(Minghui.org) A Wuzhong City, Ningxia Province resident died on July 31, 2021, one and a half years after being released from serving 18 months for practicing Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Song Laiping was first arrested in April 2018 and soon released on bail. After he was taken back into custody four months later, his family was only allowed to see him once in March 2019 before he was transferred from the local detention center to the prison, until he was released.
Before he was arrested, Mr. Song was energetic and strong. He was quick in action and had a sharp mind. When he was released on February 10, 2020, he was emaciated and slow in thinking and action. He often staggered and was very irritable. When he had an attack of rage, he smashed things and was incontinent. In the beginning, the rage attacks happened once every ten days. But as his condition worsened, he sometimes suffered an episode once every two days or even daily.
According to the very limited recollection Mr. Song had when he was clear-minded, the authorities had subjected him to involuntary medication throughout his term. When he first discovered that the detention center guards put an unknown drug in his meal, he dumped the food instead of eating it. After the guards found out, they verbally abused him and starved him. Although the detention center allowed him to start eating normally after his family filed a complaint, Mr. Song noticed that he suffered severe memory loss when he was transferred to the prison. As for the Falun Gong exercises he had been doing for years, he completely forgot the movements.
Shortly after he was taken to the Yinchuan Prison New Admission Center, a guard beat him as he refused to take certain drugs. The guards later tied him up and force-fed him with the drug.
At the Shizuishan Prison, Mr. Song was first held in the 16th Ward in a solitary confinement cell. He was forced to sit on a small stool all day long and listen to high decibel propaganda slandering Falun Gong. Even after he was taken to the ward for elderly inmates, Mr. Song was still tortured by the inmates and ordered to renounce Falun Gong.
An insider revealed that Mr. Song was taken to the police hospital for emergency treatment at least twice during his imprisonment. Shortly after he was admitted to the Shizuishan Prison, the inmates heard loud noises in Mr. Song’s room, followed by very violent vomiting. He was then taken to the hospital for resuscitation. But after he was released, he couldn’t remember the incident at all.
Mr. Song eventually succumbed to the damage caused to his body. He passed away on July 31, 2021. He was 69.
Arrested on Suspicion of Distributing Falun Gong Materials
Mr. Song was arrested while walking down the street on the morning of April 15, 2018, as the police suspected him of putting Falun Gong informational materials on a police chief’s car windshield.
The police ransacked his residence without a search warrant and confiscated his Falun Gong books and other items. They didn’t give him a list of confiscated items as required by law. The officers returned the next day to search his home again. Neither he nor his family members were present.
Due to Mr. Song’s high blood pressure, the detention center refused to admit him. He was released on April 25 after the police forced his family to pay a bail bond of 5,000 yuan.
For about a month after he returned home, Mr. Song remained drowsy and confused, and he had difficulty organizing his thoughts and keeping his balance while walking.
Mr. Song was arrested again on August 20 and taken to Wuzhong Detention Center. Although he still had high blood pressure, the police tied him up and force-fed him with blood pressure pills, in order for the detention center to admit him.
Sentenced to Prison
Mr. Song appeared in the Yanchi County Court on October 18, 2018. He was charged with “undermining law enforcement,” a standard pretext used by the authorities to frame and imprison Falun Gong practitioners.
His lawyer defended his innocence and argued that the police had ransacked his residence without proper legal documents and that the Falun Gong items confiscated from his home were for his personal use and posed no harm to society, much less undermined law enforcement.
Judge Liu Jing sentenced Mr. Song to 1.5 years with a 3,000-yuan fine on December 21. Mr. Song appealed the verdict. The Wuzhong City Intermediate Court held a hearing of his appeal case on January 28, 2019 and ruled to uphold his original sentence on March 18.
The police force-fed Mr. Song with blood pressure pills and took him to the Yinchuan Prison New Admission Center on March 20, 2019. He was transferred to the Shizuishan Prison two days later and released on February 10, 2020.
Related report:
Man on Bail Taken Back Into Custody to Stand Trial, Faces Prison Time for His Faith
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