(Minghui.org) Nearly one year after a Songyuan City, Jilin Province resident was arrested in April 2023, his family finally confirmed recently that he had been taken back into custody to serve a two-year prison term given in 2021 for his faith in Falun Gong. He is now being held in a police hospital.
Mr. Wang Jinbo’s prison sentence stemmed from his arrest on December 14, 2020, together with three other Falun Gong practitioners, Mr. Li Wanbiao, Ms. Zheng Chunmei and Mr. Lu Zhengwei. The arresting officers included Xing Zhiguo, head of Ningjiang District Domestic Security Office, Sun Hengfei, deputy head, as well as officers He Peng and Liu Xing.
The four practitioners were sentenced to prison by the Ningjiang District Court in 2021, with Ms. Zheng given four and a half years with a 10,000-yuan fine; Mr. Li and Mr. Wang each two years with a 5,000-yuan fine; and Mr. Lu one and a half years with a 5,000-yuan fine. The convictions were handed down by presiding judge Wang Qingde, as well as judges Yuan Limei and Mu Liping. Court clerk Wang Hefu also signed the practitioners’ verdicts.
Due to Mr. Wang’s poor health, he was released on house arrest and frequently required by the court to undergo physical examinations to see if he was well enough to be taken back into custody. The other three practitioners were admitted to prison to serve time after their sentencing.
Mr. Wang received another call from the court on April 11, 2023 for a physical examination. He went to the hospital the next day and was arrested there. The police refused to reveal to his family his whereabouts until early March 2024. He is now held at the Changchun City Police Hospital, but details about his current health condition aren’t clear.
Mr. Wang used to work as a credit manager at the Yitong County Construction Bank. He took up Falun Gong in 1999 and won several awards at work. After the persecution started months later, he was given a two-year labor camp term and a prison term of over five years. He was subjected to relentless torture and almost died several times.
First Arrest and Interrogation
Mr. Wang’s wife was arrested by police officer Hu Baoming while distributing informational materials about Falun Gong on February 5, 2001. Mr. Wang managed to escape when the police came to his home to arrest him. Upon learning about his escape, Wang Like and Wang Fuliang, the president and vice president of the bank he worked at, promised that he wouldn’t be arrested if he returned to work.
As soon as Mr. Wang went back to work at 8 a.m. on February 22, 2001, he was seized by officers Liu Zhicai and Zhang Qingtang of the Yitong County Police Department. Officers Wang Jianguang and Ji Hang beat him and ordered him to reveal where he and his wife got the Falun Gong materials. Zhang threatened him, “We are an institution of violence, and we will crush you with violence. What is tyranny? This is tyranny.” The police continued to beat Mr. Wang until midnight. His body was covered with bruises and he also had severe headaches and ringing in the ears.
Officer Wang interrogated Mr. Wang again on the morning of February 25, before transferring him to a local lockup in the afternoon. He was taken to a detention center three days later and held there for two months, during which time he was tortured and forced to do hard labor without pay. He was released on April 5, 2001 after his family was forced to pay 19,000 yuan.
Three Days of Torture and Interrogation
Mr. Wang was arrested at work on April 28, 2002, when he refused to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong at the order of Li Zhixue and Cheng Lidong, the new president and vice president of the bank he worked at. Officer Gao Fenghai of the Yongning Street Police Station was also present. They detained him at the local lockup for 15 days.
Li and Cheng made another attempt to force Mr. Wang to renounce Falun Gong on August 26, 2002. When he refused to comply, they called deputy chief Mu of the Yongning Street Police Station, who came to arrest him.
At the detention center, Mr. Wang was interrogated with torture by Li Xiaodong, head of Yitong County Domestic Security Office, and officers Fu Lijun and Han Jie. They surrounded him on the morning of September 16, 2002, whipped him with a rope and beat him with a wood plank. Mr. Wang fainted when Li hit his head with the wooden plank. After he came to, they tied him up in an excruciating position. The torture didn’t stop until midnight.
