Older Practitioner Mr. Qian Shiguang Dies after Years of Torture

Mr. Qian Shiguang, 65, a graduate from Qinghuan University, was a retired senior engineer employed by the Northwest Geology Research Institute. He lived on Yanerwan Street, Chengguan District, Lanzhou City, Gansu Province. He died on September 8th, 2008. The details have yet to be investigated.

After July 20th, 1999, when the persecution began, Mr. Qian was detained in the Yaoshu Drug Rehabilitation Centre. He held a hunger strike for more than a dozen days, and when he was dying the guards left him by the door of his house. It took all of his strength to knock on his door. His family found him as thin as a skeleton, and he couldn't eat or drink. They thought he might die. By studying the Falun Gong teachings and doing the exercises, he recovered in several days.

In May 2000, Mr. Qian was sentenced to one year of forced labour and imprisoned in the Pingantai Forced Labour Camp, also called the Gansu Province First Labour Camp. He held a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment, and lost 40-50 pounds (he weighed only 80 pounds). The camp administration took him to the Dashping Forced Labour Camp Hospital and kept him there for a month. The doctors' diagnosis report stated that he was suffering from multiple-organ failure. The camp administration no longer wanted to pay his medical expenses, so they instructed his family to bail him out on medical parole. His family picked him up in December 2001. Upon returning home, he studied the teachings written by Falun Gong's founder and practised the Falun Gong meditation as soon as he could move. He recovered again after one month.

On June 2nd, 2002, Mr. Qian was arrested in Beijing when he went to appeal, and he was sentenced to two years of forced labour and imprisoned in the Tuanhe Forced Labour Camp in Beijing. The inmates there tortured him inhumanly and beat him until his lower back was fractured. When he could no longer move due to the torture, the camp administration called his family to bail him out on medical parole, and he returned home on November 8th, 2003. He was bedridden, and he couldn't move, but he kept practising Falun Gong as soon as he could sit up. He partially recovered, but he was unable to straighten his spine.

In May 2005, when he still could not stand straight to walk, the police arrested him outside his door and ransacked his home. At around 7:00 p.m., the police tortured him by putting him on the tiger bench¹ and tried to force him to reveal the names of other practitioners who had contacted him. The officers brutally beat him and kept torturing him on the tiger bench. They took him to the Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre at 9:00 p.m. His family was looking all over for him, but the guards didn't notify them of his whereabouts until July or August.

On October 1st, 2005, his family sent clothes and food to him, but they never reached Mr .Qian. From September 2005 to January 2006 he was locked in solitary confinement without heating, and they didn't give him the winter clothes and shoes that his family sent. He was tortured by being cuffed behind his back, which caused him to suffer from the prolapse of his rectum and incontinence. His arms were also injured. He could no longer grip anything for a long time.

In 2006, he was sentenced to two years of forced labour, which he served inside the brainwashing centre. The Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre did not allow his family to visit from October 2006 until May 5th, 2007. His family found that he had difficulty walking. In September 2007, he was cruelly beaten twice, resulting in wounds all over his disabled body. He was released in November 2007, when his term ended. His employer has not paid any of his retirement salary since July 20th, 1999, but paid three thousand yuan² to the Brainwashing Centre each month.

Note

1. "Tiger Bench": Prisoners are forced to sit on a small iron bench that is approximately 20 cm (6 inches) tall with their knees tied together. With their hands tied behind their backs or sometimes placed on their knees, they are forced to sit straight up and look straight ahead without movement for long periods of time.

2. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.cc/mh/articles/2008/9/17/185994.html