Chinese Communist Party Politburo Member Wu Guanzheng Cannot Escape Responsibility For the Murder Of Falun Gong Practitioners

(Clearwisdom.net) Wu Guanzheng is a current member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Central Party Committee (CPC) and the former Secretary of Shandong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party. He personally arranged for and participated in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners during his term as provincial secretary. On Monday, October 27, 2003, while Wu was visiting Cyprus, Cypriot human rights lawyer Laris Vrahimis, who represents victimized Falun Gong practitioners, filed a lawsuit against Wu Guanzheng for the crimes of torture, genocide and crimes against humanity.

An article titled "How One Chinese City Resorted To Atrocities to Control Falun Dafa" published on December 2000 in an issue of The Wall Street Journal states: "Since the beginning of the year, when police killed a 58-year-old retiree, at least ten more Weifang residents have died in police custody, according to relatives and a human-rights monitoring group. Across this country of 1.3 billion, at least 77 Falun Dafa adherents have now died in detention [Editor's Note: the number of practitioners confirmed dead from abuse in police custody now exceeds 800.] according to reports by human-rights groups. Weifang, which has less than 1% of the national population, accounts for 15% of those deaths."

In the past four years, Wu Guanzheng carried out Jiang's policy of "ruin Falun Gong practitioners' reputations, devastate them financially and destroy them physically." During his term as the secretary for the Shandong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party he ordered, "keep high political alertness," and "place emphasis on the prevention and cracking down on Falun Gong." He personally took part in the persecution and is directly responsible for the torture and murder of nearly 100 Falun Gong practitioners.

Road to Promotion Paved with Blood

1. Qilu Evening News incident

In mid-June 1998, the largest circulation newspaper in Shandong Province, Qilu Evening News, published an article that attacked Falun Gong. On June 22, about 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Jinan City went to calmly and peacefully clarify the truth to the editors and staff at the Qilu Evening News agency. After they learned the truth, the persons in charge at the news agency promised to use a whole page to clarify the truth and positively introduce Dafa to the society for the next day's copy of the paper. After Wu Guanzheng learned this, he ordered that no such thing was allowed to happen. Under high pressure from the provincial government, the next day the Qilu Evening News only published a tiny article a few dozen words long in an obscure corner of the paper, which was merely a symbolic gesture, not a retraction, admitting the previous report was wrong.

2. Follow Central Government Policy - Annihilate Falun Gong in Shandong Province

Ian Johnson, the Wall Street Journal reporter who wrote the abovementioned article, went on to say, "The government's '610 Office,' a bureau that was coordinating the crackdown, issued an order in December 1999, telling local government officials they would be held personally responsible if they didn't stem the flow of protesters going to Beijing, according to Weifang officials. As in years past, no questions would be asked about how this was achieved - success was all that mattered."

Many people in Weifang City benefited from the practice of Falun Dafa. They know that Falun Dafa was suffering gross injustice, so many of them stepped forward and appealed for justice for Falun Dafa. The Appeals Office in Beijing at that time was in direct coordination with the police department, and people who appealed for Falun Gong were directly arrested and detained. The Appeals Office was therefore nicknamed the "Arrest Office." The number of people arrested for appealing who came from Weifang City rose continuously. Wu Guanzheng tried to keep in line with Jiang Zemin, so he asserted pressure on the local officials and coerced them to join the persecution.

According to one official from the Weifang city government, "Mr. Wu quickly found ways to transfer the pressure. First, Weifang city officials said that Mr. Wu ensured that every official in the city knew felt the pressure by calling a meeting of the police and government officials, commencing a "study session." There, Jiang Zemin's personal instructions were read out loud as the central government's directive. "The government instructed us to limit the number of protesters or we would 'be held responsible'," said another government official.

