Crimes of Shang Xiaoyun, Deputy Secretary of Yunnan Provincial PLAC, in Persecuting Falun Gong

Title or Position

Dec. 29, 2022 – Present: deputy secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC) of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee, and first political commissar of the Provincial Prison Administration; deputy director of the Social and Legal Affairs Committee of the Specialised Committees of the 13th Yunnan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)

October 2015 – December 2022: deputy secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee, secretary of the Party Committee and Director of the Provincial Department of Justice, and first political commissar of the Provincial Prison Administration.

June 2015: deputy secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee of the Yunnan Provincial Party Committee.

Shang Xiaoyun has also served as Party branch secretary and principal of Chuxiong Prefecture Sports School, deputy secretary-general of Chuxiong Autonomous Prefecture Party Committee, director of the Chuxiong Autonomous Prefecture Party Committee Office, secretary of Dayao County Party Committee, member of the Standing Committee of Nujiang Autonomous Prefecture Party Committee and Minister of Organization Department.

 

Major Crimes

Since becoming deputy secretary of the Yunnan Provincial PLAC and director of the Department of Justice in 2015, Shang Xiaoyun has actively implemented the CCP’s persecution policy of Falun Gong practitioners. The torture of Falun Gong practitioners is especially severe in Yunnan Provincial No. 1 Men’s Prison and the Yunnan Provincial No. 2 Women’s Prison.

During Shang’s tenure, at least nine Falun Gong practitioners, including Mr. Shi Jianwei, Mr. Li Peigao, Mr. Wu Guangcheng, Ms. Zhu Yandong, Ms. Ding Guiying, Mr. Liao Jianfu, Mr. Zhang Shining, and Ms. Zhang Gongqin were tortured to death in prison or died shortly after being released.

The Yunnan Provincial No. 1 Men’s Prison

Since 2019, guards at Yunnan Provincial No. 1 Men’s Prison have adopted more brutal yet covert torture methods against the practitioners. All practitioners who refused to renounce Falun Gong were held in the strict management ward. Each one of them was monitored by four inmates all day long.

The practitioners were forced to sit on small stools motionless, with the inmates sitting around them and hitting them with their elbows and knees. Other abuse the practitioners endured included brainwashing, solitary confinement, standing under the scorching sun for long hours, beating, spraying with spicy water, and electric shocks.

In May 2022, the prison’s education department transferred the practitioners to a building and forced them to watch materials slandering Falun Gong from morning to evening. The practitioners were also forced to write thought reports every day. The brainwashing would continue as long as they didn’t renounce Falun Gong.

Mr. He Jianguang was one of the practitioners held in the brainwashing sessions. The guards also tortured him by hanging him up in a room until late at night. His body was covered with scabies due to the abuse.

Mr. Wu Guangcheng was also subjected to long-term brainwashing and abuse. He was very weak when he was released on April 6, 2022. He passed away three months later on July 27.

To date, there are still over ten practitioners held in the prison.

The Yunnan Provincial No. 2 Women’s Prison

The Yunnan Provincial No. 2 Women’s Prison is under the direct management of the Yunnan Province 610 Office, an extra-legal agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong. The ninth ward was designated to torture the practitioners. In other wards, there were also guards with the sole task of monitoring the practitioners.

The common torture methods included solitary confinement, sitting on a small stool without moving, beating, electric shocks, drug administration, force-feeding, sleep deprivation, denied restroom use, and not being allowed to wash oneself.

In the second half of 2019, the Yunnan Province Second Women’s Prison established a strict management cell with two different tiers. Practitioners placed on tier one of strict management were forced to sit on a small bench from 5:40 a.m. to midnight every day and were not allowed to brush their teeth or wash their faces in the washroom.

They could only quickly fetch a half basin of water from the washroom and run back to the cell to clean themselves. Those on tier two were forced to sit on a small bench from 5:40 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. every day and were allowed to brush their teeth and wash their face in the washroom.

Both tiers allowed only four restroom breaks each day and one 7-minute shower every week. There was no additional time allotted to wash clothes, which could only be done during the weekly shower time.

Ms. He Lichun was in tier-one strict management. She was forced to sit on a small stool for almost 19 hours a day. To date, there are still over 20 Falun Gong practitioners held in the prison.

 

Select Persecution Cases

Case 1: 86-year-old Man Dies Days Before Finishing Wrongful Prison Term for Practicing Falun Gong

Mr. Li Peigao from Kunming City, Yunnan Province died on January 4, 2023, days before he finished serving a four-year term for practicing Falun Gong. According to inmates who were released before him, Mr. Li had good health in the prison and it was shocking that he suddenly died, just days before he was to be released. He was 86.

Mr. Li was arrested on November 26, 2015, and sentenced to four years on October 8, 2016. He was taken to the Yunnan Province Prison to serve time in January 2019 and denied family visitation.

Case 2: 76-year-old Woman Suddenly Dies While Serving Time

Ms. Ding Guiying’s family was dealt a heavy blow when the Yunnan Province No. 2 Women’s Prison suddenly informed them in mid-January 2021 that their loved one had just passed away. Prior to that, Ms. Ding’s family didn’t even know she had been sentenced for upholding her faith in Falun Gong. The prison rushed to cremate her body days later. She was 76 years old.

