(Minghui.org) “At around 7 p.m. on March 13, 2002, while passing the second floor to my office on the sixth floor, I heard yelling and the sounds of someone being beaten from one of the rooms. I opened the door and found several officers torturing Mr. Liu Haibo. He was stripped naked and shackled in a kneeling position on a tiger bench. His head was also clamped. Two officers were shocking him while forcibly pushing an electrical baton into his anus. On the side there were several pieces of broken wood. A large area of Liu's body was already swollen and reddish.”
The above was not from a movie or a book. It was from the testimony from Huo Jiefu, who at the time (in 2002) was a supervisor of the Internal Protection Office at the Kuancheng Police Department in Changchun City, Jilin Province. Huo was born in 1970 and graduated from Jilin Police School in 1993. He once served as the chief of Nanguangchang Police Station before taking a job at the Kuancheng Police Department.
One week before the torture of Mr. Liu, Falun Gong practitioners in Changchun had intercepted television signals on March 5 and broadcast information about Falun Gong, a mediation system based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
Information broadcast on cable TV included facts about Falun Gong and its suppression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In particular, the programs shown on TV revealed that the self-immolation incident that took place on the eve of the Chinese New Year, January 23, 2001, was staged by the CCP to demonize Falun Gong and its practitioners.
“Jiang Zemin [then top CCP leader who launched the persecution against Falun Gong in 1999] was furious and he criticized Jilin Province Party Secretary Wang Yukun, ordering him to crack the case as soon as possible. Therefore, this case came under the direct control of the Ministry of Public Security,” recalled Huo.
“Killing with No Mercy”
At 7 p.m. on March 6, 2002, Kuancheng police chief Zhou Chunming held a special meeting to pass the message from the municipal police department, including the “killing with no mercy” order from Jiang. More specifically, Zhou said “Everyone must be mobilized to ‘remain loyal to Jiang and the CCP’ and to accomplish this difficult task with a ‘heightened sense of political responsibility’,” recalled Huo, “The municipal police department also vowed to give Falun Gong practitioners severe punishments and to defeat Falun Gong without having to follow legal procedures. More than 6,000 police officers were dispatched to investigate the case and to prevent a similar TV interception from happening again.”
This led to the arrest of more than 5,000 practitioners in the city of Changchun. On March 12, agents from the Second Criminal Investigation Brigade of the Kuancheng Police Department arrested Mr. Liu Haibo, a physician, and his wife Ms. Hou Yanjie for providing shelter to others involved in the TV interception. Several agents from the Criminal Investigation Brigade beat Mr. Liu and Ms. Hou for a long time, well into the next day (March 13).
Huo witnessed the torture against Mr. Liu as described at the beginning of this article. “Wei Guoning from the Economic Investigation Division was also in the room. He and I asked captain Ai Limin why he and his people tortured Mr. Liu so badly. Ai said they had to force Mr. Liu to turn in other practitioners since this was an order from higher-ups. Ai said things would be fine and asked us to leave,” added Huo.
He was thinking of reaching out to another captain, Sun Lidong, to stop it, but Wei said it was not their business. After failing to find Sun, Huo went back to his office, but he walked out about 10 minutes later. He said, “I went to the third floor to look for Sun again. On the stairs, I heard Sun yelling downstairs, ‘Stop beating!’ Another person came out to ask what was going on, and Sun said, ‘A person has died here!’”
“After entering the room, I saw that Mr. Liu had already been removed from the tiger bench and placed on the floor, dead. Several officers hurried to put on his clothes, but it was not easy. Wei also came in and saw this. While asking us to leave and Ai to keep quiet on this, Sun went to report the incident to Chief Zhou,” recalled Huo.
Hate Propaganda
So why were Jiang and his CCP officials so scared of the facts being broadcast on TV for people to see? This is because the programs shown debunked the lies created by the CCP propaganda machine to slander and attack Falun Gong.
After Mr. Li Hongzhi introduced Falun Gong to the public in Changchun in 1992, the practice quickly drew numerous learners with its profound principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and its five sets of gentle exercises. By 1999, there have been around 100 million practitioners enjoying the practice. The enormous health benefits and moral improvement were a popular topic in families, communities, and all walks of life. Yangcheng Evening News and some other news media also reported how the practice had changed people’s lives for the better.
