(Minghui.org) Minghui.org previously reported that Mr. Cheng Huaigen, of Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, was persecuted to death at the Jiazhou Prison on May 29, 2017, while serving a four-year term for his faith in Falun Gong. Now we’ve collected additional information regarding Mr. Cheng’s death to be presented below.
Mr. Cheng Huaigen
Mr. Cheng began to practice Falun Gong in 2006. He was arrested on May 13, 2015 for hanging up a banner that read “The world needs Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance (the core values of Falun Gong).” He was later sentenced to four years and admitted to the 9th Division of Jiazhou Prison in June 2016.
Only one month into his prison admission, Mr. Cheng became severely injured due to torture and was taken to the police hospital in Chengdu. Before he made a full recovery, he was discharged in November 2016 and taken back to the 9th Division.
The guards at the 9th Division assigned inmate Xu Jun to lead other detainees in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Xu talked to Mr. Cheng several times and attempted to persuade him to renounce Falun Gong. Mr. Cheng refused to comply and was forced to stand day and night, while being watched by two inmates around the clock. Shao Ling, the deputy director of the education department (instructor of the 9th Division), also made a few attempts to make Mr. Chen renounce Falun Gong, but failed.
In April 2017, guard Liu Guoqiang created a “Strict Management” team targeting Falun Gong practitioners who refused to renounce their faith. The practitioners were forced to walk or run in laps in the playground all day long, even under the baking sun. They were only given a total of 20 seconds for all three meals each day, which only allowed them to have one or two bites for each meal. They weren’t allowed to have any snacks after returning to the cell at night either. As a result of the extensive physical exercises and limited food intake, the practitioners lost weight very quickly.
After one month of the “strict management,” Mr. Cheng became emaciated and very weak. Inmate Song Wengao, a former hospital president, gave him unlabeled medicines three times a day. Mr. Cheng was forced to swallow the pills in front of Song each time.
As Mr. Cheng and several other practitioners remained firm in their faith despite the torture, instructor Shao blamed inmate Xu for not working hard to transform them and arranged him to watch the practitioners at night. Meanwhile, Shao appointed Zhang Heng, a white-collar prisoner, to be the inmates’ lead in transforming the practitioners. Shao frequently met with Zhang and taught him torture tactics.
Zhang spared no effort in persecuting the practitioners, including beating them, verbally abusing them, forcing them to stand for long hours and denying them the use of the restroom. Zhang also moved Mr. Cheng to his own cell and changed the four other inmates monitoring him every 20 days, in order to keep the torture methods secret. No one was allowed to talk to Mr. Cheng.
Inmate Xu used to allow the practitioners in “Strict Management” team to have two full meals every ten days, but Zhang stopped that.
After two months of the “strict management,” Mr. Cheng was merely skin and bones. After another month, instructor Shao and another prison guard surnamed Lin ordered Zhang to select four young and strong inmates to carry Mr. Cheng to the staircase on the bottom floor, where there was no surveillance camera. They forced him to sign a prepared statement to renounce Falun Gong and claimed that he voluntarily signed it. As Mr. Cheng refused to acknowledge the statement, Shao extended his “strict management” by two more weeks, before assigning him to the production division.
Mr. Cheng died on May 29, 2017, four days after he was taken to the production division. He was 54.
According to prison rules, Falun Gong practitioners were not to be assigned to the production division until they attended the one-month “education session” to “strengthen the transformation result.” Mr. Cheng’s family suspected that Shao sent him to the production division to shirk responsibility because Mr. Cheng was extremely weak and dying, after three months of extensive physical exercises, while eating less than 50g of food each day.
It was also known across the prison that Shao had been very actively persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. He would come to the prison whenever a practitioner was newly admitted, even when he wasn’t working that day. He worked closely with the 610 Office to get the practitioners’ personal information for customized transformation plans. When the practitioners’ families came to visit them and if the family member also practices Falun Gong, Shao would intimidate them and threaten to deny the visitation.
At least 25 Falun Gong practitioners and one family member of a practitioner have died as a result of the torture in Jiazhou Prison. Some died while still serving time in the prison, and some passed away after they were released on the brink of death.
Related Reports:
Unimaginable Abuse Preceded Mr. Cheng Huaigen's Unnatural Death
Practitioner Dies Eight Months After Imprisoned for Hanging a Banner about His Faith
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