Falun Gong Practitioners Systematically Tortured in Kangjiashan Prison in China’s Shenyang City

 

Falun Gong Practitioners Who Died in Kangjiashan Prison Due to Persecution

Mr. Gao Dong

Mr. Gao Dong was detained in the 3rd Division, where he went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution and was subjected to cruel force-feeding. The then head of the prison hospital, Hu Yaodong, shocked him with electric batons. Instructor Wang Qinghu also whipped him with a belt. Mr. Gao was also forced to watch videos defaming Falun Gong.

Mr. Gao was force-fed with a nasogastric tube. Because he often pulled out the tube, they tied his arms to the bed. Mr. Gao often vomited the food he was fed, so Fan Chuiyi from the prison administration wrote Falun Gong founder’s name and slanderous words on a piece of cardboard and put it in front of him so he would vomit on it. The inmates often put what he vomited back into his food and sometimes added urine into the food.

Mr. Gao often shouted “Falun Dafa is good” to protest and was beaten by inmates. Inmate Sun Dezhi wanted to have his term further reduced so he tried to force Mr. Gao to start eating and renounce his faith in Falun Gong. When he could not get what he wanted, he poured boiling water on Mr. Gao’s inner thighs, resulting in big blisters. He also forced Mr. Gao to call him Dad.

Kangjiashan Prison sent Mr. Gao to the general hospital of Liaoning Prison administration after he became very unwell. However, he suffered even more inhumane treatment there. Each time he was brought back, he was covered with black and blue bruises all over his body.

Mr. Gao was tied to his bed for two long years. He passed away on February 8, 2013, and was cremated under the instruction of the prison.

 

Mr. Hu Lin

Mr. Hu Lin, an aerospace engineer, was arrested on May 23, 2019. He suffered brutal beatings, force-feeding and other forms of torture at Faku County Detention Centre. He became so weak that he had to be carried to court for the trial. The judge sentenced him to two years in prison on June 12.

A number of prisons refused to accept him due to his poor physical condition. In the end, Faku County Detention Centre bribed the management of Kangjiashan Prison, and Mr. Hu, who was on the brink of death, was admitted to the prison on October 13.

When his family visited him on November 7, he had become so skinny and weak that he was unable to turn over and lost feeling in his legs.

His family requested a health checkup for him, but the prison staff said they would not do it because he shouted “Falun Dafa is good” so he was considered a political prisoner and would not be released even if he died.

During the last three months of Mr. Hu’s life, the prison notified his family many times, saying “Hu Lin refused to transform (renounce his faith) and shouted Falun Dafa is good. He is injuring and harming himself by refusing to eat, so the prison has no responsibility if he dies. We have already given up on him.” Mr. Hu’s family was outraged by the prison’s attitude.

His family and friends tried to talk to relevant departments, but they either tried to blame each other, conceal the facts or deceive his family and friends. The prison also denied him family visitation and disallowed any phone calls between him and his family.

The local Prosecutor’s Office and the head of Kangjiashan Prison, Liu Xing, either refused to take any responsibility or declined to take any phone calls from Mr. Hu’s family.

Kangjiashan Prison called Mr. Hu’s elder brother on the evening of February 14, 2020, saying Hu Lin was taken to the hospital for emergency care. His brother went to the hospital straight away and was only allowed to glimpse Mr. Hu through a window before he was asked to sign some documents. The hospital notified his family two days later, at 1:00 pm on February 16 that Ms. Hu had passed away.

 

Mr. Zhao Chenglin

Mr. Zhao Chenglin was sentenced to four years in prison in September 2014 and taken to the 3rd Division of Kangjiashan Prison. He was often dragged to the washroom in winter and had cold water poured all over him because he shouted “Falun Dafa is good.” A number of his teeth were knocked out when he went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Years of cruel mistreatment took a heavy toll on Mr. Zhao’s health. He passed away on February 15, 2020 after he was released.

 

Torture Cases

Mr. Chen Xinye

Mr. Chen Xinye was taken to the Kangjiashan Prison in 2009, where he was forced to sit still on a piece of board from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm every day. When he moved a little, he was beaten and verbally abused.

In scorching summer, more than twenty people were given only one bottle of water to share, a sip each.

He was put under strict monitoring around the clock, and everything he said or did was reported to the guards.

A month later, Mr. Chen was forced to do intensive labor, making zircons (synthetic diamonds) with a grinding wheel. The ground zircons were the size of sesames or rice grains, the largest being the size of soybeans. Overtime, Mr. Chen’s eyesight deteriorated badly and he began to suffer blurred and double vision.

