Name: Liu Shuyuan (刘书元)
Gender: Male
Age: 63
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: November 2008
Most recent place of detention: Hebei Province First Detention Center in Baoding (河北省第一监狱, 保定)
City: Shijiazhuang
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: Detention, home ransacked, interrogation, sleep deprivation, beatings, extortion, imprisonment, drug administration, fired from workplace
(Clearwisdom.net) Mr. Liu Shuyuan, 63 years old, was an official with the Pingshan County Discipline Inspection Committee in Hebei Province. He has been arrested, sentenced, beaten, and jailed. He was fired from his job, and his house was confiscated by the government. Currently, he is jobless and homeless. He and his wife are living with their children.
Mr. Liu's wife, Liu Tingting, 65, had many diseases before practicing Falun Gong. In May 1997, the couple started to practice Falun Gong, and the wife's diseases disappeared. This miracle opened the eyes of many people in their village, and dozens of people also started to practice Falun Gong. Mr. Liu became a contact person for the local exercise site.
Arrested for appealing for Falun Gong
On April 25, 1999, Mr. Liu went to Beijing to appeal for the arrested practitioners in Tianjin. Thereafter, his supervisors had several talks with him. Since he was a good employee and good person, many of his co-workers had sympathy for him.
On July 20, 1999, the Communist regime launched the persecution of Falun Gong. Mr. Liu went to Beijing on the 22nd, to try to restore the reputation of Falun Gong. He was arrested and sent back to the Pingshan County Police Department and held in the detention center for 10 days.
Sentenced to prison
On November 30, 2000, Feng Qingfang and Jiao Yanb from the county police department broke into Mr. Liu's apartment. They searched it, confiscated all his Falun Gong materials, and took him away. Feng Qingfang interrogated him, but Mr. Liu refused to cooperate. They forced him to stay awake for three days. When he fell asleep, they poured cold water over his head.
On the fourth night, Feng pushed Mr. Liu's head into cold water and forced him to put his fingerprints on the interrogation records. The next morning, Feng Qingfang, Xiao Suilong, and Hu Yuetao took him to another office. Feng told him to read the record of their interrogation. Mr. Liu read it and said, "You made this up. I did not say those things." Feng got mad and cursed him, and punched him in the chest. Mr. Liu was sent to a detention center.
On December 8, 2000, Feng Qingfang said to Mr. Liu in front of his wife, "If you don't make a new interrogation record that meets with our approval and put your fingerprints on it, we will send your wife to a labor camp." Mr. Liu thus gave in. Later, he learned that Feng Qingfang had threatened his wife and his son, had beaten his son badly, and had forced them to pay 2000 yuan.
A few days later, the police department held a public trial for Mr. Liu at a square in downtown. They shaved his head and put him in handcuffs. In order to humiliate him in public, two policemen held him standing on a truck as it drove two miles through the downtown area. When the truck arrived at the square, Mr. Liu was pushed down from the truck and his foot was injured.
Later, Mr. Liu was charged by Procuratorate officer Yang Aiping. The judges, You Xinjian, Cao Huaping, and Qi Baoxiang, sentenced him to five years in jail. During the trial, neither the Procuratorate nor the police officers were able to give any convincing evidence showing that Mr. Liu had broken the law.
Mr. Liu started a hunger strike to protest the sentence. He wrote in his appeal letter: "The facts in this case were not clear. There is no evidence, and the interrogation records turned in by the police were made under threats and violence."
The court in Shijiazhuang re-investigated the case and sentenced him to three and half years. One police officer from the court told Mr. Liu's friends that he didn't deserve any sentence, but the county government forced the court to sentence him, so that the government could set an example in order to frighten other practitioners.
On the way to Huolu Prison, Mr. Liu's hands and feet were bound together, and he was bent over for 20 miles while riding in the police car. Because his blood pressure went up, the prison officials refused to take him. The police had to take him back to Pingshan.
Tortured in prison
Two months later, Mr. Liu was sent to Huolu Prison, and later got transferred to the Hebei Province First Prison in Baoding City. When he first arrived, it was wintertime. Guards told him to take off his winter pants and forced him to stand outside the entire afternoon, which caused him to have diarrhea for seven days.
One day, the prison doctor checked Mr. Liu and said he was sick. They sent him to the hospital and injected him with unidentified drugs. He felt sick shortly after the injection. The second day, he felt cold, and he started coughing up phlegm on the third day. On the fourth day, he passed blood and had no appetite. He then realized that they had injected him with something bad. He clarified the truth to the doctors, the criminals who were watching him, and the guards. One guard was moved by his words and took him out of the hospital. When he got back to the prison, others were shocked--how did a healthy person become so weak and sick after being hospitalized?
Although he got out of the hospital, he still coughed up phlegm and was sweating. He sweat every night, and his blanket was soaked. He was sick the entire winter.
Mr. Liu returned home on June 1, 2004. When he was in jail, his wife was often harassed by Du Xinzhong, an officer from the Chengguan Police Station in Pingshan. On politically sensitive days, his son was taken to the police station and was sometimes beaten.
Mr. Liu lost his apartment and his job
After Mr. Liu returned, he learned that his apartment, which he had bought from his employer, had been confiscated and his down payment was returned to him. On September 5, 2004, Tian Zhentang, the head of the Discipline Inspection Committee, announced that he was fired.
Mr. Liu asked Tian Zhentang, "I was qualified to buy the apartment, and I paid the down payment. Why did you take away my apartment?" Tian answered, "Because you practice Falun Gong." When Mr. Liu asked what law he had broken. Tian said, "There is no law or rule." Mr. Liu said, "The apartment is part of the employee benefits. It has nothing to do with practicing Falun Gong." Tian said, "This is my decision. If you don't like it, you can tell someone about it."
Further persecution
Mr. Liu had to go to Shijiazhuang City and live with his daughters. The officers from Pingshan County 610 Office asked his son several times where he had gone. Feng Qingfang even went to Shijiazhuang to look for Mr. Liu. They spied on Mr. Liu's son-in-law. They also exerted pressure on his son-in-law's employer, wanting to know from his son-in-law where Mr. Liu was. They often called Mr. Liu's daughters and harassed them in an attempt to arrest him.
In November 2008, Deng Fang from the National Security Bureau in Shijiazhuang found where Mr. Liu was living in Shijiazhuang. Deng Fang and Cui Jian broke into his apartment and took away all of his Falun Gong materials. They arrested him and took him to a detention center. Two officers from the Qiaoxi Police Department in Shijiazhuang said to Mr. Liu while holding a document, "We decided to sentence you to two years of forced labor. Do you agree?" Mr. Liu said, "Of course not." The policemen asked him if he wanted to find a lawyer, and Mr. Liu said, "I should not be sent to a labor camp, and of course I need a lawyer to help me." Two weeks later, Mr. Liu was released.
People involved in Mr. Liu's case:
Zhao Xinchao, male, from the Shijiazhuang City Government
Feng Qingfang, male: 86-13931979369 (Cell), 86-311-82913739
Wang Yanwen, male, from the Chengguan Police Station: 86-13931976229 (Cell)
Deng Fang, male, from the National Security Bureau in Shijiazhuang
Cui Jian, male, from the Qiaoxi Police Station