Crimes of Fan Lyubing, Director of the Chinese Prison Administration Bureau, in Persecuting Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) July 20, 2023 marks the 24th year since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to suppress Falun Gong. Falun Gong practitioners in 44 countries submitted another list of perpetrators to their respective governments, urging them to hold these individuals accountable for the persecution of Falun Gong in China. The practitioners asked their governments to bar the perpetrators and their family members from entry, and to freeze their overseas assets.

Among the perpetrators listed was Fan Lyubing, director of the Chinese Prison Administration Bureau under the Ministry of Justice.

Perpetrators’ Information

Full Name of Perpetrator: Fan (last name) Lyubing (first name) (范履冰)Gender: MaleCountry: ChinaDate/year of Birth: February 1970Place of Birth: Xichong County, Sichuan Province

Fan Lyubing

Title and Position

Fan took office as the director of the Prison Administration Bureau under the Ministry of Justice on December 8, 2020. Prior to that, he served as a member of the Standing Party Committee and secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee in Beibei District, Chongqing, deputy director of the Grassroots Work Guidance Department of the Ministry of Justice, director of the Research Office of the Ministry of Justice, president of China Justice magazine, and Party committee secretary of The National Police University for Criminal Justice.

Main Crimes

In the 24 years of the persecution against Falun Gong, the prisons are a crucial part in the chain of oppression. The prison authorities employ a variety of torture methods in order to coerce Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith. Many practitioners became disabled or were tortured to death.

The Prison Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice oversees all prisons across China, supervising and inspecting the implementation of prison laws, regulations, and policies. It also provides guidance for prison law enforcement, management, and criminal rehabilitation. While Falun Gong practitioners are not criminals, they endure treatment in prisons that is far more brutal and harsher than that meted out to actual criminals.

Fan Lvbing plays a significant role in the persecution of Falun Gong. As the director of the Prison Administration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice, he continues to implement the persecution policy throughout the national prison system.

Since October 1, 2021, he has also rolled out new scoring systems to evaluate the inmates’ work performance. This new regulation further intensified the persecution by offering policy guidelines. For the first time, the regulation labels Falun Gong as an “evil cult.” Any practitioner who refuses to renounce their faith would fail to pass the evaluation and be subjected to escalated torture.

This policy also incentivizes prison guards and inmates to torture the practitioners even harder, in order to improve their assessment scores and chances of getting sentence reduction, both of which are closely linked to how many Falun Gong practitioners are successfully “transformed” (forced to give up their faith).

Common torture methods used on Falun Gong practitioners in the prisons include beatings, long hours of standing, sleep deprivation, sitting on a small stool for long hours without moving, as well as electric shocks, force-feeding, solitary confinement, and other heinous abuses.

According to available information from Minghui.org, from December 2020 to May 2023, during Fan’s term as director of the Prison Administration Bureau, 42 Falun Gong practitioners died as a result of persecution. Of these, 35 were tortured to death in prison, while another 7 passed away shortly after their prison release. Numerous practitioners were injured or became permanently disabled due to the torture.

Select Death Cases

Sichuan Woman Dies Eight Months After Release from Prison in a Vegetative State

Ms. Liao Guanghui was in a vegetative state by the time she was released on July 20, 2022, after serving a three-year prison term for practicing Falun Gong. The Mianyang City, Sichuan Province, resident died eight months later on March 23, 2023. She was 70 years old.

Ms. Liao took a fall on March 10, 2021, while incarcerated in the Sichuan Province Women’s Prison. The prison denied her family’s request to release her on medical parole and held her in custody until the end of her term, despite the fact that she remained in a coma after the fall.

Because the prison hospital didn’t properly fix her skull during the craniotomy, there was a large sunken area on the right side of her head. She also had a suction tube in her throat, a feeding tube in her nose, and a urinary catheter. Her entire body was stiff.

