(Minghui.org) Having served a ten-year prison term and lost his father to the persecution of Falun Gong, a Jiangyou City, Sichuan Province resident was recently sentenced again to six years. He has appealed the verdict.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Because of upholding his faith in Falun Gong, Mr. Wei Bin was first sentenced to ten years in Deyang Prison in 2002. He was beaten and forced to stand under the scorching sun for long hours. While he was still serving time, his father, Mr. Wei Chaohai, was arrested in September 2009 and sentenced to seven years, also for practicing Falun Gong. The elder Mr. Wei was also taken to the Deyang Prison in 2011, where he was tortured to death on January 1, 2013.
Mr. Wei’s latest arrest took place on June 18, 2021. Earlier that day, his mother was arrested while walking on the street. The police snatched her backpack and home keys. While one group of officers took her to a detention facility with her eyes covered, another group of officers broke into her home with her keys and arrested Mr. Wei.
The police ransacked the mother and son’s shared residence, confiscating his Falun Gong books, photo of Falun Gong’s founder, three computers, a cellphone, a media player, some tools he used to make a living, and his bank deposit cards. The officers who took part in the raid included Zhang Wei, Yin Jianding, and Wang Bo. It’s not clear whether Mr. Wei’s mother practices Falun Gong.
Mr. Wei was taken to the same detention facility where his mother was held. While his mother was released on bail on July 2, he remained in custody. For two weeks, the police kept him handcuffed and deprived him of sleep. Occasionally, he was allowed to sleep for two or three hours. Most of the time, the police kept interrogating him and forced him to admit that he made 3,800 automated phone calls to the general public about Falun Gong.
The Jiangyou City Court held a total of four hearings of Mr. Wei’s case. His lawyer attended the first three hearings, but not the fourth session, due to the 21-day pandemic quarantine requirement. When the prosecutor presented the prosecution evidence submitted by the police during the hearing, it was two sheets of his phone call records, not the automated phone calls the police claimed.
Prosecutor Cai Defang, judge Deng Yanwen, Pu Yang and Ren Dajun worked together to sentence Mr. Wei to six years with 6,000 yuan fine on April 29, 2022.
The Deyang Prison is located in Huangxu Town, Deyang City. It is one of the facilities in Sichuan Province that imprisons and tortures Falun Gong practitioners. In order to force practitioners to give up their belief, the prison guards use many inhuman and abominable torture methods, such as long-term standing, exposure to the scorching sun, freezing in cold winter, standing at attention, forced squatting, long-term running in the heat of summer, solitary confinement, beatings, deprivation of restroom use, and reciting prison rules.
The torture of Falun Gong practitioners consists of two phases. The first phase is for newly admitted practitioners, who are subjected to intensive “training” and close monitoring. In addition to attending brainwashing sessions, they are forced to run, squat, and stand in military positions, and do duck walks.
During the second phase, practitioners are dispatched to a ward with a guard who specializes in torturing them. The guard usually assigns two inmates to monitor each practitioner. The inmates are instigated to torture the practitioners into writing statements to renounce Falun Gong. The practitioners are also forced to do intensive unpaid labor.
Other than Mr. Wei Chaohai, at least eight more practitioners have been tortured to death here, including Shen Bing, Xiao Hongmo, Lin Deming, Li Jianhou, Cao Ping, Xiong Xiuyou, Li Zhengling, and Wang Zengren.