(Minghui.org) A Dalian City, Liaoning Province resident was held in the high security division of a prison for years, while serving a 9.5-year term for his faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Mr. Zhang Renguang was arrested on June 11, 2017, while distributing informational materials about Falun Gong in a residential area, along with three other practitioners – Mr. Wang Shangjie, Mr. Han Jianhai and Mr. Li Jingbo. The police ransacked all four practitioners’ homes and took them to the Yaojia Detention Center. 

The Shahekou District Court held a joint trial for the practitioners on May 30, 2018. Mr. Zhang was sentenced to 9.5 years with a 20,000-yuan fine. Both Mr. Wang and Mr. Han were given eight years and fined 10,000 yuan. Mr. Li was sentenced to three years with three years probation and a 2,000-yuan fine. 

Mr. Zhang, Mr. Wang and Mr. Han were taken to the Liaonan New Admission Prison on September 6, 2018. While Mr. Wang was later assigned to the Dalian Prison and Mr. Han to the Dongling Prison in Shenyang City, Mr. Zhang was transferred to the Shenyang First Prison in October 2018 and held in the 19th Division, the high security division. He endured relentless torture there for the next five years and wasn’t transferred to the First Division until July 2023. Due to information censorship, details of the torture Mr. Zhang suffered during that time aren’t clear.

The Shenyang First Prison began to build the high security division in 2010 with an over-30-million-yuan investment. After construction finished in 2012, the former warden, Wang Bin, urged the Liaoning Province Prison Administration Bureau, Justice Bureau and the 610 Office to have other prisons in the province transfer all Falun Gong practitioners who refused to renounce their faith to his prison and he guaranteed a 100% “transformation” rate of the practitioners. As a result, many practitioners, including both Liaoning residents and out-of-towners, were transferred there from prisons across the province. 

Torture illustration: tiger bench

Mr. Li Shangshi, a former manager at the Panjin City Forest Products Industry Company, was arrested in 2004 and sentenced to 14 years. He was transferred to the high security division at Shenyang First Prison in 2012. He was restrained on a tiger bench for 17 consecutive days. The guards also placed two heaters in front of his eyes, shocked him with electric batons, and brushed his anus with a metal brush used to clean the toilet. When he was taken down from the tiger bench, the guards laid him down on a layer of sharp stones for over a month. On the verge of death, he was then placed in solitary confinement. He was beaten to death by an inmate named Li Shubiao on November 22, 2013. 

Song Changde, the director of the high security division, often said to Falun Gong practitioners, “Do you know how many Falun Gong practitioners have died here?”

In addition to the high security division, Falun Gong practitioners are also tortured in other divisions of the prison. Mr. Cui Richao, in his 60s, is now held in the Fourth Team of the Ninth Division. Guards Lu Ming and Ding Jian held him in a cold room in November 2023 and beat him until he vomited blood.

Related Report:

Dalian Intermediate Court Rejects Appeals by Falun Gong Practitioners Heavily Sentenced for Distributing Informational Materials

Brutal Persecution at Shenyang First Prison

How One Prison Warden Carries Out the Persecution of Falun Gong in Shenyang No. 1 Prison