Mr. Chen’s family members asked to see him on August 18, 2009. Two guards asked if his family members practiced Falun Gong and their attitude towards the practice. After they told the guards that there is no legal basis for the persecution of Falun Gong, the guards rejected their request to see Mr. Chen.

 

Mr. Xu Guangzhu

Mr. Xu Guangzhu, an elderly man from Jinzhou District of Dalian, was one of more than twenty Falun Gong practitioners detained in the 2nd Division during the period from 2015 to 2018. A group of inmates headed by Gao Feng tortured Mr. Xu under the directives of the guard. They whipped his head with bamboo sticks and he almost died as a result. The instructor at the time was Qi Gang.

 

Mr. Wang Deqing

Mr. Wang Deqing was taken to the 2nd Division in November 2015. He was led to a bathroom with no surveillance camera, where he was forced to sit still on a small stool for long hours and was constantly beaten up and disallowed to use the toilet. He was also deprived of sleep along with other new inmates.

In freezing cold December, inmates Li Qiang and Zhang Tiejun took off Mr. Wang’s padded jacket, tied his hands behind his back and forced him to sit on the cold brick floor, and then they forcibly split his legs in opposite directions, causing Mr. Wang excruciating pain.

Li Qiang also rolled up a big book and repeatedly hit Mr. Wang’s neck artery, which was extremely painful.

The two inmates also filled water bottles with metal filings and used them to hit Mr. Wang’s head until he passed out. Li Qiang boasted that he could beat up people without leaving any visible injuries.

Once while Li Qiang and Zhang Tiejun were beating up Mr. Wang in the bathroom, instructor Qi Gang joined in and punched Mr. Wang’s nose and it started bleeding straight away. He then slapped his face many times and kicked him to the ground. He also told the other two not to give Mr. Wang any lunch. That evening, the inmates took Mr. Wang, who could hardly walk by then, to the office and cuffed both his hands to a chair. Then Qi Gang brought in two other guards and started shocking Mr. Wang with three electric batons at the same time.

Later, Mr. Wang was forced to do intensive hard labor and was subjected to strict monitoring around the clock. He was not allowed to talk to anyone.

In the second half of 2017, Mr. Wang started to show severe symptoms and survived only after emergency treatment.

 

Mr. Yi Tiezheng

Mr. Yi Tiezheng from Panjin City was taken to the 4th Division of Kangjiashan Prison on August 19, 2016. Division head Qi Gang told four inmates to take Mr. Yi to a bathroom where there was no surveillance camera to torture him by forcefully splitting his legs apart.

Mr. Yi was forced to sit on a plastic stool and face the wall. The perpetrators forcibly pulled his legs to opposite directions. When his legs were not in place, they kicked his back, waist and his head from behind. When Mr. Yi’s legs were still not split as they wanted, they punched and kicked him. They also used a wooden stick to scrape his ribs and took off his belt and whipped him with it until it broke into pieces. Mr. Yi was bleeding everywhere.

When they saw that Mr. Yi was on the verge of death, they poured cold water over him and kicked his head. Seeing there was no response, they called someone to check Mr. Yi’s blood pressure, which showed no sign. He was then rushed to the hospital and put on oxygen and IV drips.

Mr. Yi was brought back to his cell after 8:00 p.m. and was forced to sit still on a small stool. Each time he moved a little, he was beaten with a stick, and the perpetrators also pricked his fingertips and his head with sharp toothpicks.

Inmate Cai Fengguang put a plastic bag over Mr. Yi’s head and blew cigarette smoke into it to choke him. Mr. Yi’s buttocks became ulcerated from sitting on the small stool for long periods of time and he was in great pain.

The perpetrators pulled off Mr. Yi’s pants and rubbed salt and water on his wounds to aggravate his pain.

Division head Qi Gang and instructor Li Kaihong and guard Chen Yunfeng often went into the bathroom, where they ordered four inmates to hold Mr. Yi while they shocked him with high-voltage electric batons. When Mr. Yi went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution, he was brutally force-fed.

Mr. Yi’s health deteriorated rapidly as a result of cruel torture. He still had trouble with his right eye in 2017, two years after he’d returned home.

 

 

Mr. Liu Junbo

After Mr. Liu Junbo was taken to Kangjiashan Prison, he started a hunger strike to protest the persecution and was force-fed many times. When he was force-fed the first time, guard Meng Xiangyu shocked him with an electric baton while other inmates held him down tight and covered his mouth. Mr. Liu was nearly choked to death and suffered chest pain for many years afterward.