Torture reenactment: tied up in excruciating position
Officer Han and Ma Gang continued the torture and interrogation the next day. Ma said to Mr. Wang, “We won’t tie you up today. We will have you sit in a chair in a way that is even more miserable than being tied up.”
The officers stripped off his top, restrained him in a metal chair and placed his feet in two metal buckets. They next placed three metal rods against his neck, chest and thighs, which were nailed to vertical rods. Meanwhile, his arms were straightened in front of his body and tied to another chair.
Officer Han whipped Mr. Wang on the head and neck with a rope, while others beat him on the head, shoulder, arms, hands and legs with a plank. When the plank broke, they picked up a new one and continued the beating, which lasted for an entire day. Mr. Wang became swollen from head to toe and his body was covered with wounds. At night, two officers stayed and took turns interrogating Mr. Wang. As a result of the torture and sleep deprivation, he developed a fast heart beat and tightness in the chest.
Mr. Wang became disoriented on the third day of torture and interrogation. At 5 p.m. on September 18, 2002, officer Li came and said to his three subordinates, “He [Mr. Wang] is too comfortable sitting there. Beat him on his buttocks and then put him back into the chair, and let his flesh stick to the chair.”
At Li’s command, three officers removed Mr. Wang from the metal chair and held him face down on the ground. Li found a thick, wide wooden plank and beat hard on his buttocks. He fainted from the pain. When he came to the next day, his entire body was black and purple. The skin on his buttocks, shoulder, arms, neck and the back of his hands was badly broken. He was dizzy and his heart was beating very fast. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t hear well. The flesh on his left pinky finger was necrotic from the tying torture. He had so much pain in his arms, chest and back that he couldn’t cough, move his arms, turn his neck or turn over in bed. His lower body was cold and numb. He had frequent urges to urinate. His legs were so swollen that he had trouble removing his pants.
In addition to the brutal torture and sleep deprivation, the police also starved Mr. Wang and didn’t give him any water to drink. Other than the symptoms described above, he also developed problems with his digestive system and suffered depression as a result.
Tortured During a Two-Year Labor Camp Term
On October 18, 2002, only a month after his previous arrest, Mr. Wang was arrested again by officers Gao Wenhai and Bai Yang of the Yongning Street Police Station and taken to the Chaoyanggou Forced Labor Camp to serve a two-year term.
When he was first taken to the Fifth Team, the labor camp was having a campaign aimed to force detained practitioners to renounce their faith. One morning, Mr. Wang was taken to a small meeting room. Director Zhu Dechun ordered guards He Jianxin, Lu Zhanlin and Jiang Zhongcai to force Mr. Wang to bend over and ask him whether he would still practice Falun Gong.
When he answered “Yes,” guard He shocked him on the neck and head with an electric baton, Lu whipped him in the back, buttocks and legs with a leather belt, and Jiang beat his hands with a pipe. The beating lasted half an hour. The pain was so excruciating that Mr. Wang collapsed on the ground, unable to move. Yet the guards continued to beat and kick him, as well as shocking him with electric batons. By noon, Mr. Wang had completely lost the ability to walk on his own. Director Zhu then ordered two inmates to carry him to the cafeteria to have lunch.
In the afternoon, the guards took Mr. Wang and his belongings to a large classroom. A group of inmates surrounded him and stripped off his clothes. They rummaged through his clothes and other personal belongings. One inmate shaved his head bald and ordered him to squat in a corner. When he refused to squat, the inmates, led by Zheng Weimin, beat and kicked him.