Many scholars and senior officials were also interested in Falun Gong, with some of them becoming practitioners themselves. Qiao Shi, former Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, led a group of officials and conducted an in-depth survey in 1998. He reached a conclusion: “Falun Gong helps bring countless benefits to society while causing no harm.” After this report was submitted to the Politburo at the end of 1998, Jiang became fearful of Falun Gong's popularity and was more resolute to suppress the practice to solidify his ruling and the communism ideology.
As early as 1996, Jiang had dispatched agents to secretly investigate Falun Gong, attempting to find things against the practice. But the long-term investigation not only failed to find any evidence against Falun Gong but also allowed some police agents to get to know Falun Gong and become practitioners.
Although the majority of the Politburo members disagreed with the suppression, Jiang nonetheless pushed it through and openly launched the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. Several months later, however, many officials – both Politburo members and local officials – were not interested in harming innocent practitioners, leaving the persecution policy difficult to continue.
It was under this circumstance that Jiang and his accomplices staged the self-immolation on the Chinese New Year Eve, January 23, 2001. While numerous Chinese families gathered in front of the TV to watch the annual New Year Gala that night, terrifying scenes of five people setting themselves on fire at Tiananmen Square suddenly appeared on the screen. The self-immolators were said to be Falun Gong practitioners who had followed the practice's teachings to self-immolate so as to reach consummation. The fire, the police officers with extinguishers, and a little girl who was burned beyond recognition stirred up people's hatred against and fear of Falun Gong.
News media followed closely. In the four days following January 31, 2001, Xinhua News Agency and the Chinese News Service published 107 and 64 articles, respectively, demonizing Falun Gong, while “ordinary” citizens in 14 provinces “voluntarily” stood up against the practice. Within one month, over 2,000 newspapers, more than 1,000 magazines, and hundreds of television and radio stations started a massive defamatory campaign. This pushed the entire society away from Falun Gong and the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Many have totally forgotten about stories they heard before about Falun Gong's miraculous healing power and its effect in enabling practitioners to become better citizens.
Pioneers to Overcome Information Blockade
To help the public know what really went on with the staged self-immolation incident, Falun Gong practitioners in Changchun intercepted television signals and broadcast videos in 8 cable channels to expose the self-immolation hoax.
The program started at 7:19 p.m. on March 5, 2002. The entire Changchun City was shocked to watch the 50-minute-long video, which explained that the self-immolation incident had been set up by the CCP regime.
People learned the staged-incident had too many loopholes. Wang Jindong, one of the self-immolators, was burned all over but his hair and gasoline-filled Sprite plastic bottle between his legs were all intact. Liu Chunling, another alleged self-immolator, was actually struck dead by a heavy object, while her badly burned daughter could sing a song during an interview several days after her trachea surgery.
The Weekly Standard published an article on this incident on December 6, 2010. It was titled “Into Thin Airwaves: How a Handful of Unknown Chinese Martyrs Aided the Cause of Freedom Around the World.” “The Falun Gong broadcast had played on eight channels for 50 minutes, garnering an audience of over one million people, the ratings building as word spread, people calling each other, saying they should turn on their TV immediately. In some neighborhoods, local party officials grew desperate and cut the power, plunging streets into darkness,” wrote the article. The article also mentioned the practitioners who intercepted the TV signals, including Liang Zhenxing, Liu Chengjun, Liu Haibo, Zhou Runjun, Hou Mingkai, and Lei Ming.
Due to the impact of the incident, Jiang was fierce about the television interception and issued the order of “killing with no mercy.” Thousands of practitioners were arrested in days and some were tortured to death.
Once again, the CCP covered up the brutality. On March 16, 2002, three days after Mr. Liu was beaten to death, Kuancheng police chief Zhou Chunming said at a meeting that Mr. Liu had died of a heart attack and each office would send someone to guard the morgue to prevent Liu's family and friends from finding his body. Female officers were also dispatched to guard Liu’s wife Ms. Hou, who was hospitalized at the time.
Huo refused to cooperate since he had seen how Mr. Liu had been tortured. Because of this and his remarks on the lack of legitimacy of the persecution, he was removed from the meeting. He later fled China in June 2002. On January 7, 2004, he provided the aforementioned testimony to Minghui.
Sentenced to Lengthy Terms for Courageous Act
The television signal interception happened in 2002, about one year after the staged self-immolation, and 19 years have passed since then.
