(Clearwisdom.net) Editor's note: Falun Dafa practitioner Mr. Liao Yuanhua was tortured while being illegally held at the Fanjiatai Prison in Shayang, Hubei Province. After his release, he drew from memory pictures of the tortures used on him and sent them to the Minghui website. Jiang's faction retaliated by arresting him again. China's state-run media such as the Xinhua News Agency attacked the Minghui report and incited hatred against Falun Gong. Minghui has published several commentaries regarding Xinhua's slanderous articles, and they have not responded.
Fang Longchao, the author of this article, was held at the Fanjiatai Prison along with Liao Yuanhua. He exposed the Xinhua News Agency lies with his own experience of torture and validated the authenticity of Liao Yuanhua's story.
My name is Fang Longchao. I was born on April 28, 1961 in Huqiao Village, Henggou Town, Xianning, Hubei Province. In July 1983, I graduated from Wuhan University and was assigned to work at the Flood Prevention Office of the Design Institute under the Yangtze River Hydro-Conservancy Committee. The phone number of the office is 86-27-82829421, 82829420 and 82829419. The address is No. 1155 Jiefang Road, Hankou, Zip code 430010. In July 1999, I went to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong and was illegally sentenced to three years in prison. On July 21, 2000, I was sent to the Fanjiatai Prison in Shayang. For more information, please refer to the April 24, 2004 publication of Minghui Net. Liao Yuanhua was imprisoned on June 1, 2001. I was aware of the persecution of Liao Yuanhua.
Liao Yuanhua was tortured most severely at the Fanjiatai Prison, but he was also the most determined. People who knew him admired his courage and perseverance, and many of them gave the "thumbs-up" sign when they talked about him. In late 2004, the Xinhua News Agency and other CCP-controlled media attacked the publication of 17 torture illustration pictures drawn by Liao Yuanhua that were published on Minghui on September 2, 2004. I read related articles on Minghui and I am aware of the facts.
I personally endured five of the 17 tortures. I was baked in a high-temperature cave, force-fed while being handcuffed to a metal bed with my limbs spread out; I was forced to stand for a very long time; the perpetrators savagely beat me and slammed my head against a wall. The type and extent of tortures is different for each practitioner. There are many more tortures that Liao Yuanhua's drawings did not demonstrate, such as shocking with electric batons.
In August 2001, the guards forced Liao Yuanhua to be baked in a high-temperature cave. I was outside the cave at Division 8. The inmates present were all moved; they were spreading the message that "Liao Yuanhua is great!" "His feet were cooked and he lost consciousness, yet he still persisted in his belief."
In the last eight months of my detention at Fanjiatai Prison, I was held at the prison hospital. More than once, the doctors there mentioned Liao Yuanhua to me. They told me that large areas of Liao Yuanhua's body were severely burned and he could not be treated at the poorly equipped prison hospital. He was given alternative treatments.
The Minghui article the Xinhua News Agency attacked is entitled "Illustrations of the Tortures that Hubei Dafa Practitioner Liao Yuanhua Received in Fanjiatai Prison (Photos)." At the beginning of the article are three paragraphs of notes, including "The following pictures, staged by Falun Gong practitioners in Mainland China, illustrate how prisoners and police tortured Liao Yuanhua. Because practitioners in China are still suffering from the persecution, the actors' faces are blurred." The title and the notes clearly state that the pictures are a re-enactment.
After Liao Yuanhua regained freedom, he submitted this article to Minghui Net. Liao Yuanhua knew that his action would most likely draw more severe persecution and torture from the CCP officials. They could even kill him.
During the frenzied retaliation, many practitioners who helped to demonstrate the tortures were also arrested. Why did the state-run TV programs claim, "Some Falun Gong practitioners now admit they were faking the tortures?" There are two reasons: the first is that the Jiang faction pressured the local government to carry out retaliation in the form of brutal torture. After exceeding their pain threshold, some practitioners may have said things against their conscience.
Another reason is that Falun Gong practitioners are honest and unsuspecting. They could have answered many questions during interrogation from the authorities. Using technology, the authorities could have easily edited and processed the videotape to make it appear the opposite of what the interviewee actually said. It is difficult for a layman to tell what is authentic and what is not in a doctored tape.
I once read a report from a newspaper in Wuhan before January 1, 2005. I had been meaning to write for a long time but I was interfered with by many things, one of them being that I was afraid of retaliation, like the persecution Liao Yuanhua had suffered. I know very well the cruelty and shamelessness of Jiang's group, as I have suffered greatly under their persecution. However, I thought, "I am a practitioner who believes in Truth-Compassion-Forbearance; if I don't step forward and speak the truth, I would be acting against my conscience and I wouldn't be able to face innocent people deceived by the lies."
I wrote this article of my own accord. All of what I wrote here is true, and I am willing to accept interviews from any media inside or outside of China.
