(Minghui.org) A Chibi City, Hubei Province resident who has been detained for two years for his faith in Falun Gong was recently given a comprehensive physical examination, with his liver, lungs, heart, kidneys, and corneas specifically checked out and his blood and bone marrow samples forcibly taken.
Mr. Zhou Guoqiang is currently detained in isolation. Local Falun Gong practitioners suspect that he may have become an unwilling candidate for forced organ harvesting and are calling on the international community to pay attention to his case.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. It has been documented that living Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to forced extraction of their vital organs to sustain the lucrative transplant industry in China.
Many detained Falun Gong practitioners reported being given comprehensive physical examinations and having blood drawn frequently. They also noted that they were the only group targeted for such examinations, while other inmates weren’t.
Many medical experts suspect that blood samples are collected frequently from Falun Gong practitioners to build an organ bank for Chinese hospitals, as some hospitals advertised on their websites waiting times as short as two weeks for a matching organ.
Arrest and Physical Examination
Mr. Zhou Guoqiang, a former employee of Industrial and Commercial Bank in his 50s, was arrested at around 5 p.m. on December 26, 2018, while working in Wuhan City in the same province.
He was first taken to the Yujiatou Police Station. The police locked him in a metal chair, interrogated him and beat him. Then they took him to the hospital for a comprehensive physical examination. His eyes, heart, kidneys, liver and lungs were examined. The nurse also took several hundred milliliters of his blood, which was much more than used in a regular physical exam. She also collected a sample of his bone marrow.
Mr. Zhou was then taken to the Qingling Detention Center before being transferred to the Hongmiao Detention Center and then back to the Qingling Detention Center. It was reported that all Falun Gong practitioners detained at Qingling Detention Center have been assigned a number. Many have been detained for a long time without being sentenced.
Huang Xiaojun, the director of the Wuhan City 610 Office, an extralegal agency created specifically to persecute Falun Gong, is reportedly in charge of Mr. Zhou’s case.
Past Persecution
On July 20, 1999, the day the Chinese communist regime formally began its persecution of Falun Gong, Mr. Zhou and a dozen other practitioners were arrested for doing the Falun Gong exercises in a park and given 15 days of detention.
Forced Labor
During his 15-day detention period, Mr. Zhou was taken to a quarry to transport stones and feed the stone crushers. At one time, he was told to clean the dust under the crushers. Without proper protective equipment, he almost suffocated and a thick layer of dust accumulated on his clothes. The guards ordered him and other practitioners to work non-stop without any breaks.
After sunset, the guards took the practitioners to a small, smelly mud pond to wash themselves. The dinner they were given was a small bowl of rice with spicy pickled radish. Having breathed the stone dust, their throat hurt badly after eating the dry rice and spicy radish.
Tortured at Chibi City Detention Center
After 15 days of detention, the guards refused to release Mr. Zhou but instead transferred him to the Chibi City Detention Center.
Upon arrival, Mr. Zhou was subjected to all kinds of torture by inmates, including being punched and kicked on his chest and being made to stand against a wall with a water cup in between.
In one torture session, the inmates stripped off his clothes, pressed his head against the wall, and poured water slowly onto his head. The water flow covered his nose and mouth, leaving him unable to breathe. When he struggled, the inmate beat him.
The guards also ordered several practitioners to kneel down in the hallway and then whipped them with thin bamboo strips. Mr. Zhou said the pain was very sharp, like being stung by a snake or a bee. Some practitioners rolled around on the ground because of the pain. The guards called this torture “fried pork with bamboo shoots.”
In another bout of torture, the guards handcuffed Mr. Zhou with one hand pulled up behind his back to meet the other pulled over his shoulder. This torture method was called “carrying a sword.”
Three Years of Forced Labor
Weeks later, the police gave Mr. Zhou three years of forced labor. On December 31, 1999, he was first taken to the Guanbuqiao Forced Labor Camp in Xianning City, where he was forced to do extensive physical training and hard labor such as construction, digging mud ponds, and making bricks and plastic bags.
As he refused to renounce Falun Gong, the authorities transferred him to the Qilihu Forced Labor Camp in Jingmen City in September 2000. The guards there continued to force him to do unpaid hard labor, including digging ponds and canals. At night, the guards forced him to watch pornography as part of their brainwashing efforts. But he resisted.
Later on, Mr. Zhou refused to do the hard labor and demanded to be acquitted. The guards then ordered inmates to drag him into the field and tie him to a tree, leaving him under the scorching sun and rain for the entire day. After taking him back to the labor camp at night, they shocked him with electric batons on his ears, heels, and mouth in attempts to force him to work.
Physical Torture
As Mr. Zhou refused to renounce his faith, he was moved to the strict management division. Every practitioner there was monitored by an inmate. They were ordered to get up at around 4 a.m. and took turns using the restroom, with only five minutes for each person in the morning.
Before dawn, the practitioners would be forced to run for hours while singing songs to praise the Communist Party. After having breakfast at around 8 a.m., they were forced to stand at attention, with their body standing straight, their legs closed and their arms on their sides. They had to keep their legs straight even when a guard suddenly kicked their legs from behind. A straw was placed between their fingers and the side of their pants. If the straw fell, they would be punished. The guards also forced the practitioners to stand facing the sun without squinting, or they would be punished as well. Mr. Zhou was once shocked by electric batons for not meeting the requirement.
After the standing torture, the practitioners were forced to do single-leg squats. In this torture, they had to squat on their left feet, all the while raising their right heel to touch their buttocks and keeping their body straight without moving. If they moved, the guards would kick them from behind. Most practitioners were forced to squat for more than an hour, and their legs became swollen afterwards.
Sometimes they were forced to run the entire morning or do other military training, such as frog jumps, goose steps, and push-ups.
During lunch, they were ordered to loudly recite prison rules. In the afternoon and evening, they were forced to watch or listen to propaganda demonizing Falun Gong. If the practitioners had violated any rules during the day, such as not folding their comforter correctly, not singing loudly enough, or making eye contact with other practitioners, they would be subjected to more physical training before being allowed to sleep.
A guard followed them closely with an electric baton in hand during the evening “training session” and would shock anyone who couldn’t keep up. When the guard became tired, he would order all practitioners to get to their beds in ten seconds without cleaning themselves.
After a few hours of sleep, another day of torture began.
Mr. Zhou was subjected to this torture for more than 200 days. The guards extended his term for six months because he refused to renounce Falun Gong.
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