(Minghui.org) A 77-year-old resident of Chongqing was recently transferred to prison to serve a two-year term for his faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Mr. Deng Liping went to the Yudu Prison on July 11, 2019, trying to deliver some informational materials about Falun Gong to a prison guard whom he had met while serving a previous term for his faith. The guard reported him, resulting in the police ransacking Mr. Deng’s home the next day. His Falun Gong books and several radios were confiscated. 

Mr. Deng went to the local police station on July 17, 2019 and tried to urge the officers not to participate in the persecution, only to be arrested and interrogated. After more than a year of incommunicado detention at the Nan’an District Detention Center, he was sentenced to two years in early 2021 and has been taken to Yongchuan Prison to serve time. 

Past Arrests for Upholding His Belief

Mr. Deng started practicing Falun Gong on March 29, 1997 and benefited from the practice physically and mentally. His tenosynovitis in the thumbs disappeared. Also gone were heart disease and hemorrhoids, which had plagued him for years. His family situation became harmonious. He no longer quarreled and fought with his wife over issues.

Because of talking to people about the health benefits of Falun Gong and raising awareness about the persecution, Mr. Deng has been persecuted repeatedly by the Chinese Communist Party over the past 22 years.

On December 23, 2004, Mr. Deng talked to people about Falun Gong outside a supermarket. He was arrested and had his home ransacked. During the 30-day detention at Huixing Detention Center, he endured various tortures, including being doused with cold water in the cold winter. 

Torture Reenactment: Dousing with cold water

Mr. Deng was arrested again on September 10, 2005 after being recorded by the police on a surveillance camera talking to a medicine salesman about Falun Gong,.

Six months later, on March 2, 2006, Mr. Deng was arrested one more time after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. The police ransacked the home of his father and threatened the elderly man, saying that his son would be sentenced. His father, who was ill and suffered from hemorrhoids, was so traumatized that he passed away two days later. 

Persecution in Xishanping Labor Camp

On the way to visit his father’s grave on February 20, 2007, Mr. Deng was arrested again for talking to people about Falun Gong on the bus and detained briefly. 

The police took him back into custody on June 13 and gave him 1.5 years at the Xishanping Labor Camp.

While recalling the persecution he endured in the labor camp, Mr. Deng said, “I was 63 at that time and was forced to do the same heavy labor as younger inmates. On August 15, I was transferred to the Strict Control Team specifically established to “transform” Falun Gong practitioners. The prison guards brutally beat me that evening. To force me to write a repentance statement and guarantee statement not to practice Falun Gong, they instigated criminal inmates to torture me. The torture included beating, starving, long-term standing, squatting, and deprivation of sleep. I was held there until December 12, 2008.”

An inmate once said to Mr. Deng, “We will beat you as long as it’s needed. When we beat you, we can easily make you disappear on your household registration form.” Another inmate said, “We are letting go of our sympathy and what’s left is only brutality.”

Torture Reenactment: Brutal Beating

Repeated Brainwashing

Between 2011 and 2015, Mr. Deng was repeatedly arrested and held in brainwashing centers six times.

He was first held at the Wangxiangtai Brainwashing Center for two months following his arrest on September 26, 2011, and released on November 25.

On August 19, 2012, Mr. Deng was reported for talking to people about Falun Gong again and was arrested. At the Xiejiawan Police Station, he was handcuffed to a metal chair for more than 30 hours. The police confiscated his ID cards, watch, cash, and other personal processions. The next night, he was sent to Jiulongpa Detention Center, then transferred to Wanxiangtai Brainwashing Center on September 20 and held there until December 12. 

Torture Reenactment: Handcuffed to a metal chair

Mr. Deng went to Xiejiawan Police Station on August 19, 2013, to request the return of his belongings confiscated the year before. He was arrested and tied up on a metal chair. In the afternoon, he was taken to a recreation-center-turned-brainwashing-center and held there for 10 days. 

On October 21, 2013, October 9, 2014, November 10, 2014, and August 25, 2015, Mr. Deng was taken back to the brainwashing centers four more times and held there between five days and a month each time.

Sentenced for Suing Dictator Jiang Zemin

After he was released from the brainwashing center in 2015, Mr. Deng filed a criminal complaint to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Supreme People’s Court against former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin for launching the persecution.

The police harassed Mr. Deng on March 24, 2016 and took him to the Wenxing Police Station on April 6 for interrogation. 

Mr. Deng was arrested again on April 24, 2016 and released the same day.

On May 5, two plainclothes officers broke into Mr. Deng's home and took away some Falun Gong informational materials. On May 6, the Beibei District Procuratorate called him and said they had accepted his case as submitted by the police.

In mid-May 2016, Mr. Deng was again arrested and taken to the Beibei District Detention Center. He was tried by the Beibei District Court in October 2016 and sentenced to three years in prison in November 2017. He served time at both the Yongchuan Prison and Yudu Prison. He was released in May 2019, only to be arrested two months later.

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