(Minghui.org) The police in Jinan City, Shandong Province, seized a Falun Gong practitioner and his cousin on October 4, 2022. According to his cousin, who was released a few days later, the Yuanzhi Police Station officers handcuffed Mr. Xu Wenlong and put heavy shackles on him. They drew a sample of his blood and threatened to kill him. Mr. Xu was later given six months of house arrest to be served in Laosilijie Police Station. He has since been denied family visits.
This isn’t the first time that Mr. Xu, 36, has been targeted for his faith. He was previously arrested twice and sentenced to eight years in prison following one of the arrests.
Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 20, 1999.
Details of Most Recent Arrest
Three officers went into Mr. Xu’s home on the afternoon of October 4. His cousin was with him at the time. Mr. Xu refused to go with the officers, and his cousin told them that the arrest was illegal. The officers held the two on the ground as one officer sat on Mr. Xu.
Ten more officers soon showed up. They handcuffed Mr. Xu and his cousin behind their backs and took them to Zhiyuan Police Station. Mr. Xu’s mother had just undergone major surgery and was upset to hear of her son’s arrest.
On their way to the station, an officer in his 30s beat and verbally abused Mr. Xu in the police vehicle. Mr. Xu’s shirt was ripped and he had pain in his ear.
At the police station, Mr. Xu asked for an investigation into police brutality but was ignored. He and his cousin were locked in separate rooms.
The officers ordered Mr. Xu’s cousin to sit in an iron chair that had locks and belts to restrain her. They accused her of obstructing the police at Mr. Xu’s home. She argued that it was the police who violated the law by using excessive force.
Torture reenactment: Iron chair
Even though she doesn’t practice Falun Gong, the police ordered her to curse the founder of the practice and said they would release her if she did. She refused to comply and told them that no law in China deems Falun Gong a crime and that Mr. Xu’s belief was protected by the Chinese Constitution. When she warned them that there would be legal consequences for their participation in the persecution, the police said that they were just robots doing what they were told to do. The police left her in the room overnight.
Torture reenactment: Heavy shackles
The next morning, Mr. Xu’s cousin heard the sound of shackles hitting the ground. It turned out that Mr. Xu had just been brought back after being forced to have a physical exam in the hospital. They put him in a room next to hers. She overheard two officers talking about a kidney selling for 400,000 yuan. She asked them if they were talking about harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners. They said didn’t reply.
She kept hearing the sound of shackles hitting the floor from the next room and thought it sounded like the officers were pushing Mr. Xu around or hitting him. Someone later went out to get rubbing alcohol and cotton balls. She then heard Mr. Xu scream. Two officers carried him to the men’s room. She asked to use the restroom, and as soon as she got there, she heard Mr. Xu scream in the men’s room. She also heard an officer swear at him and threaten to kill him.
She shouted from outside for the officers to stop beating Mr. Xu. Several of them came out, denied he was being beaten, and forbid her from using the restroom. As they put Mr. Xu back in his cell, one of them laughed at him, “Why doesn’t your belief protect you?”
The officers joked that arresting Mr. Xu and his cousin together seemed like “Buy one, get one free.” She protested and accused the police of dereliction of duty. An officer took her to an interrogation room and told her that she would be detained for five days because she “used a cult organization to sabotage law enforcement.”
She said the police were fabricating the charges. They’d first accused her of “obstructing the police” but changed the charge to “using a cult organization to sabotage law enforcement” the next day without any basis.
The officer suggested that if she disagreed with the decision, she should appeal. After she signed her name on the complaint and submitted it, she regretted doing so, because it implied that she acknowledged the arrest, detention, and interrogation as part of a legal process.
Before releasing her, six officers took her to a well-equipped room, saying that every detainee had to give their fingerprints and a blood sample. She remembered that the Chinese authorities collected and analyzed the blood samples of Falun Gong practitioners and put the information in an organ-matching database so that they could target the practitioners for their organs in the future.
She asked why they needed a sample of her blood when none of the officers denied her suspicion that they were collecting blood samples for organ harvesting. One officer held her down and bent her fingers backward while another ran out to get alcohol and cotton balls. They stabbed a needle into her hand and she screamed in pain. She then recalled hearing Mr. Xu’s screaming in this room and realized that the police were likely drawing his blood then.
Previous Arrests and Persecution
Mr. Xu, a native of Muling City, Heilongjiang Province, was born in 1986. He graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing in July 2010. He was regarded highly by his teachers and classmates because he worked hard and earned many awards and scholarships at school.
Only a year after he graduated, the then 25-year-old was arrested in Beijing on June 17, 2011, and sentenced to eight years in the Chaoyang District Court. He was transferred to Tailai Prison in Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province, on December 26, 2012, and was tortured.
Mr. Xu’s second arrest took place on April 6, 2022, after the police found Falun Gong literature in his car. They detained him overnight with his hands cuffed behind his back and released him the next day on bail.
Related reports:
Young Artist Brutally Tortured in Prison for His Faith
Art Student Tortured in Tailai Prison
Falun Gong Practioners Brutally Persecuted at Tailai Prison
Tailai Prison Intensifies Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners
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