As Mr. Wang refused to acknowledge guilt for practicing Falun Gong, the inmates were instructed by guard Jiang to drag him to the shower room. They stripped off his clothes and poured cold water from a four-foot tall container over his head. Mr. Wang was shivering, yet the inmates continued to douse him with cold water, for at least one hour. He became incontinent, collapsed on the ground and shook uncontrollably. The inmates continued to kick him and pulled him up to continue the cold shower. They didn’t stop until Mr. Wang was having difficulty breathing. They then forced him to put his clothes back on and run laps in the classroom, until he was too exhausted to continue. Inmate Zheng slapped him in the face a few times and forced him to sit on a small stool. Even then, he was still shaking uncontrollably.
Torture reenactment: sitting on a small stool motionless for hours on end
Sitting on a small stool for hours on end is a cruel torture method. In the Fifth Team, all Falun Gong practitioners who refused to renounce their faith were forced to sit on a small stool with the height, length and width all being 8 inches. The sitting started at 4:30 a.m. and lasted until 9 p.m. The only time that the practitioners could get up was during meal time and restroom breaks.
While sitting, the practitioners had to keep their upper body straight, their heads up, their legs at a 90-degree angle, and with their knees placed against the lower back of the person sitting in front of them and their hands on their knees. Any deviation from the required posture would result in beatings or electric shocks by the inmates and guards.
After long hours of sitting, one would suffer enormous pain in the buttocks and numbness in the legs and feet. Even when the practitioners were wearing thick pants in the winter, the flesh on their buttocks would be broken after two days of sitting. The pain in the summer time was even more unbearable.
As a result of the torture, Mr. Wang’s body was covered with injuries and bruises. He had pain in his chest and lower back. Because of the pain, he couldn’t walk on his own or turn over while sleeping. His face was swollen and his head disoriented. His reaction became very slow and his memory declined significantly. He also experienced fast heart beat, chest tightness and palpitations.
On November 5, 2002, Mr. Wang was transferred to the Fourth Team, where he was subjected to brainwashing and forced to work in the fields without pay. While he was burning weeds as instructed in March 2003, his winter jacket caught fire and his hands were blistered. By June 2003, he was so exhausted from the intense labor that his hands and feet were numb and he had trouble falling sleep at night. Yet guard Zhao Jianping slapped him in the face when he was too retired to continue digging up the dirt.
Mr. Wang was taken to “Strict Management Class” in the Second Team on June 29, 2003, and held in isolation. On the second day of his arrival, inmate Fan Tiancun slapped him in the face and kicked him. Inmate Yu Bin punched and kicked him, causing pain all over his body. Yu said to him, “We are following the protocol. Everyone taken here is treated the same. Your punishment was considered light.” At night, guard Liu Xiaoyu hit Mr. Wang twice in the chest for not standing in the correct position. He didn’t get his breath back until after a long while.
In mid-July 2003, practitioners Mr. Yan Guozhu and Mr. Pan Gang attempted to escape from the labor camp, but failed. In retaliation, the labor camp extended Mr. Yan’s term by eight months and Mr. Pan by three months. The guards at the Second Team ordered every Falun Gong practitioner detained here to write a thought report about their understanding of this matter. As Mr. Wang didn’t follow the guards’ order to slander Falun Gong and criticize Mr. Yan and Mr. Pan in his thought report, guards Zhu Shengli, Su Guangwen and Liu Xiaoyu beat him. He fainted as a result and guard Su poured a basin of cold water over his face to wake him up.
Mr. Wang developed itchy scabies all over his body in August 2003. After the blisters broke, pus oozed out and stuck to his pants. It was always extremely painful when taking off his clothes, especially inner wear. Yet the guards still forced him to work.
Without proper medical treatment, Mr. Wang’s condition kept worsening. It was already very difficult for him to walk in May 2004. When he refused to work, the guards Tao and Sun Haibo threatened to subject him to even more brutal torture.
Sun continued to force Mr. Wang to work in June 2004. When he fainted during work, Sun accused him of causing trouble for them. He beat him and deliberately kicked him with the toe cap of his shoe on the scabies on his calves. He also hit him on the nose and beat him with a baton. The beating lasted from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. the next day. Mr. Wang had severe nose bleeding, incontinence, injuries all over his body and numbness in his hands and feet.