Ms. Ding, a Kunming City, Yunnan Province resident, was arrested at home on August 28, 2019. As the Kunming City Detention Centre had been barring Ms. Ding’s family from visiting her, and the authorities never updated them with her case status, they still thought she was in the detention centre and often went to the Domestic Security Division to demand her release.

A guard from Yunnan Province No. 2 Women’s Prison informed them that Ms. Ding suddenly suffered “an acute disease” on January 14 and died at 8:53 a.m. on January 15. The prison cremated her body on January 19 without much explanation about her condition. As Ms. Ding had been perfectly healthy before her arrest, her family suspected that she may have died from the abuse in custody, not due to a disease, as claimed by the prison.

Only after Ms. Ding had passed away did her family receive her verdict. She was sentenced to four years by the Wuhua District Court on July 10, 2020.

Case 3: Mr. Shi Jianwei Tortured to Death and His Body Forcibly Cremated

Mr. Shi Jianwei was an English teacher in Binchuan County, Yunnan Province. He died at Yunnan Province First Prison while serving a 6.5-year term for his faith. He was 56. The prison claimed that Mr. Shi died of liver cancer. However, his family suspects he was tortured to death, given the bruising on his back and that there was no sign of liver cancer in his medical record. His body was cremated against his family’s will, a practice that is commonplace in what is believed to be an attempt to cover up evidence of torture and other abuses such as forced organ harvesting.

Case 4: Mr. Liao Jianfu Persecuted to Death in the Prison

Mr. Liao Jianfu, a Panzhihua City, Sichuan Province resident was arrested in October 2016 for putting up informational posters about Falun Gong. The authorities sentenced him to four years in Yunnan Province First Prison. He was transferred there in July 2018 and in less than nine months, he passed away.

Mr. Liao suffered high blood pressure in the prison, yet the guards still forced him to sit still for over 10 hours a day for three months. To put more pressure on him, the guards measured his blood pressure several times a day and even took him to a hospital for checkups. His family visited him twice and knew that his blood pressure was dangerously high and that he had blood clots in the brain. Their requests for medical parole were repeatedly denied. He died on the evening of March 19, 2019, at the age of 65.

Case 5: Married Couple Die from Physical Conditions Developed in Prison

Mr. Zhang Shining was a retired employee of a department store in Gejiu City. He was arrested at home on May 4, 2012, along with his wife, Ms. Zhang Gongqin. The couple, then in their 60s, were each sentenced to seven years in prison. While serving time in prison, Mr. Zhang developed high blood pressure, heart disease, and diabetes in 2017. He was in a critical condition but denied family visits. As his condition kept deteriorating, the prison didn’t want him to die in custody and released him. He passed away shortly after. His wife also developed diabetes while in prison. Her health also kept worsening after she was released. She also lost her eyesight. She died in 2021.

Case 6: Jewelry Merchant Dies Three Years After Being Jailed

Two years after Mr. Zhu Yandong, a jewelry merchant in Kunming City, Yunnan Province, took up Falun Gong, he was arrested and sentenced to three years for exposing the persecution. The prison guards beat him and injected him with toxic drugs. His blood sugar increased quickly, which also caused his vision to decline. The guards also forced him to wear a straitjacket. By the time he was released on September 8, 2016, Mr. Zhu had been physically and mentally traumatized. The authorities continued to harass him following his release, which caused his health to deteriorate further. He eventually passed away on August 25, 2019. He was 51 years old.

Case 7: Woman Sprayed with Corrosive Chemical during Fourth Prison Term for Her Faith

Ms. Wang Jinxian, a Kunming City, Yunnan Province, resident was tortured and sprayed with a corrosive chemical that almost caused her to become disfigured while serving a fourth prison term for practicing Falun Gong.

Ms. Wang was sentenced to four years in 2019 and taken to the Yunnan Provincial No.2 Women’s Prison. She was subjected to various torture, including being forced to sit on a small stool for a long time, being held in solitary confinement, and being repeatedly slapped in the face. She was monitored by inmates and subjected to constant beatings and verbal abuse. In the winter, the guards forced Ms. Wang to hand-copy the prison rules while having the freezing wind blow on her, resulting in her hands developing frostbite.

The guards barred Ms. Wang from using toilet paper in the restroom or a blanket at night. She wasn’t allowed to get food from the cafeteria herself and she had to finish whatever food the inmates brought her. They sometimes gave her very little food, while other times gave her excessive amounts of food. She’d be punished if she failed to eat everything.

Because she shouted out condemnation of the persecution, the guards sprayed a corrosive chemical onto her face on many occasions, causing her face to be severely burnt and covered with dark scars. Before the guards sprayed the chemical, they first closed the window of her cell and ordered the other inmates out. Wearing masks or respirators themselves, the guards sprayed the chemical toward her face. She felt suffocated and unable to breathe. Sometimes the guards sprayed a larger volume, and the chemical quickly spread to other cells through the ventilation system, causing other inmates to cough.