3. Personally Implicated in the Persecution of Falun Dafa Practitioner Liu Xuguo

On January 29, 2000, Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Liu Xuguo, the former Assistant for Zoucheng City, Shandong Province was abducted from home and was sent to Jining City's Labor Camp along with three other practitioners. A female practitioner was sent to Jinan City's Female Labor Camp. They were the first group of Dafa practitioners illegally sentenced to forced labor in Jining City. On January 30, Liu Xuguo and two other practitioners went on a hunger strike. They were required to perform manual labor on the fourth day of the hunger strike. The head of the labor camp and a person named Wang, the head of Jining City's Legal and Judicial Bureau, persuaded, enticed and threatened Liu Xuguo, trying to make him give up the hunger strike. After Liu refused, he was barbarically force-fed.

At noon on February 4, 2000 [New Year's Eve on Chinese lunar calendar], Liu Xuguo was on the brink of death because the force-feeding tube punctured his trachea. He was sent to the Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical College. The doctor found Liu Xuguo to be close to death upon arrival and blamed the police for delayed action, and didn't want to admit him. In the evening, Liu Xuguo's wife arrived and saw that he was skin and bones, his lips were black and blue. Liu was constantly overseen by guards from the Jining Labor Camp while he was in the hospital. The Supreme Court in Beijing said if emergency treatment wouldn't revive him, then no one would be held responsible for his death.

Around 11:00 a.m. on February 10, 2000, the hospital officials suddenly announced Liu's death and immediately sent his body to the morgue without his family's consent.

Liu Xuguo once wrote a protest letter asking for unconditional release. The draft of the protest letter at one time circulated among a small group of practitioners and the letter's whereabouts are unknown. Wang, the head of Legal Bureau said, "This issue [Liu Xuguo and other practitioners who were sent to forced labor] was the direct order from Provincial Party Secretary Wu Guanzheng. We cannot do anything about it.

4. Personal Visits to the Jinan Female Labor Camp Lead to Intensified Persecution

In 2000, Wu Guanzheng went to the Jinan Female Labor Camp numerous times, with the result that the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners at the labor camp began to escalate.

Around 7:00 p.m. on October 27, 2000, with orders from superiors, authorities in the Jinan Female Labor Camp tortured around 100 Falun Gong practitioners detained at Division Five with violent actions, as described in the following account:

In the evening, police cars surrounded the building where the practitioners were held. Fully armed police officers stood around the building. About two dozen police officers, led by Niu Xuelian, head of Division Five, all of whom were drunk at the time, ran into the hallway and started shocking the practitioners with electric batons. They removed a dozen practitioners to further torment them, forcing them to squat and stand. They handcuffed the practitioners to increase the abuse and deprived them of their personal freedom. A 55-year-old practitioner named Tang Shuying was handcuffed for seven weeks because she persisted in Dafa practice. Her legs and feet were severely swollen.

The practitioners held a hunger strike to protest the violent persecution. The guards force-fed the practitioners. Guard Niu Xuelian shocked any practitioners who did the Dafa exercise with electric batons, for instance practitioners Liang Fang, Lin Yuqing and Xu Lianyun were shocked numerous times with electric batons. This cruel Niu Xuelian tied practitioner Ms. Qu Jinping to a barber chair and gagged her for two days. Guard Sun Juan savagely beat practitioner Chi Mingxiang. Guard Sun grabbed Ms. Chi Mingxiang by her hair while violently slapping her face more than 30 times. Practitioner Sun Mingxiang was not allowed to sleep for three days and three nights because she refused to give up Dafa cultivation.

According to an October 8th report on Minghui Net, in the year when Wu Guanzheng frequently "inspected" Division Five of the Jinan Female Labor Camp, three practitioners suffered mental breakdowns from this ruthless, diabolic torture.

5. Giving Speeches to Deceive the Public

From August 9th to August 23, 2001, related departments held an exhibit to defame Falun Dafa at Shandong Province's Museum. Orders were sent to different work units and quotas were given, requiring a certain number of people to attend the exhibit. Provincial and city government heads Wu Guanzheng, Zhao Zhihao, Sun Shuyi and others also went to the exhibit and gave speeches to slander Dafa and deceive the people.

