(Minghui.org) Mr. Lu Guanru is one of the 119 Falun Gong practitioners targeted for their faith during a mass arrest in Heilongjiang Province on November 9, 2018. He is now facing indictment after the local procuratorate approved his arrest in December. His lawyer wasn't allowed to visit him at Daqing Detention Center.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mind-body practice based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since July 1999.
Mr. Lu's latest arrest was preceded by two earlier arrests in 2000, which was followed by 13 months of detention and torture at a forced labor camp. His wife, Ms. Sun Zhongping, also a Falun Gong practitioner, was arrested and detained five times. She was twice released on the verge of death as a result of being tortured in custody.
It was reported that Mr. Lu was forced to stand for an extended period of time for refusing to renounce his faith following his latest arrest. His family is worried what other torture may be in store for him, given the treatment he and his wife received during prior detentions.
To avoid more persecution, Mr. Lu and his wife were forced to leave home in 2001 and wandered about for around ten years, during which time the police withheld their pensions and their then-teenage daughter had to fend for herself.
Mr. Lu recalled that when they called their daughter one night, she burst into tears and told her parents that the police had just left after attempting to break into their home. She was very scared. But when Mr. Lu said he would go back immediately to stay with her, she cried even harder and asked him not to come back, as she didn't want him to be arrested again.
Their daughter later had a lot of difficulties finding a good job because of her parents' practice of Falun Gong. One hiring manager once said to her that the reason they rejected her was that her parents were on the wanted list.
She was eventually forced to leave her hometown and went to Qingdao City, Shandong Province to seek better opportunities.
When she got married in 2006, Mr. Lu and his wife could only afford to purchase a new set of clothes for the newlyweds. His daughter cried while they were clothes shopping together.
“I knew she didn't want us to do anything more for her, knowing how hard it was for us to make a living. But this [buying clothes] is the only thing I could do for her,” Mr. Lu recalled.
Both Mr. Lu and Ms. Sun credit Falun Gong for returning them to health and enabling them to become more broadminded and peaceful. After the persecution began, they went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong on April 12, 2000 and were arrested. The officers body-searched them, confiscated all of their cash, and brought them back to Daqing City. Mr. Lu was detained at Longfeng Detention Center, while Ms. Sun was kept at Daqing City Detention Center.
During the one month detention there, Mr. Lu was subjected to savage beatings by the detainees. They also shaved his head and took away all the new clothes he specially wore for the trip to Beijing.
Not long after release, the couple was arrested again on June 18, 2000 for doing the Falun Gong exercises outdoor with other practitioners.
The police kept Mr. Lu in an isolated room and interrogated him. One officer scraped his buttocks and beat his head with his leather shoe for four hours. Even the officer himself had to take a break from the beating once in a while.
Mr. Lu's head swelled severely, and his eyes were almost squeezed shut. His buttocks were covered with dark bruises and became numb from the beatings.
He was later given one year of forced labor, during which he suffered more forms of torture as a way to force him to renounce Falun Gong, as detailed below.
Tying with rope:
The guards tied his arms with half-inch-thick rope. Four people stretched the rope to tighten it every 15 minutes. When they loosened the rope, his arms were completely pale and had deep dents. He screamed out of pain. A guard taped his mouth shut and kicked him. He fell to the ground but was unable to make any sound despite the extreme pain.
Freezing:
February is the coldest month, and the temperature was well below freezing. Because Mr. Lu did the Falun Gong exercises, the guards took off his coat and pants and tied him to the metal pole of a basketball rack outdoors. It was so cold that his limbs lost feeling. Even the guards, who wore snow pants, had to put on a thick blanket to warm up after they went inside.
Standing torture:
The labor camp often ordered practitioners detained there to write statements to renounce their faith. When Mr. Lu refused to write such statements, the guards left him outside and exposed him to mosquito bites and scorching sun in the summer.
At night, he was forced to stand facing the wall for hours, with his head lowered and his arms stretched behind his back. As his sweat kept dripping, the guards beat his head with a mop stick.
Forced labor:
Each Falun Gong practitioner was forced to do farm work for long hours every day. His body aged quickly after one year of hard labor.
Mental torture:
In addition to the physical torture, the labor camp also subjected practitioners to extensive brainwashing. When they remained firm in their faith, the guards forced them to stand or squat for long hours.
After all coercive measures failed to force Mr. Lu to give up practicing Falun Gong, the labor camp extended his term for more than one month as punishment.
After he was finally released in 2001, the police arrested his wife before he arrived at home. She was kept at a detention center for more than a month and wasn't released until she was on the verge of death.
Just as the couple was about to start a new life, the police began to monitor them every day outside of their home. Upon finding out the police was planning to send his wife to a labor camp, the couple made a difficult decision–to live away from home to avoid being arrested again. But they didn't expect this to last for nearly a decade.
Mr. Lu once returned to his workplace to request financial compensation, only to have his former supervisor report him to the police. He was almost arrested again.
Although Mr. Lu escaped the arrest, Ms. Sun was arrested on September 18, 2011 when she returned home to spend the Mid-Autumn Festival with her elderly mother in her 80s. The police ransacked her residence and confiscated her Falun Gong-related items.
The police tied her to a chair for two days and didn't allow her to sleep. A guard beat her from time to time. She began to cough out blood and was unable to walk. She held a hunger strike for more than a month, and yet the police still refused to release her. She was later transferred to Harbin Drug Rehabilitation Center and detained there for a year. After she was released in December 2012, she had difficulty walking and talking as a result of the torture.
After Ten Years of Traveling Place to Place to Avoid Persecution, Ms. Sun Zhongping Arrested
Ms. Sun Zhongping from Daqing City Taken to Harbin Drug Rehabilitation Center
119 Falun Gong Practitioners Arrested in Two Heilongjiang Province Cities in One Day