(Minghui.org) A Xiong County resident had two broken ribs and a swollen face when he was released after 44 days of detention for refusing to renounce Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa), a spiritual discipline being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.
Mr. Li Chengwu was also emaciated and appeared to be disoriented. He didn’t fully regain his memory until about two weeks after his release. Only then did his family learn what he went through during his detention.
Mr. Li was originally from Heilongjiang Province. He credits Falun Gong for restoring his health and helping him become sober. He has never shied away from telling people about the brutal persecution of Falun Gong in China. His simple act, however, landed him in police custody on multiple occasions.
He was given one year of forced labor after he went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in May 2000. He was laid off and fined 5,000 yuan upon his release. The police also put him on 24/7 surveillance. He moved his family to Hebei Province nine years ago.
Mr. Li was arrested again on August 29, 2016, while talking to people about Falun Gong. He refused to disclose his home address during interrogation. Officers slammed his head against a metal pole.
The police next ransacked his home and confiscated his valuables, including Falun Gong books and informational materials, 2,400 yuan in cash (1,000 yuan of which was later returned to his family), a cell phone, and four MP3 players.
Mr. Li refused to answer questions or sign an interrogation record at the police station.
He was next driven to the local hospital for an examination before being transferred to Xing County Detention Center.
Mr. Li’s first few days at the detention center were filled with constant beatings. The guards ordered inmates to punch and kick him. Before long, two of his ribs were broken. The inmates, however, kept punching his broken ribs to inflict additional pain.
The inmates also flicked his eyeballs and used the sole of a shoe to slap his face repeatedly. They next squeezed his penis and burned his hands and neck with a lighter.
The guards then ordered inmates to take turns keeping Mr. Li awake for four days straight.
Zhang Baozhong and Guo Huimin, heads of the Domestic Security Office, came to the detention center and tried to get Mr. Li to sign an arrest warrant, which stated that he had committed a crime for practicing and spreading information about Falun Gong. He refused to sign, as no law in China criminalizes Falun Gong.
A detention center director surnamed Liu approached Mr. Li a few days later, asking him to sign some paperwork. He noticed it was the same thing that Zhang and Guo had presented to him. He again refused.
One month later, two officials from the Procuratorate came with the same arrest warrant. Mr. Li refused for a third time.
Mr. Li called out “Falun Dafa is good” one day in September and was beaten in a place with no surveillance cameras. The aforementioned director Liu ordered the punishment.
Liu was on duty two days later, and Mr. Li again called out “Falun Dafa is good.” Liu instructed inmates to beat Mr. Li until his head bled.
The beatings continued in the days that followed. Mr. Li’s health quickly deteriorated, and he began to have bad breath and gave off a foul odor. One inmate commented that he was so thin that he looked like a ghost.
Mr. Li went on a hunger strike on October 4 to protest his arbitrary detention. The guards placed him in solitary confinement on October 11. They ordered a convicted murderer to beat him in an attempt to make him stop his hunger strike.
The guards decided to force-feed Mr. Li when he refused to cooperate. They held him down and tied down his limbs. It took them a few tries to insert the feeding tube into his stomach, but they couldn’t get the food in. Mr. Li choked more than once. He almost stopped breathing at one point before the guards finally stopped.
For the next twelve-plus hours, guards gave him IV drips containing unknown drugs. In the meantime, they stuffed his mouth with dirty socks and burned his hands with a lighter.
Mr. Li appeared despondent and his vision was blurred by the time the guards stopped the IV drips on October 12. They released him hours later to his family, who had come to the detention center earlier that day to seek his release upon learning of his hunger strike.