, along with another man, came to interrogate me the following night. They tied me to the iron chair again and tried to coax me into giving them the names of other practitioners. I remained quiet.
I closed my eyes to rest as I had not slept for a day and a night. They drenched me with water and hit me with a bottle so that I would not fall asleep. After tormenting me for several days, I was taken to the Seventh Division of the Beijing Police Department. Prison guards there assigned two convicts to my cell. Each of them had to report on me daily.
The guards often had a group of people surround me. Every few days, they would test me on the prison rules. When I told them I was not a criminal, and refused to recite the rules, they hit my head with bottles.
The Yanqing Court sentenced me to four years of imprisonment in early 2010. I appealed to the Beijing Second Court, but my appeal was overruled.
I was sent to Tianhe Prison in Beijing on August 29, 2010.
Jiamusi Prison: Shocked with Electric Baton, Mouth Taped, Strangled
I was arrested and detained at Jiamusi Prison on September 28, 2010. A strict management team was formed after the Chinese New Year in 2011 to intensively “transform” practitioners. Qin Yueming, Liu Chuanjiang, and Yu Yungang were tortured to death soon after.
Deputy division head Chen Chunlin once saw me doing the Falun Gong exercises. He took me to his office, where there were no cameras, and ordered someone to handcuff my hands behind my back, then shock my neck with an electric baton.
He got two convicts to seal my mouth with tape. He then held my head with one hand and squeezed my throat with his other hand. This form of torture was very covert. It can't be determined from the outward appearance, but the inside my throat was injured. I had great difficulty eating, drinking, and swallowing afterwards. My throat hurt for more than two weeks.
Previous Persecution
I began practicing Falun Gong in the spring of 1997, when I was 45 years old. I had previously suffered from skin inflammation and my skin itched unbearably. The condition troubled me for a long time. After practicing Falun Gong for over a month, my skin inflammation vanished and all my other illnesses went away.
After the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20, 1999, I went to Tiananmen Square on June 17, 2000 with four other practitioners. We shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” We were arrested by police, shoved into a police car, and taken to the police station. I was locked up in a room that resembled a large, metal cage. A dozen practitioners were already detained inside.
Not long after I returned home, the local police locked me up at the Qingan Detention Center. During an interrogation, an officer kicked my chest with his leather shoes. I was in such great pain that I dared not take deep breaths. It took me over a month to recover.
Approximately six months after I was detained, many of the practitioners began a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Three days later, Wang Zhilong, the police department Party head and head of the 610 Office, led a group of men to force-feed me. We had lost quite a bit of weight after going without food and water for seven days, and felt weak. Two female practitioners developed life-threatening symptoms.
After we returned home, the street committee, police, and workplace were ordered by the 610 Office to closely monitor us.
Qingan County Patrol Police Division: Cruelly Tortured and Slapped
Three practitioners and I went to Tongle Village in Qingan County to hand out Falun Gong brochures on January 7, 2001. We were arrested by police and taken to the Qingan County Patrol Police Division at around 9:00 p.m. that night.
610 Office head Wang Zhilong made me bend over with both hands stretched out for over an hour.
Three men then attacked me. The men included Wang Zhilong, the head of the criminal police division, and another officer. One grabbed my hair and one arm, while the other held onto my other arm, and the third man slapped me hard in the face. I was slapped two dozen times, until my ears were ringing, and my cheeks hurt and became numb. The man only stopped slapping me when his hands hurt too much. They demanded to know where I got the brochures, but I told them nothing.
The head of the patrol police division brought in a fine rope. He pulled one of my hands up from behind my back, then pulled my other hand over my shoulder, and tied both hands tightly. My arms were stretched and hurt unbearably. On top of that, they stuffed a beer bottle in the gap between the rope and my back. The pain was excruciating.
The officers bought food and wine, and drank and watched while I suffered. I was tormented until around 3:00 a.m., then taken to Qingan Detention Center and locked up.
Persecuted at Yuanhua Labor Camp
I was transferred to Yuanhua Labor Camp on the fifth day and sentenced to forced labor for a year and a half.
The labor camp used torture to make practitioners give up their beliefs. I was not allowed to sleep for several consecutive days and I was beaten. I still had to work during the day and complete labor quotas. My sentence was extended by twenty days because I did not give up my faith.
Before I was due to be released on August 5, 2002, superiors from my workplace and my family members were brought to the Qingan County 610 Office. They were forced to sign a statement promising that I would not appeal for Falun Gong, hand out brochures, or contact other practitioners. If I had to leave home and travel to other areas, I first had to obtain permission from the 610 Office. Only then was I allowed to go home.
Mental Distress Suffered By My Two Daughters
While I was imprisoned at Yuanhua Labor Camp, my wife visited me once a month. However she suddenly stopped visiting for some time. After a while, my eldest daughter came to see me. She told me my wife had been arrested by the Tieli County Police, and they had ransacked our home.
Witnessing her mother arrested by the police, my eldest daughter nearly suffered a mental collapse. When my younger daughter came home from school that night, the house was a mess and my wife had disappeared. Both girls hugged each other and wept. Unable to endure this sudden tragic event, both children fell ill.
After I was imprisoned at the labor camp, my wife was my daughters' only support, emotionally and financially. After her arrest, our children felt that their world had been turned upside down.
Someone later told me that the two girls had been hospitalized and placed on intravenous drip. There were tears in their eyes. My eldest daughter had a tough time because it was nearing school examinations. She had to study, look after her sister, visit her mother at Tieli Detention Center, as well as visit me at Yuanhua Forced Labor Camp. Our neighbors wept for them.
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