(Minghui.org)
Name: She HuaizhongChinese Name: 佘怀忠Gender: MaleAge: 70City: JiamusiProvince: HeilongjiangOccupation: Armed force directorDate of Death: January 3, 2024Date of Most Recent Arrest: 2021Most Recent Place of Detention: a hospital
A 70-year-old resident of Jiamusi City, Heilongjiang Province died on January 3, 2024, after suffering years of persecution for his faith in Falun Gong.
Mr. She Huaizhong used to work as the director of armed forces for Qixing Farm, one of the 15 farms under the jurisdiction of the Jiansanjiang Branch (a subsidiary of the state-owned Beidahuang Group, which was formerly known as the Heilongjiang Provincial Agricultural Reclamation Administration). Jiansanjiang and its subordinate farms are physically located in the Jiamusi region but have their own armed forces, police forces, procuratorates, and courts.
Mr. She took up Falun Gong in 1995. He was fired from his job two months after the persecution began in July 1999 because he refused to renounce Falun Gong. Additionally, he was repeatedly harassed and arrested for his faith. In particular, he remained detained from January 2000 to April 2005 (serving two back-to-back forced labor terms and extended detentions in brainwashing centers following each term).
His wife, Ms. Zhang Shoufen, also a Falun Gong practitioner, lost her job as a teacher at the Qixing Farm Third Middle School. She was also detained for a total of four years and three months for her faith. She was extorted for 5,000 yuan after one round of detention and her school also deducted more than 5,000 yuan from her pay after another detention. See related reports, below, for details of Ms. Zhang’s persecution. She died on September 29, 2017.
Due to prolonged detention and abuse, Mr. She became very weak physically. After he was released in 2005, he sold his house and did odd jobs to make a living. Because of his frail health, he struggled to work. The Qixing Farm and Jiansanjiang Branch, however, refused to help him. In 2006, Qixing Farm issued back severance fees to employees who got laid off in previous years, but Mr. She was denied such severance fee.
The couple’s two daughters grew up in fear and relied on their paternal grandparents to help support them. The younger daughter’s school even arranged several students to watch her at her grandparents’ home. The older daughter, who later moved to another province, was harassed at home by agents from Qixing Farm.
Mr. She’s parents were also implicated by the authorities and faced constant harassment. His mother, Ms. Bai Cuiping, died in 2018. His father, Mr. She Jianchao, an employee of the Qixing Farm Second Middle School, died on January 3, 2023.
On January 27, 2000, vice secretary Cui Wei of Qixing Farm again attempted to make Mr. She Huaizhong give up his belief. He refused to comply and was taken to the lockup affiliated with the Qixing Farm Police Department (“Qixing Lockup” for short). Many other local practitioners were held at the same lockup and it got so crowded that there was no place to lie down at night.
In early February 2000, officers Wang Junli and Zhu Jianhua cuffed Mr. She’s hands behind his back, blindfolded him, and took him to the lockup affiliated with the Chuangye Farm Police Department (also part of Jiansanjiang Branch). During his first two days there, he was not given any food or drink. Starting on the third day, the guards gave him one steamed bun each day. After one week, they gave him four steamed buns every day. There were mice running around and Mr. She and other detainees had to relieve themselves in a basin (there was not even a chamber pot) in the cell.
Mr. She was taken back to the Qixing Lockup around April 2000. He was given one year of forced labor in September that year, with his term commencing on January 27, 2000 and ending in late January 2001. His term was later extended to July 2001.
On the day of his scheduled release, guards Gao and Pan from the Suihua Labor Camp turned Mr. Shen over to Li Zhenbiao (head of the Qixing Farm 610 Office) and Chen Lin’an (vice secretary of Qixing Farm). Li and Chen held Mr. Shen in a hotel and arranged employees from the 26 departments of Qixing Farm to take turns watching him.
Twenty-six days later, the Qixing Farm Police Department moved Mr. She to Team 29 of the Farm and arranged for eight people to take turns watching him. In September 2001, they took him to the Qixing Lockup, where he was held until December 25, 2001.
Five days after his release, Mr. She was arrested again on December 30, 2001, while visiting Mr. Tian Baoyu with Mr. Shi Mengchang (both Falun Gong practitioners).