Not knowing how to care for her, Ms. Liao’s family took her to a local hospital hours after she was sent home from prison on July 20, 2022. A week later on July 27, she started to go into convulsions and her lips and upper body turned purple. Although she survived after emergency treatment, her family couldn’t afford to keep her in the hospital for further treatment. They took her home shortly after and cared for her themselves. They were devastated by her death on March 23, 2023.

Ms. Liao Guanghui in a coma

Ms. Liao was arrested at home on July 20, 2019, and sentenced to three years by the Fucheng District Court. A prison guard called her family at 5 a.m. on March 10, 2021 and told them to go to Huaxi Hospital to sign a consent form for her to have a craniotomy. The guard claimed that she “fell and hit her head while using the restroom,” but the doctor revealed that she also had injuries to her trachea and one of her lungs.

When Ms. Liao’s husband, Mr. Li Shuangquan, and their son visited her in the hospital on March 14, her head was wrapped in gauze and she was on oxygen. She remained in a coma and her family wasn’t allowed to see her again until the end of her term.

30-year-old Former Radio Host Beaten to Death in Prison

A 30-year-old former host of the Sichuan People’s Radio Station was beaten to death on December 2, 2022, while serving a five-year term in Jiazhou Prison, Sichuan Province.

Mr. Pang Xun

Mr. Pang Xun’s body was covered in bruises from the beating, and had marks from electric shocks and being tied up tightly with rope. He had also become incontinent due to the torture.

The prison denied having tortured Mr. Pang, and claimed that he died of hyperthyroidism.

Mr. Pang was arrested on July 27, 2020, for distributing Falun Gong materials, and later sentenced to five years in Jiazhou Prison.

Mr. Pang Xun was covered with bruises when he died.

53-year-old Woman Dies in Prison While Serving Seven Years

Ms. Teng Shuli of Jixi City, Heilongjiang Province, died on January 10, 2023, while serving a seven-year term. She was 53 years old.

Ms. Teng was arrested on October 12, 2020, and sentenced to seven years in prison, with an 80,000-yuan fine, on June 2, 2021. After she was taken to the Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison in 2021, she was forced to watch propaganda videos demonizing Falun Gong every day. She was also deprived of sleep and forced to sit on a small stool for extended hours without moving.

The mental and physical torment took a toll on Ms. Teng’s health. She ate very little and became emaciated. She also developed a tumor in her abdomen, which caused severe bleeding whenever she defecated.

Ms. Teng was so weak that she was bedridden. She couldn’t get up even when the guards came to inspect the cell. Her cellmates feared that she might die at any time. She was later found to have late-stage liver and rectal cancer.

Ms. Teng’s husband was denied visits with her despite his repeated requests. The prison also denied his request to have her released on medical parole, even when she was on the verge of death.

Two Years After Wife’s Death, Liaoning Man Dies While Serving Ten-year Prison Term

Having lost his parents and wife in the persecution of Falun Gong, Mr. Yin Guozhi died on May 22, 2022, while serving a 10-year prison term for upholding his faith in Falun Gong. He was 56.

Mr. Yin from Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province, was arrested on September 26, 2019, after his rental apartment caught fire and the police came to investigate the accident. The arrest came after he spent ten years on the run to hide from the police. He was detained at the Jianping County Detention Center and was beaten by the detainees.

The Jianping County Court secretly sentenced Mr. Yin to ten years. They didn’t inform his family of his case status until he was sent to the Jinzhou Prison.

Shortly after Mr. Yin was sentenced, his wife, Ms. Fu Jinghua, who was also in displacement, died in her rental place on December 31, 2019, succumbing to years of persecution for their shared faith in Falun Gong.

A relative of Mr. Yin’s was visited by two prison guards and a village official on March 8, 2022. They said that Mr. Yin had developed late-stage lung cancer and was receiving oxygen in the hospital. His family was ordered to cover his medical expenses. While it’s not clear whether his family complied, Mr. Yin passed away two months later on May 22.

