(Minghui.org) A Tieling City, Liaoning Province resident served three years and three months for raising awareness about the persecution of Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline that has been targeted by the Chinese Communist Party since 1999.
Below is Mr. Yang Guoquan’s own account.
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I was arrested on December 5, 2016 for talking to people about Falun Gong at a farmers’ market. The Kaiyuan City Court sentenced me to three years and three months, with a 2,000-yuan fine.
I was taken to the Dongling Prison in Shenyang City on November 7, 2017. The prison authorities first held me in a strict control ward and ordered me to renounce my faith. They didn’t allow me to sleep, call my family, or even just buy basic daily necessities. I couldn’t bear the abuses and wrote the renouncing statements against my will. I was then sent to the first ward and forced to do intensive, unpaid labor.
On April 15, 2018, I felt very dizzy and had a nose bleed. My blood pressure was very high. Despite my condition, the prison guards still forced me to work.
When I told them that I didn’t feel well and couldn’t work, they forced me to lie on the cold concrete ground for three days.
After I felt better a few days later, they forced me to sit on a small stool for long hours without moving. They also deprived me of sleep and only allowed me to use the restroom once every morning, no matter how urgently I had to use it.
After twenty-four days of such torture, they changed the small stool into a narrower one. I had pain all over my body, especially my back and buttocks, after sitting on this stool. I couldn’t bear the pain anymore and protested to guard Zhao Jian.
Zhao said to me, “You have to work if you don’t want to sit on the stool.” So I started to do the unpaid labor again.
I had some dental issues in August 2019. The guards didn’t allow me to seek medical treatment, resulting in my having trouble eating for eight months.
Before I was released from the prison, they originally promised to release me on time, but ended up forcing me to go through a 14-day quarantine before extending my term for another seven days.