Leicester Mercury (UK): Chinese prison abuse highlighted

December 11, 2004

Practitioners of Falun Gong, an Eastern art of refining the body and mind through exercises and meditation, are staging an exhibition in Gallowtree Gate. They say police in China imprison people they suspect of following Falun Gong and then carry out horrific torture techniques, including burning, hanging prisoners from their wrists until they lose circulation. Some of the horrors will be acted out in the demonstration.

Organiser Li Heping says he was imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese police for refusing to give up Falun Gong, and eventually fled the country.

He now lives in Leicester and has applied for asylum in the UK, but had to leave his wife and young daughter behind.

He has not heard from his father, who also practices Falun Gong, since he was taken into a labour camp earlier this year. The exhibition will run from 11am to 5pm on Saturday and Sunday.