The guards sent Mr. Wang back to the Fifth Team on July 13, 2004 and forced him to sit on the small stool again. He fainted from the torture on the next day.
When the fall harvest started on October 11, 2004, Mr. Wang was still forced by the guards to work despite his very weak physical condition. After struggling for a week, he refused to work on October 18. Guards He Jianxin and Wang Yanwei retaliated by denying him family visits.
Mr. Wang wrote a complaint to the local procuratorate in late August 2004, detailing how the guards tortured him. Guards He and Zhang Wei withheld his complaint.
The guards transferred Mr. Wang to the area designated for tuberculosis patients in the Fourth Team on October 29, 2004. He soon contracted the virus. He was unable to keep food down and became incapacitated. The guards ordered the inmates to carry him around and force fed him. He suffered incontinence and was left unattended in soiled bedding.
On the verge of death, Mr. Wang was taken to the First Team in early December 2004. The guards forced him to stand against the wall. He was so weak that he collapsed to the ground in no time. The guards then ordered the inmates to drag him around in the building and left him in an empty room without heat. On December 14, one day after practitioner Mr. Liu Ziwei was persecuted to death, the guards informed Mr. Wang’s family to take him home.
From Mr. Wang’s arrest on August 26, 2002 to his release on December 14, 2004, he was detained for a total of two years, three months and nineteen days. At 5’8’’ tall, he was reduced to skin and bones, with his body weight dropping from 154 lbs to 88 lbs.
Readmitted to the Labor Camp
After Mr. Wang was released, he resumed practicing Falun Gong and gradually recovered. He contacted his employer multiple times and demanded to go back to work, but the bank leadership didn’t approve his request. In late December 2005, the bank manager, Sun Wancheng, went to his home to harass him. He was not in, and Sun threatened his family that he wasn’t allowed appeal for Falun Gong or do anything to expose the persecution. Sun harassed his family over the phone a few more times and attempted to force them to reveal his whereabouts.
The police continued to monitor Mr. Wang’s daily life for the next few years. When he returned home at around 10 p.m. on April 23, 2008, he was arrested by the police staking outside his home. With the paperwork from his previous labor camp term, the police attempted to detain him again at the Chaoyanggou Labor Camp, which initially refused to admit him, as his term had long expired. But the police quickly renewed his labor camp term and got him admitted.
Mr. Wang held a hunger strike in May 2008 to protest the arbitrary detention. He fell into critical condition and was taken to the hospital for resuscitation. Fearing that he might die in the hospital, the labor camp guards notified his family to take him home. They harassed his family a few times after finding out that he survived the crisis by practicing Falun Gong.
To avoid further persecution, Mr. Wang lived away from home in July 2008 and found a job at the cafeteria in the Songyuan City Experimental High School.
Sentenced to Five Years and Four Months
Mr. Wang was seized by Yu Wenrui, head of the Songyuan City Domesetic Security Office, and Li Guoqing, the deputy head, on June 5, 2013 and held at the Songyuan City Detention Center.
Yu and Li made over ten harassment phone calls each day, three days in a row, to the cafeteria Mr. Wang worked at, attempting to collect information against him.
The police later submitted Mr. Wang’s case to the Ningjiang District Procuratorate, which indicted him and moved his case to the Ningjiang District Court. He stood trial in August 2013 and was sentenced to five years and four months at the Jilin Province Prison. His family wasn't informed of his hearing or sentencing.
By the time Mr. Wang was released on October 4, 2018, his family almost didn’t recognize him. Most of his hair had turned gray. There were blotches that appeared to be vitiligo all over his body, including a 5-cm-wide patch on his forehead, a 3-cm-wide patch on his left cheek, and many 10-cm-long areas on his body. His thinking wasn’t clear and his eyesight was poor. He also had difficulty speaking and exhibited severe memory loss. His back was hunched and his legs were bowed.
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