(Minghui.org) When Mr. Tao Yawei was released in late 2022 while serving a 1.5-year prison term for practicing Falun Gong, his legs and arms were severely injured and deformed. As of this writing, he is still unable to lift his arms due to the pain.
His wife, Ms. Liu Duanyun, who was arrested and sentenced along with him, struggles with high blood pressure and diabetes due to the abuse in custody.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
The couple, both natives of Jilin City, Jilin Province who now reside in Xianghe County, Hebei Province, were arrested at home on May 7, 2021. Their laptop, tablet, cellphone, and bike were confiscated.
After a brief interrogation at the police station, Mr. Tao, 70, was taken to the Xianghe County Detention Center in the evening. Ms. Liu, 67, spent the night at the police station as she failed the physical examination required for admission to detention centers. The police ordered the doctor to fabricate her physical form on the next day and took her to the Sanhe City Detention Center. Both she and her husband were sentenced to 1.5 years in prison six months later by the Xianghe County Court.
At the Xianghe County Detention Center, Mr. Tao was forced to get up at 5 a.m. and sit on a small stool without moving until it got dark. He was made to sleep on the concrete ground at night.
Torture reenactment: sitting on a small stool
After his sentencing, Mr. Tao was first taken to the Jidong No. 4 Prison in December 2021, and he was tortured there and ordered to write statement to renounce Falun Gong. He was transferred to the Jidong No. 1 Prison on February 20, 2022. The guards there still ordered him to write the renouncing statement. They also forced him to fold between 4,000 to 6,000 bike inner tubes every day. If he couldn’t finish the quota, the guards didn’t allow him to sleep, but forced him to stand overnight. Even when he went to bed, he often stayed awake or woke up in the middle of the night due to the enormous pain in his hands and arms.
During the entire time he was in the prison, he stayed in the dark cell without the chance to see the sun. The physical abuse and mental distress took a huge toll on his health.
Ms. Liu remained in the Sanhe City Detention Center to serve her term. For 13 hours every day, she was forced to sit on a small stool, while keeping her body straight, her hands on her lap and looking straight forward. She wasn’t allowed to talk during this time. If she moved a bit, the guards or inmates assigned to watch her would verbally abuse her or beat her.
In the evening, she was forced to stand still for two hours. Closing her eyes for one second would invite beating. Sometimes she was allowed to use the restroom twice a day, at 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., and other times she wasn’t allowed to use it at all for the day. The food she was given was mostly moldy crushed rice. The so-called soup were mostly water, with only a few pieces of vegetables, dead insects floating on the top and earthworms and snails on the bottom. It would be considered an upgrade when the chef added water to the guards’ leftover food and gave her that as soup.
Despite the fact that Ms. Liu developed high blood pressure and diabetes due to the maltreatment, the detention center refused to provide medical treatment to her and also denied her the right to contact her family.
Past Persecution
Both Ms. Liu and Mr. Tao took up Falun Gong in 1998. Most of their long-term ailments, especially Mr. Tao’s lumbar disc herniation, disappeared soon after.
In the 24-year-long persecution, they have been repeatedly arrested and detained. Both of them were given one year forced labor terms in 2001. The police continued to harass them after they were released, forcing them into hiding and displacement in 2008. The were harassed again in 2015 and 2019. They then moved from Jilin to their daughter’s home in Hebei, only to be arrested and sentenced.
Perpetrators’ information:
Wu Jinhe (吴金和), presiding judge of Xianghe County CourtXu Xiaohui (许晓辉), judge of Xianghe County CourtWei Yue (魏乐), judge of Xianghe County Court
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