US Lawsuit Against Official Zhao Zhifei Results in Massive Arrests and Torture of Falun Gong Practitioners in China's Hubei Province

[Falun Dafa Info Center, October 13] According to reliable sources, the Public Security Chief of China's Hubei province, Zhao Zhifei, who was sued by Wuhan Falun Gong practitioner Peng Liang during his visit to the United States this July, quickly returned to China to mobilize the police force in Hubei province to massively hunt down and arrest Falun Gong practitioners. As a result, many Falun Gong practitioners in Wuchang district whom the police thought to be associated with Peng Liang have been arrested and cruelly tortured.

The source said the purpose of the Hubei police in arresting, interrogating and torturing the practitioners associated with Peng Liang was to "find the people who helped Peng transmit information over the internet and those who helped Peng elude capture." The police have been hunting for Peng Liang ever since he sued Zhao Zhifei.

Because Hubei police mercilessly beat his younger brother Peng Min and his mother Li Yingxiu to death this April, Peng Liang entrusted Falun Gong practitioners in the U.S to sue Zhao Zhifei in New York on July 18. The charges against Zhao include murder, maltreatment, and false imprisonment of Falun Gong practitioners. This event was widely reported by the media in North America.

Numerous eyewitnesses confirmed that the police beat Peng Liang's younger brother Peng Min mercilessly on January 9 of this year, causing a fracture in his fifth vertebra and a compression bone fracture in his neck vertebra, resulting in complete paralysis. Afterwards, Peng Min was transferred to the Wuhan seventh hospital to be put under house arrest in isolation; he died on April 6. Peng Liang's mother Li Yingxiu died in the same hospital on April 29. Her husband, the senior Peng, discovered injured areas in Li's head and thickened dried blood in her mouth while inspecting her body. The police told him the reason for Li Yingxiu's death was that she "talked too much" after Peng Min's death.

However, in the first 10 days of October, during the period of the China-US human rights dialogue, the CCTV broadcast a segment on the program called "Focal Point Interview" denouncing Peng Liang's prosecution of Zhao Zhifei. They made a false countercharge saying that Peng Min died because he "refused medical treatment" [allegedly due to his Falun Gong beliefs--tr.] and that his mother "died from a sudden cerebral hemorrhage."

"This is simply a cruel joke," Ms. Terri Marsh, the American attorney who helped Peng Liang sue Zhao Zhifei, commented, "their (Party Members') behavior is just like that of rapists or murderers. They not only do not take responsibility for their own atrocities, but actually blame their victims in order to cover up their crimes."

Analysts believe that Peng Liang wanted to demand justice for the wrongful death of his murdered younger brother and mother, but had nowhere to appeal in China because of Jiang Zemin's secret order that "killing (Falun Gong practitioners) will be counted as suicide." He can only seek justice in the international community where the law is honored. Meanwhile, the analysts also point out that, even if Peng Liang wins the lawsuit in the USA, it will be very difficult for him to escape the fate of being arrested, beaten, and even tortured to death. His mother Li Yingxiu died exactly because she "talked too much."

Attorney Terri Marsh pointed out, "Just like all criminal groups that administer state terrorism, they not only use lies and deceit to cover up their brutal crimes, but they also use means of silencing the victims and witnesses of their atrocities to bury the truth."

On August 5, 2001, The Washington Post published a front page report written jointly by reporters John Pomfret and Philip P. Pan from its international news department. That report pointed out that Jiang Zemin's gang was utilizing three methods--violence, high-pressure propaganda and forcible brainwashing-- to systematically attempt to eradicate Falun Gong. Some observers here think this is a typical policy of state terrorism.