(Minghui.org) Mr. Yang Xiaoguang, 58, is a Falun Gong practitioner from Mishan City, Heilongjiang Province. During the 17-year-long persecution of Falun Gong, Mr. Yang has spent 16 of those years in forced labor camps or prisons.
While detained, he was brutally tortured by being tied to a death bed, handcuffed and hung up, force fed, stabbed with toothpicks, and so on. He passed out several times while being tortured and lost the hearing in his right ear.
1999: Tortured for Two Years in Forced Labor Camp
After Jiang Zemin, the former head of the communist regime, started the persecution in July 1999, Mr. Yang traveled to Beijing in July and October to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong.
He was arrested at the end of November 1999 on Tiananmen Square. He was escorted back home and taken to the No.2 Detention Center of Mishan City by Qu Yongshan from the Security Section of the Mishan Police Department.
Cao Tiansun and another officer from the Mishan Police Department went to the detention center on December 31, 1999, and told him that he would be released if he signed a guarantee statement that he would give up Falun Gong, otherwise he would be sent to a forced labor camp. He refused and was transferred to the Jixi City Forced Labor Camp for two years.
In the labor camp, he was forced to read newspapers and watch television programs that slandered Falun Gong every day. If he refused, he was made to run or stand.
Captain Fan tried to force him to write a guarantee statement. When he refused, Fan made him kneel down and struck his feet and legs with a baton. He poured hot water down his neck. The next day he was taken to a solitary cell. Fan went to the cell after lunch to kick and hit him.
During a brainwashing assembly, someone from the provincial government gave a speech that slandered Falun Gong. Mr. Yang and practitioners Wang Xueshi and Dai Jun tried to stop her.
More than 10 guards beat them and dragged them out of the room. The guards continued to hit them and knocked them down. The practitioners were bleeding from their mouths and noses and unable to move. All of Mr. Yang's teeth were loosened. They were taken to solitary that night.
When Mr. Yang did the Falun Gong exercises, he was taken to a solitary cell. He was restrained with metal rings attached to the floor to prevent him from doing the exercises. He went on a hunger strike to protest the mistreatment.
Once a provincial official in charge of the persecution of Falun Gong came to inspect the labor camp. Mr. Yang told the official that Mr. Fan Mingshen, another practitioner, was beaten by guard Yuan.
After the official left, he was again taken to the solitary cell and restrained with metal rings, this time with his four limbs outstretched. Officer Huang struck his feet with a wooden board and poured cold water over him.
Huang released Mr. Yang and told him to stand up. Then he attacked Mr. Yang, striking his ears and temples. Mr. Yang saw that Huang was shouting and enraged, but he couldn’t hear a thing. He was taken to a clinic that night. Even now, he is totally deaf in his right ear.
He was bailed out for medical reasons and returned home in October 2001.
Arrested, Tortured in Detention
Mr. Yang was arrested on the afternoon of April 25, 2002, when he was carrying informational materials about Falun Gong back from Jixi City. He was handcuffed and hung up overnight. One of the officers stabbed his abdomen with toothpicks.
The next day he was taken to the interrogation room. They put a motorcycle helmet on his head, and a police officer hit his helmet with pliers. Since his mouth was sealed, he almost suffocated. He was then taken to the Mishan Detention Center.
During another interrogation, when he refused to tell where the Falun Gong materials came from, an officer who weighed over 200 pounds hit him until he fell down and then sat on him. When he tried to stand up, the officer punched his temples and knocked him unconscious. Mr. Yang was taken back to the detention center after he regained consciousness.
2002: Sentenced to Prison and Tortured
Mr. Yang was sentenced to 14 years in prison in the Mishan City Court and was taken to Hada Prison.
A guard ordered inmate Yin to beat Mr. Yang because he refused to respond to the head count. Yin hit him in the head with a wooden board, and when the board broke, he hit him with a leather belt with metal brads. He struck Mr. Yang until his head was bloody, and blood ran down his face.
Mr. Yang went on a hunger strike to protest the torture. The guard ordered several inmates to force feed him with salty water, which nearly choked him to death.
He was transferred to the assembly division of Mudanjiang Prison after 19 days and was detained in the No.1 Ward. He was reported to the guard by an inmate who saw another practitioner handing him an article. He was taken to a solitary cell. He went on a hunger strike.
When he was taken to a solitary cell for doing the exercises, guard Song Junlin and other guards beat him. His face was such a mess by the time he was taken back to the regular cell that the inmates didn't recognize him.
When he was packaging Chinese New Year couplets in prison, he wrote 10 posters that said “Falun Dafa is good!” and “Quit the CCP” and put them in the box. An inmate reported him to the guard. The guard order the inmates to beat him. They beat him until his nose and mouth bled. One of his teeth was knocked out.