He was force-fed with a large amount of concentrated salt water, making him feel extremely miserable.

Many other Falun Gong practitioners also suffered cruel torture in Kangjiashan Prison. For example, on the day when Lü Jinyu from Benxi City was brought in the prison, four of his teeth were knocked out when he was beaten up by inmates; Song Yuegang from Yingkou City suffered brutal force-feeding; Liu Hongjun was often shocked with electric batons by the 3rd Division leader Xu Jian; when Zhang De from Haicheng told the guards that he was “not guilty,” they ordered inmates to beat him. He was later held in solitary confinement and force-fed and had to be admitted to the hospital when he became extremely weak as a result of torture.

 

Cases of Falun Gong Practitioners Being Deprived of Legal Right to Medical Parole

Mr. Han Chunlong

After Mr. Han Chunlong was arrested, he was tortured and brutally force-fed. He had a urinary catheter inserted and left in place for a long time, resulting in serious illness. He was diagnosed by the Dandong Central Hospital with renal insufficiency, hydronephrosis complicated by infection, kidney stones, ureteral stones, bladder stones, urinary tract infections, etc. He was no longer able to take care of himself and was confined to a wheelchair. Still, Mr. Han was sentenced to four years in prison and sent to Masanjia Prison, where he was rejected due to his physical condition.

The Kangjiashan Prison accepted him on July 10, 2013, and intended to send him to the Army General Hospital. The hospital refused to accept him due to his physical condition. His family asked for medical parole, but their request was rejected by the prison with various excuses.

Mr. Han’s family members asked to see him on July 15, 2013. Prison officers Fan Chuiyi and Gao Hua made things difficult for them by asking them to insult the founder of Falun Gong. After Han’s family members refused to do so, the officers then asked them to state their attitude towards Falun Gong. In the end, they refused to allow Mr. Han’s wife to see him, but only his parents.

Kangjiashan Prison has very strict approval procedures when it comes to visitation by family members of Falun Gong practitioners, making it very clear on the form that family members who practice Falun Gong are not allowed any visitation. A visitation request had to be approved by authorities at each level of administration. When it was finally approved, family members were told to sit at window 1 or window 24, as these two windows are on the side and equipped with large headsets for easy monitoring.

 

 

Mr. Zhao Changfu

Mr. Zhao Changfu suffered from kidney failure, heart failure, and other symptoms until the end of 2021. When he was in critical condition, he was taken to the No 4 Hospital of Shenyang City and then Shenyang Xinkang Prison (Hospital).

At present, Mr. Zhao’s health has deteriorated. He is blind in one eye and has blurred vision in the other. He can only see things within one metre. His thighs are swollen, and his calves are also swollen with broken blisters. He is feeling very weak and asked for treatment, but the prison authorities allowed him to be treated only at the No 4 Hospital, which has not been able to admit him due to a lack of beds.

As Mr. Zhao’s health kept declining, his family requested medical parole for him, but the relevant prison officials said: “No transformation (renouncing his faith), no medical parole. There is no other way. Don’t even talk about it.”

 

Intensive Forced Labor

The production lines in the 1st and 2nd Divisions of Kangjiashan Prison mainly make supermarket shopping bags for export or domestic outlets. The 3rd Division produces spiral lamps. The circuit boards inside the lamp holders are connected with solder. There are two large exhaust fans in the workshop to remove the fumes. The plants outside the building near the exhaust fans all withered. Inmates working there only wear a surgical mask, with no other personal protection equipment. Every few days, a container truck from Dalian Port would come for boxes of the lamps.

Most inmates working in the 4th Division are the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled, or those who have connections and are given special favors. They only do light work and less of it.

Each division is contracted by the division leader, who pays a certain amount of output value to the prison every month, and the remaining proportion belongs to the division leader, with a small portion of it given to team leaders as a bonus. Pursuit of profit has become the sole motivation for prison guards.

Inmates are forced to work in crowded and unsafe conditions, and even the number of times they use the restroom is restricted. If they fail to finish their work quota, they would be shocked with electric batons or beaten up. In 2014, an inmate was forced to cut off his finger on an abrasive saw for failing to complete his task on time.

Inmates start working after breakfast at around 7:30 a.m. every day and continued working till 6:00 p.m., with no break at lunchtime. They would be lucky if they could get a day off once every fortnight. According to the Labor Law, citizens are not to work longer than 8 hours a day, and no more than 44 hours per week. However, in Kangjiashan Prison, inmates are forced to work at least 10 hours every day. Many inmates ended up being sick or injured as a result of intensive forced labor.

 

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