Weifang City, Shandong Province Takes the Lead in Persecuting Falun Gong

From 1999 to late August 2003, among the more than 770 Falun Gong practitioners who were tortured to death throughout China, 30 deaths were verified to have taken place in Weifang City. ["Verified" means their names and story have been reported by the international media and third-party media]. As far as city-level government, the number of deaths in Weifang City is the highest in all of China. More Falun Gong practitioners in Weifang City than anywhere else were illegally fined, their homes ransacked and were sent to forced labor camps and prisons.

The April 20, 2000 issue of The Wall Street Journal reported the torture death of a Falun Gong practitioner in Weifang City at the hands of local government officials: "The day before Chen Zixiu died, her captors again demanded that she renounce her faith in Falun Dafa. Barely conscious after repeated jolts from a cattle prod, the 58-year-old stubbornly shook her head. Enraged, the local officials ordered Ms. Chen to run barefoot in the snow. Two days of torture had left her legs bruised and her short black hair matted with pus and blood, said cellmates and other prisoners who witnessed the incident. She
crawled outside, vomited and collapsed. She never regained consciousness
and died on Feb. 21^st, 2000." This report shocked the world and journalist Ian Johnson, the author of the report was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for this report.

With the provincial government's policy of "capitalize on preventing and striking on Falun Gong," the police and labor camp authorities in Weifang City have diabolically and ruthlessly tortured Falun Gong practitioners during the past four years. They use more than 40 tortures methods including shocking practitioners with many electric batons for a long time. Sometimes they put the baton in the practitioner's mouth, or on their breasts or chest, under the armpits and private areas. At night, the perpetrators turn off the lights and pull off female practitioners' pants to sexually assault them. This occurred in Shouguang Town and Taitou Town, Shouguang City, and Mucun Town in the Fangzi District.

The barbarians used various handcuffs and back cuffs, tying practitioners to the "death bed" [The four limbs of the practitioner are stretched out and tied to the four corners of an icy-cold metal bed. The practitioner cannot move at all. Neither is he allowed to get up to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom. This treatment would last from several hours up to more than a week. This type of cruel torture severely damages the practitioner, both mentally and physically]. They hang practitioners from doors and windows and shackle them, they tie up the practitioners with rough ropes until the practitioners' skin atrophied and had they had to receive skin graft (this occurred in Anqiu City and Shouguang City).

They slap practitioners' faces, hit them with their fists and kick them. They beat the practitioners with rubber police batons, wooden sticks, metal planks, steel rods, and other metal sticks, and they whip the practitioners with whips made of twisted copper wire and electric wire. All of this occurred in Weicheng District and Changle County.

They nip the practitioners' flesh with pliers and poke screwdrivers into the practitioners' body (Fangzi District).

They drive staples into the practitioners' fingers (Weicheng District).

They drive bamboo sticks under the practitioners' nail bed and even pry off all ten fingernails (Qingzhou City, Shouguang City).

They burn the practitioners with cigarette lighters and cigarette butts (Anqiu City, Gaomi City).

They pour boiling water on the practitioners' back until it blisters (Changle County).

They force the practitioners to kneel on broken pieces of pottery (Fangzi District).

In the scorching heat of summer, the perpetrators force the practitioners to stand on cement ground while they put plastic bags around the practitioner to suffocate him (Linqu County).

They lock up practitioners in solitary confinement and force them to sit on very narrow, low metal stools. They torture the practitioners with force-feeding (note: they feed practitioners highly concentrated saline solution through ordinary plastic tubes at Fangzi District Detention Center).

At the Nanyuan Street Office and Zhucheng Foreign Grade Corporation, the perpetrators force-feed practitioners with feces and urine. At Changle Labor Camp, they submerge the practitioners' head in water. In the winter, they strip the practitioners of all their clothes and put them outside to freeze. The authorities don't allow the practitioners to go to the restroom and forbid them to sleep for many days.

