(Minghui.org) Mr. Gao Bing was arrested again in August 2022, only eight months after he finished serving one and a half years for practicing Falun Gong. He was subsequently sentenced to another one-year term for his faith, a mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Gao, a 44-year-old resident of Yanchi County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, was arrested on June 18, 2020 by officers of the Huamachi Police Station. For having a copy of a Falun Gong booklet and two text messages about Falun Gong on his cellphone, he was sentenced to 1.5 years in prison.
Mr. Gao was shocked with electric batons at the Shizuishan Prison, and force-fed spicy water, because he refused to renounce Falun Gong. Zhang Yanjun, the ward director, arranged for 12 inmates to torture Mr. Gao around the clock. He was forced to sit on a small stool motionless, deprived of sleep, and forced to wear winter jackets during the summer.
While seemingly harmless at first glance, the small stool has become a common torture instrument used on Falun Gong practitioners who are being held at various detention centers and prisons across China. The guards at the Shizuishan Prison developed several levels of “small stool torture” based on the pain it inflicted on the victims.
One of the specialty stools was called the “BMW.” It was made of wood, about 4 inches tall, 8 inches long, and 4.7 inches wide. The stool had metal strips on its surface and was tilted at a 30-degree angle during each torture session. If a practitioner didn’t renounce Falun Gong after sitting on the “BMW” for a while, the guards would upgrade it to the “Ferrari.”
“Ferrari” had 60 nails hammered from the bottom, with the nail tips piercing through the stool surface. Those who sit on the stool would have their buttocks pierced. During the torture session, every practitioner was watched by four inmates, while being forced to keep his hands on his knees. The victim was not allowed to move or close his eyes. Any slight movement would result in beatings and verbal abuse.
Unable to bear the torture, Mr. Gao was forced to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong against his will.
After Mr. Gao was released in December 2021, officials from his local police station, residential committee, and justice bureau kept harassing him, and ordered him not to travel out of town, or they would make him report to the police station once a month. They threatened to send him back to the prison if he didn’t comply.
To avoid the harassment, Mr. Gao went to Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, which is over 1,000 miles from Yanchi. Yet his whereabouts was soon discovered by the police through a message he sent to a friend on WeChat, a popular social media platform in China. On August 22, 2022, officers from the Yanchi County Domestic Security Office broke into Mr. Gao’s residence in Suzhou and arrested him. He was taken back to Yanchi and sentenced to one year in the Shizuishan Prison by the Litong District Court in Wuzhong City, which oversees Yanchi. He was released in August 2023.
Past Persecution
In addition to Mr. Gao’s latest two prison terms, he also served two previous prison terms of 3 years and 3.5 years, respectively, as well as a labor camp term of 2 years. He was also held in a brainwashing center for four months.
Mr. Gao suffered from depression in his teen years after his parents divorced. He found hope again after reading Falun Gong books in 1996. Both his health and academic performance improved in a short time. He was later admitted to the Shaanxi Institute of Mechanical Engineering. In his spare time, Mr. Gao joined other practitioners in doing the Falun Gong exercises in the park. He said that this was the happiest time in his life.
With the onset of the persecution three years later, Mr. Gao’s college spread propaganda against Falun Gong. He told his classmates how he had benefited from the practice, and did the exercises on campus, hoping to help more people learn the facts about Falun Gong.
The school leadership ordered him to stop practicing Falun Gong. As he refused to betray his belief, they summoned his father to the school and had him try to persuade Mr. Gao. As Mr. Gao remained unmoved no matter how his father scolded or beat him, his father threatened to disown him. The school later expelled Mr. Gao and he returned to his hometown in Yanchi.
Mr. Gao was reported on April 25, 2005 for putting up Falun Gong posters outside the Yanchi County Party School. He was later sentenced to three years in Guanmahu Prison in Wuzhong City, where he endured constant beatings and verbal abuse.
When his term expired in April 2008, agents from the Ningxia 610 Office took Mr. Gao to the Yinchuan City Brainwashing Center and held him there until August 2008.
Mr. Gao later went to Beijing to work. He was arrested on May 24, 2011 and given two years of forced labor. He was subjected to electric shocks and beatings while serving time at the Inner Mongolia Forced Labor Camp, in addition to the forced labor of cutting rolls of toilet paper. During an accident in June 2013, his left middle finger was cut off by a machine, and required 38 stitches. He was released on November 12, 2013, shortly after the forced labor system was dismantled in China.
Mr. Gao was secretly arrested again in January 2015 after his QQ (a popular social media platform) was monitored, and later sentenced to 3.5 years in prison. While serving time at the Yinchuan Prison, he was deprived of sleep for a month and forced to sit on a 4-inch-tall stool with three grooves on the surface, until his buttocks festered. The guards arranged ten inmates to monitor him around the clock. He was subjected to frequent beatings and verbal abuse.
Mr. Gao was transferred to the Shizuishan Prison on May 3, 2017. The guards kept him in solitary confinement and forced him to wear a straitjacket, as he refused to renounce Falun Gong. He was released around June 2018. Liu Zhongbin, the director of Yanchi County Domestic Security Office, threatened Mr. Gao not to reveal his prison sentence to others.
Related Report:
Having Served Eight Years, Ningxia Man Secretly Sentenced Again for His Faith
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