Many practitioners suffered tremendously for their courageous feat to expose the CCP's lies against Falun Gong. Changchun Intermediate Court sentenced 15 practitioners to prison on September 18, 2002: Ms. Zhou Runjun (20 years), Mr. Liu Weiming (20 years), Mr. Liu Chengjun (19 years), Mr. Liang Zhenxing (19 years), Mr. Zhang Wen (18 years), Mr. Lei Ming (17 years), Mr. Sun Changjun (17 years), Mr. Li Dehai (17 years), Ms. Zhao Jian (15 years), Mr. Yun Qingbin (14 years), Mr. Liu Dong (14 years), Mr. Wei Xiushan (12 years), Mr. Zhuang Xiankun (11 years), Ms. Chen Yanmei ( 11 years), and Ms. Li Xiaojie (4 years).
Furthermore, several practitioners including Mr. Liu Chengjun, Mr. Lei Ming, Mr. Liang Zhenxing, and Mr. Hou Mingkai have died due to the persecution.
Perpetrators Met Consequences
Because of excessive measures and cruelty against Falun Gong practitioners, several officers in Changchun have met consequences throughout the years. Below are some examples.
Sun Lidong, born in November 1952, was a captain at Kuancheng Police Department when the TV interception happened. He was one of the main perpetrators who caused Mr. Liu’s death. He had also led other officers and arrested nearly 100 practitioners in total. He suddenly dropped dead in his office in early 2004, and his subordinates said it was retribution for his persecution of Falun Gong. Because of this, some police officers stopped mistreating practitioners, even though the authorities awarded Sun “Top Ten Newsworthy People” posthumously.
Liu Yuanjun, 54, was the Party Secretary at Changchun Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC). He was responsible for the persecution in Changchun after the persecution began in 1999. He also led the arrest of about 5,000 practitioners after the TV interception incident. He fell ill in mid-April 2006 and died of liver cancer on May 4, 2006.
Zhang Hui, 46, a judge of Changchun Intermediate Court, presided over cases against practitioners arrested for their involvement in the television signal interception. He died of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage on March 2, 2006.
Sun Wansheng, former president of Changchun Intermediate Court, was a main perpetrator responsible for the trial against practitioners arrested for TV interception. He approved all the sentences against practitioners in Changchun. He was later investigated due to bribery.
Tian Zhonglin, 66, was former Changchun Deputy Mayor and Police Chief. He directly gave orders to torture practitioners arrested for TV interception. After being arrested in 2011, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Song Lifei was Deputy Party Secretary of Changchun Intermediate Court that sentenced practitioners for intercepting television signals. He was investigated in June 2018 for illegal activities.
Liu Peizhu, Deputy Chief of Changchun Police Department at the time, actively implemented the “killing with no mercy” order from Jiang against practitioners. He was taken down in January 2020 and removed from his post.
Individuals working in news media also met their fate due to their bad deeds. Chen Meng, deputy director of the News Review Department at China Central Television, was diagnosed with both gastric and liver cancer in 2008. He died at 47 about 9 months later. Luo Jing, news anchor for CCTV who broadcast fake news about the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989 and again for the staged self-immolation in 2001, was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2009. Before his death at age 48, his mouth and tongue had ulcers, and he could not speak. Fang Jing, anchorwoman at the time, died at 44 in 2015.
From ancient times to modern day, there is the belief that, “Good is rewarded with good and evil meets evil.” When one chooses to follow the CCP to do bad deeds and harm innocent people for their faith, the consequences can be serious.
Concluding Remarks
On January 23, 2020, the 19th anniversary of the self-immolation incident, Wuhan was locked down to limit the coronavirus spread. Was it a pure coincidence that the lockdown and the self-immolation happened on the same day? Falun Gong practitioners believe that the CCP has been using the same deceptive tactics in handling the virus as in its persecution of Falun Gong.
Some of the pioneers who intercepted the TV to expose the CCP's self-immolation hoax have died, but numerous other practitioners have been working tirelessly to carry on the task of informing the public of the CCP's deceit and violence, including its cover-up of the virus. They advise people to sever ties with the CCP so as to avoid being held responsible when the time comes to seek justice against the CCP. They also share stories of how some of the infected recovered from the virus by reciting “Falun Dafa is good and Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” Many who heeded their advice also experienced the same miraculous recovery.
In the past few decades, the CCP has also advanced it brutality and lies globally, making the Western society nearly lose its freedom and integrity. Rejecting the CCP will help us stay on track and bring us blessings.
Related Report:Eyewitness Account from a Former Police Officer: Dr. Liu Haibo's Last Two Days
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