They inject the practitioners with lots of drugs that damage the central nervous system (this occurs at Changle Mental Hospital, Changle Labor Camp and Shouguang City).

They use ultra-high voltage electric needles to torture the practitioners at the Changle Mental Hospital.

At Changyi City and Shouguang City, government officials from Weifang City even parade the practitioners through the streets and put them in mountain caves. They seal the doors to practitioners' homes and persecute these practitioners' family and other relatives.

Secret Meeting of the Shandong Police System and the "Shouguang Tragedy"

According to a media report, on May 18, 2001 the Shandong Police System held a secret meeting in Weifang City to solidify their plan to conduct a large-scale arrest of Falun Gong practitioners in eight provinces and cities, including Beijing and Shandong Province. Soon after, in early June, the Shouguang Tragedy took place.

"The officials' brutality toward Ms. Chen seemed exceptional at the time. Torture in China is common, but even Ms. Chen's family thought that her death was an aberration, the result of an especially cruel jailer. Since then, however, Falun Dafa practitioners have died regularly in Weifang's prisons, about one a month, casting doubt on the idea that one person is responsible. Instead, it appears that the violence is systemic, stemming from policies adopted in Beijing and implemented locally." (from the abovementioned Wall Street Journal story by Ian Johnson)

According to a report on Minghui, in the morning of June 4, 2001, the police in Shouguang City, Weifang City, Shandong Province arrested a dozen Falun Gong practitioners in Majia Village, Sunjiaji Town. Within two days, two of the arrested practitioners were beaten to death. One of them was 60-year-old Ms. Wang Lanxiang from Majia Village, Sunjiaji Town. The other one was the 37-year-old Ms. Li Yinping, an employee for the Weifang City Husbandry [farm] Bureau. These two deaths raised the number of Falun Gong practitioners who were beaten to death to 22 in the 22 months since July 1999.

On June 4th, the police ignored the people's accusations as they stripped off the practitioners' clothes and savagely beat them in the street. Then, they took the practitioners to the Sunji Police Station and forced them to stand in the scorching heat for one day while the practitioners were handcuffed and were not allowed to talk. The practitioners were illegally interrogated one by one, and if they refused to cooperate, they were barbarically beaten. In the evening, all of the arrested practitioners were sent to Shouguang City's Detention Center without any due legal process.

In the afternoon of June 6, the practitioners told the authorities they were illegally arrested and asked for release. The police officers dragged them out into the hallway and beat them with rubber clubs. They tied up six practitioners to metal chairs that are specialized torture tools. In the evening, the division head and Wang, the head of detention center, drank alcohol to fortify their "courage" before they led another round of fiendish torture of these six practitioners.

This is how it happened: Five to six perpetrators surrounded each practitioner. First they slapped the practitioner's face, then they twisted his or her arms behind the back; some yanked the practitioner's hair and they took turns beating the practitioner's body and legs with rubber clubs. They verbally abused the practitioners throughout the whole time. The rubber clubs broke three times from the violent use and the metal core fell out. They replaced it with a new a rubber club and resumed beating. At the same time they shocked the practitioners with high voltage electric batons. When the practitioners fainted from the beating, they poured cold water on them and resumed beating when he or she came to. This savage torture lasted four hours.

A female practitioner in her 30's was stripped of all her clothes and beaten until her whole body was black and blue. She fainted several times and the perpetrators poured cold water on her. Then they shocked her with electric batons. Her heart-wrenching scream shocked the whole detention center. Even so, they refused to stop. One of them said, "We'll take you inside and gang-rape you till you die!" This practitioner began vomiting blood right then and there, but the police continued to beat and shock her. After they became exhausted they said they would do it again the next day.

The practitioners were locked onto metal chairs for a whole evening. The female practitioner who was most severely tortured kept vomiting until she finally fell unconscious. At around 5:00 a.m. her pulse could not be detected. The detention center authorities said, "She won't die! Don't worry about it." Later, they saw she was indeed dying, so they sent her to Shouguang People's Hospital for emergency treatment, sending plainclothes police to monitor her. This practitioner was still in critical condition in the afternoon of June 7th. Her condition is not known at this point. At the same time, the detention center concocted fake evidence and ordered inmates to say that she threw up blood before she was beaten at the detention center. They recorded the made-up "evidence" to evade responsibility.

