(Clearwisdom.net) 23 more deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in China were reported this July, as well as a practitioner's family member who died after the police hung him upside down for several days. The victims were from 24 cities and towns in ten provinces, including Hubei, Hebei, Shandong, Sichuan, Gansu, Hunan, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Guizhou. Four deaths were reported in one day! Risking arrest and even their lives, Chinese practitioners have managed to break through the news blockade in order to pass the information to Clearwisdom.net.

Fourteen males and nine females were among the 23 Falun Gong practitioners who were persecuted to death, ages ranging from 30 to 60. Among them were peasants, laborers, officials, highly educated young men, and a Taoist monk. They were good, kind people in the eyes of their neighbors, colleagues, and relatives. They were killed by Jiang's regime simply for believing in Falun Gong and clarifying the truth to people.

Ye Fenglin, 45, was an official of the Military Department of Tuanjie Township in Bijie City, Guigou Province. The authorities arrested him at his workplace in November 2000. In October 2001, he was sentenced to the Zhongba Labor Camp in Guizhou City for three years. During his detention he was brutally tortured. On June 27, 2002 he died from injuries he received from torture at the labor camp. Ye's workplace and family insisted that the authorities of the labor camp provide an autopsy report, which revealed: "extravagated blood in liver, broken ribs...." [injuries consistent with violent trauma].

Wu Mingfang, female, was 36 years old. She had suffered from skin cancer until practicing Falun Dafa. Since July 20, 1999, Wu had been distributing truth-clarification materials to people around the world. For displaying Falun Dafa banners this May, she was reported to the police, who put her into the Second Detention Center in Suizhou City. She died as a result of the persecution she received in July.

Wang Zhenggui, male, was a Taoist monk in the Yuquan Temple in Tianshui City, Gansu Province. He was arrested for possession of the book Zhuan Falun. After several months of detention, he died from the persecution he received while being detained.

Zhang Fanglian, male, was about 30 years old. He was the vice head of Rongchang Township, Chongqing City, Sichuan Province. The authorities sent him to the Tongliang Detention Center for distributing Falun Gong truth-clarification materials. He died from abuse he received there at the beginning of July 2002. Zhang was honest and righteous and a well-known official who was not corrupt. He never accepted bribes. When the authorities searched his home, all they found was several thousand RMB in his personal savings.

Huang Yiyuan, a Falun Gong practitioner from Wushan Township, Gansu Province, went to Beijing to appeal with his mother, wife and daughter at the end of December 2000. His father stayed home to take care of the family. Upon hearing that Huang went to Beijing to appeal, the police officers of Wushan Police Department set out to stop them. They failed to intercept the practitioners, but they hung Huang's father, over 70 years old, upside down under the grape trellises at his house in an attempt to force the old man to reveal his son's whereabouts. He refused, and the police left him upside down for three days and nights until he died. Later, authorities fabricated the claim that he had committed suicide because all his family members had gone to appeal, in order to escape their direct responsibility for his death.

It is verified that, to date, 449 Falun Gong practitioners have died as a result of the brutal persecution against them. Thousands more have been detained, sentenced and unlawfully put into mental hospitals or sent to forced labor-camps.

On July 24, the United States House of Representatives passed House Concurrent Resolution 188, which urges China to stop the persecution of Falun Gong. The resolution also urges the U.S. government to use any public or private opportunities to request that China release all the detained Falun Gong practitioners and end the brutal persecution of Falun Gong.