Jilin Woman Suddenly Dies after Two Months in Prison

Ms. Fu Guihua, a Siping City, Jilin Province resident, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for her faith in Falun Gong. She was taken to Jilin Province Women’s Prison on May 27, 2021, and she passed away there on July 25, 2021. Her family and lawyers requested the relevant departments to investigate her death, but the prison officials pressured her family to cremate the body as soon as possible.

Ms. Fu was arrested on August 15, 2019, along with her husband, her older daughter, her two sons-in-law and their respective parents, for their shared faith in Falun Gong. Her younger daughter was spared since she had a three-month-old baby.

Ms. Fu Guihua

Ms. Fu’s husband and her younger daughter’s mother-in-law were released after 15 days of the detention. The rest of them were sentenced to prison in February 2021. Ms. Fu and her younger daughter Ms. Yu Jianping’s husband Mr. Meng Xiangqi, 37, were both given 7.5 years. The other five family members were each given 7 years, including Ms. Fu’s older daughter Ms. Yu Jianli, 30; Ms. Yu Jianli’s husband Mr. Wang Dongji, 40; Mr. Wang’s parents (Mr. Wang Kemin, 69, and Ms. Wang Fengzhi, 69); and Mr. Meng’s father, Mr. Meng Fanjun, 59.

Ms. Fu and her older daughter Ms. Yu Jianli were taken to Jilin Province Women’s Prison on May 27, 2021.

Ms. Fu’s family received a phone call from the prison on the evening of July 25, notifying them that Ms. Fu was in critical condition and under emergency treatment in the hospital. But the prison guards did not allowed her family to see her when they arrived at the hospital, with the pretext that she was being “rescued.”

About an hour later, her family received a phone call from the hospital that Ms. Fu died at 9:48 p.m. However, her family saw the time on the phone showing 9:18 p.m. during their conversation. When they questioned about the time, the caller immediately changed her deceased time to be 8:18 pm. The family was told that she died of cirrhosis of the liver.

Her family requested to see her body right away but was told that they needed to wipe the blood, and do some cleaning up. Her family finally saw her remains several days later after repeated requests but they were not allowed to bring their cell phones or take pictures. She was 55.

Her family and their lawyers are still seeking the true cause of her death.

Denied Food in Prison, Shaanxi Man Chokes to Death When Finally Allowed to Eat

Because Mr. Niu Xuedong, of Tongchuan City, Shaanxi Province, refused to renounce Falun Gong while serving an unknown term at the Weinan Prison, he was once dragged out into the snow in only a thin layer of clothes by inmate Wang Kai. Wang struck him with a stick over 100 times, leaving Mr. Liu in a delirious state. He could no longer recognize people, and often relieved himself in his pants, unaware of what he was doing.

The head inmate later cut off Mr. Niu’s food and didn’t allow anyone to feed him, leaving him starved all the time. On February 26, 2022, when he was finally given two hot steamed buns, Mr. Niu ate so fast that he choked to death.

Former Journalist Dies in Prison Hospital 16 Months after Being Jailed for His Faith

Sixteen months after a Baoding City, Hebei Province man was transferred to the Jidong No. 5 Prison to serve a seven-year term for practicing Falun Gong, he passed away on August 10, 2022, in the hospital affiliated with the prison. Mr. Yang Zhixiong was 58 years old.

According to Mr. Yang’s family, when they saw his body at the Tangshan Union Hospital, he was emaciated and his eyes and mouth were wide open.

Mr. Yang had fallen into a coma due to myeloma (cancer of the plasma cells) on June 30, 2022, but the guards waited for two days before taking him to the hospital. Prior to that, he had often struggled with pain in his back and legs.

Mr. Yang was kept in the intensive care unit for nearly 40 days, between July 2 and August 10, and his family visitation was restricted. The guards also kept him handcuffed and shackled. A prison guard told his family after his passing that if Mr. Yang had renounced Falun Gong, they wouldn’t have treated him this way.

Mr. Yang Zhixiong

Mr. Yang was arrested on September 26, 2019, and sentenced to 6.5 years in prison on December 1, 2020. His appeal was rejected and he was taken to the Jidong No. 5 Prison around April 2021.