Another practitioner in her 60s was stripped of all her clothes and beaten until she became unconscious. She lost control of her bladder and fell into a coma. The police sent her to a hospital. In the afternoon, they sent two other practitioners who were also in critical condition to Shouguang People's Hospital.

Observers think that the torture deaths in Shouguang City have to do with a secret meeting held by the Shandong Police System in Weifang City. The purpose of the meeting was to solidify the plan to arrest Falun Gong practitioners in eight major provinces. Wu Guanzheng, the secretary for the Shandong Party Committee cannot shirk his responsibilities.

Shandong Province -- One of the Worst Records in Persecuting Falun Gong

From 1999 to 2002, when Wu Guanzheng was the secretary of Shandong Provincial committee of Communist Party, Shandong Province had the reputation of carrying out the most vicious and deadly persecution against Falun Gong practitioners with the leading number deaths resulting from torture. According to statistics, in the four years and three months (51 months) from July 1999 to October 2003, Shandong Province is responsible for 93 Falun Gong practitioners' torture deaths. The practitioners who were tortured to death include elderly people in their 70's, and infants less than eight months old.

The first publicized torture case took place in Zhaoyuan City, Shandong Province. On Sept. 27, 1999, Ms. Zhao Jinhua, a resident of Zhaojia Village, Zhangxing County, Zhaoyuan City was abducted by persons from the Zhangxing County police when she was working in the farm fields. The officers started to torture her with police electric clubs and rubber clubs, and electrocuting her with old-style rotary telephones. They tortured her while forcing her to stand on cement. The right side of her body hurt terribly and it became numb. She had blood in her urine and her legs hurt. She could not eat and her body was black and blue from the waist on down. Her face was yellow and she collapsed to the ground. The villagers said, "Zhao Jinhua was known as a very good person."

After Ms. Zhao Jinhua died from savage torture, the police not only didn't pursue the murderers, they severely muzzled people who delivered the news of Ms. Zhao's death to the outside. Ten Falun Gong practitioners in Zhaoyuan City were arrested as a result. Falun Gong practitioners Ms. Li Lanying, Ms. Chi Yunling and Ms. Chen Shihuan, among others, were held under criminal detention. The police claim they are guilty of "illegally providing information to foreign sources." These good people face heavy prison sentences.

On June 18, 2000, Reuters reported the story of Su Gang, a young computer engineer in Zibo City, Shandong Province, who died from repeated drug injections because he practiced Falun Gong. The report states,

"Su Gang, a 32-year-old computer engineer in Zibo City in eastern Shandong Province was arrested after petitioning in Beijing this year on behalf of the [Dafa] movement. Police took Su to the hospital on May 23, though he showed no signs of mental disorder. He was given daily shots of a drug that attacks the central nervous system, the Information Center said in a statement. Su was released on May 31 after his family staged a protest hunger strike, the statement said. Su was healthy when he was taken away, but on his return was stiff, slow, weak and refused to eat, the group quoted his father Su De'an as saying. He died on June 10."

After Su Gang died, the police tailed his family. On June 14, Su Gang's father Su De'an and his uncle Su Lianxi were stopped by dozens of people when they tried to deliver a public letter to the heads of the Qilu Oil Chemical Company. They were sent to a police department and were illegally interrogated. The police kept their residence under 24-hour surveillance. Su Gang's family could not report his death to related government agencies.

"The effects of such systematic brutality on society is difficult to gauge. None of these deaths have been reported in the Chinese media. Only those directly touched by the crackdown know of its scope and ferocity" (The Wall Street Journal, "How One Chinese City Resorted To Atrocities to Control Falun Dafa"üj.

Reported by Minghui journalist Gu Anru

On November 4, 2003