It turned out that the police had tapped Mr. Tian’s phone and learned of the gathering. Yu Rong, captain of the Jiansanjiang Branch Domestic Security Division, and Liu Zongshan, deputy chief of the Qixing Farm Police Department, brought about five officers and broke into Mr. Tian’s home on December 30, 2001. They arrested Mr. Tian, Mr. She and Mr. Shi. The three practitioners’ homes were raided and they were each given three years of forced labor weeks later.
The Suihua Labor Camp refused to admit Mr. She after the mandatory physical examination found he had a heart condition. Officers Zhou Ji and Zhu Jianhua, who brought him there, used their connections to pressure the labor camp to accept Mr. She.
The labor camp guards ordered Mr. She to read materials and watch videos smearing Falun Gong. Whenever he refused, he’d be showered with punches and kicks. The guards also threatened to shock him with electric batons. They later held him in isolation for 19 days, with two inmates watching him around the clock.
Other tortures Mr. She endured included being forced to sit on a small stool motionless for up to more than ten hours a day. He still held firm to his faith. One day in fall 2004, team lead Fan Xiaodong kicked him on the abdomen and knocked him down. He got up, only to be kicked down to the ground again. After he got up again, Fan grabbed his collar and slapped him in the face, before yanking his hair to slam his head against the wall. Fan then asked if he still held firm to his faith and he said yes. Fan slapped him in the head hard before leaving.
When he was not being tortured, Mr. She was forced to do unpaid manual labor for up to 16 hours a day. When he failed to meet his work quota, he was beaten and verbally abused. His hair turned gray, his face became wrinkled, his back was hunched and he had trouble walking.
Mr. She’s term ended in January 2005, but the Jiansanjiang Branch 610 Office instructed Yuan Xinyao from the Qixing Farm 610 Office to take Mr. She straight to the Qixing Farm Brainwashing Center. He was not released until three months later.
Liu Zongshan, deputy chief of the Qixing Farm Police Department, and more than a dozen officers broke into Mr. She’s home one October day in 2006. Four officers grabbed him and carried him to a cruiser. Two other officers held his wife down on the ground. A fifth officer named Yuan Dong pushed and kneed Mr. She’s nearly 80-year-old father.
When Mr. She questioned the police as to why they arrested good people like him, Officer Wang Junli and others twisted his arms and held him down in the cruiser. Wang admitted that if he didn’t persecute good people, he’d not be able to get any promotions.
Mr. She went on a hunger strike for 21 days and was force-fed three times. He became critically ill and was released at the end of the 21st day upon his family’s strong request.
In 2014, more than ten practitioners from Qinglongshan Farm of Jiansanjiang Branch were arrested for their faith. After the news broke, Mr. She and other practitioners worked with the arrested practitioners’ lawyers to seek their release. Some of the lawyers were in turn arrested and beaten. Mr. She was also closely surveiled.
Two cruisers were stationed outside his house, one in the front and another in the back, to monitor him around the clock. The cruisers’ headlights were kept on 24/7, even during the night. The police even used wires to wire his back door shut. Once, when he and a lawyer went to attend the trial of one of the arrested practitioners, officer Liu Changhe followed him and tried to stop his car.
On April 20, 2018, Mr. She had just arrived home when three people of unknown identity blocked him outside his garage. After more than ten minutes of standoff, Li Jian, a security officer from the Qixing Farm, and a police officer arrived. They took Mr. She to the Qixing Farm Police Department for blood draws. He refused to give any blood samples. Li directed about five officers to press his head down on the desk and forcibly drew his blood.
During the zero-out campaign in 2021, aimed to force all practitioners on the government’s blacklist to renounce their faith, Qixing Farm formed a six-member “transformation task force” to specifically work on Mr. She. After he went to their office to clarify the truth, they did not pursue him further.
Because Mr. She still held firm to his faith, the task force was deemed to have done an inadequate job and was ordered to “work on” him again. They showed up at his home every day for about two months. Mr. She played videos explaining the illegality of the persecution and the goodness of Falun Gong. The task force members were receptive to the content. The Qixing Farm Police Department was angry that Mr. She had “counter-transformed” the task force members and gave him 15 days of detention. Because he failed the required physical examination, the police held Ms. She at the Tongjiang City Hospital for 15 days instead.
After he was released from the hospital, he began to feel numbness in one leg. He later had a stroke and died on January 3, 2024.
Ms. Zhang Shoufen Suffers Mental Collapse Due to Persecution (Photo)
Ms. Zhang Shoufen Sent to a Brainwashing Center, Her Husband Held in a Labor Camp