(Minghui.org) After enduring ten years of torture in Shenyang City First Prison in Liaoning Province for practicing Falun Dafa, Mr. Guo Yanda, in his 60s, said that it was a miracle that he walked out of the prison alive.
Mr. Guo, a former chef in Yingkou City, Liaoning Province, was arrested at home by officers from Dongqiao Police Station on April 18, 2012. His computer and car were confiscated.
Mr. Guo appeared in Zhanqian District Court on February 1, 2013. His lawyer entered a not-guilty plea for him, yet the judge still sentenced him to ten years. He appealed with the Yingkou City Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold his original verdict.
After two years at the Yingkou City Detention Center, Mr. Guo was taken to the Dalian Prison in April 2014 before being transferred to Shenyang City First Prison on May 13 that year.
Wang Bin, the warden in Shenyang City First Prison in Liaoning Province, was known for using brutal tactics to torture Falun Dafa practitioners into renouncing their faith. Many practitioners across China who received long sentences and refused to renounce Falun Gong were sent to this prison.
As Mr. Guo stayed firm in his faith, he was given unsanitary food and was forced to do long hours of labor-intensive work, such as making clothes, without pay. He also suffered constant torture and verbal abuse by the inmates.
One Month in Dalian Prison
In Dalian Prison, Mr. Guo and other practitioners were gathered in a large room, with only straw cushions soaked in water on the concrete floor. The weather was still freezing in April. Yet the guards forced the practitioners to sit on the wet cushions in double-lotus position and watch videos that slandered Falun Dafa. The guards beat the practitioners who refused to cooperate, including Mr. Guo. He was transferred to Shenyang City First Prison after 33 days.
Electric Shocks and Sleep Deprivation in Shenyang Prison
One of the tortures the prison guards used to force the practitioners to renounce their faith was sleep deprivation. Without letting Mr. Guo sleep at night, the guards still forced him to do intensive labor during the day. On the next day, the head guard pretended to care for him and said he could sleep if he simply wrote a statement to renounce Falun Gong. Mr. Guo refused to comply.
One day a guard took Mr. Guo to a place out of sight of other people and ordered him to sign the renouncing statement. When he declined, the guard shocked him with a high-voltage electric baton. He fell to the ground due to the pain. The guard pulled him up and continued to shock him.
Another time a guard made him stand still for long hours without sleep. He told the guard that he’d rather die than give up Falun Gong and that Master Li Hongzhi (Dafa’s founder) would forever be his Master. The guards since then stopped shocking him with electric batons or depriving him of sleep.
Denied Family Visit
Mr. Guo has five siblings. They got to visit him the first couple of years he was in prison. One day a guard told them that because Mr. Guo refused to renounce his faith, and every time they visited him, he became more steadfast in his belief, hence they were not allowed to visit him or deposit money for him again. His family did not see him for two years in 2018 and 2019. On one occasion his younger sister traveled about 2,700 km (1,680 miles) from Guangdong Province to see him, and the guards still denied the visit with an absurd reason that she lived too close to Hong Kong.
The denied visit ended after his older brother argued with the guards. His brother said, “My younger brother is a good man. One time he found 7,000 yuan lost cash and actively sought out the owner to return the money. You locked such a good man with murderers and denied his visit and cash deposit. How does that make sense? We won’t leave unless we see him.” The guards then approved the visit.
Covered in Down Feathers in Summer
The prison owned a production line for puffer-down jackets in summer and T-shirts in winter. Mr. Guo was assigned to stuff down into the jackets. He worked in an isolated room filled with a lot of down feathers and three machines. In summer it was exhausting filthy work that infected many operators with tuberculosis. He had to wear a mask while working. The temperature in the room was over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) as the machines generated a lot of heat. He wore only underpants and was constantly covered in sweat and down feathers. He had to repeatedly run outside to wash off the feathers and cool down to prevent suffocation and heat shock. His skin almost always had heat rashes.
Illustration: Inmates forced to do labor-intensive work
In some years, the work continued until December because of the large orders. When he rinsed off the feathers, he would be covered in frost before he returned to the small room. He sometimes had to work from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. with little sleep each day. If someone couldn’t finish the daily quota, they had to bring the work back to the cell and couldn’t sleep until they finished it. The guards would stop the pipeline if inspectors came.
Staying Healthy Thanks to Falun Dafa
An inmate once reported Mr. Guo for talking to others about Falun Dafa and the ongoing persecution. The guards put him in solitary confinement and forced him to sit in the double lotus position on a wood board for a month. As a result, his left leg became swollen with his puss oozing out. Without using the medicine, he recovered from the infection in three weeks. Some inmates were impressed with his quick recovery and said that they’d practice Falun Dafa after they were released.
One day while he did the Falun Dafa meditation, he felt something go down his throat, and it felt comfortable afterward. The next day he stopped coughing.
When Mr. Guo saw that another practitioner couldn’t clean himself properly because his arm was injured, he helped to wipe his back every day despite the guards’ order not to. The practitioner could not afford a bed sheet and Mr. Gao gave him his. His righteous actions touched many of the inmates.
Related report:
Mr. Guo Yanda Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison and Denied Visitations
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