(Clearwisdom.net) Mr. Liao Yuanhua, 47, is from Wuxue City, Hubei Province. He was secretary of the Disciplinary and Inspection Department of the Agricultural Bureau, and began his Falun Dafa cultivation in 1998. The Communist Party dismissed him after the persecution of Falun Gong was initiated by Chinese dictator and former President Jiang Zemin and his regime on the July 20, 1999, because of his refusal to renounce the practice of Falun Dafa. In 2000, he went to Beijing to peacefully appeal to the government for a stop to the unjustified persecution, and was illegally sentenced to a four-year prison term. After being detained in a detention center for a year, on June 1, 2001 he was sent to the Shayang Fanjiataqi Prison in Hubei Province.
When Liao Yuanhua was admitted to the prison initiation brigade, six prisoners were ordered by prison guards to take turns torturing him throughout the day and night, because he refused to cooperate with the jail guard. They ordered him to stand still, and if he moved, they violently attacked him. He was deprived of sleep, and if he fell asleep, they smashed his head against the wall.
Once, a guard by the name of Li ordered prisoners to torture Liao Yuanhua in a storage room for over three hours. While poking him with a mop handle and beating his head with a metal hanger, they kept asking, "Do you still say Falun Gong is good?" Liao Yuanhua replied, "Falun Gong is good." Because Liao persisted in saying "Falun Gong is good," the prisoners continued beating him.
On August 3, 2001, a prison guard named Shi Heping entered the room holding a pair of handcuffs in his hand. He also brought five new prisoners with him and said to Liao, "You will be entering into a new stage of labor reform. These five guys here are to keep you under tight surveillance. Come with us now." Liao was taken to the Eighth Brigade (Brick and Tile Factory) labor field. They ordered the criminal prisoners there to drag a load of bricks to a remote place, where they then ordered Liao to stack the bricks in order. Liao couldn't touch the bricks because they were far too hot to touch. Anyone who worked on the job would need leather gloves to protect his hands from being burned. They wouldn't give Liao any gloves, so he couldn't possibly do the work. Shi ordered the prisoners to handcuff his hands behind his back and push him into a brick-baking chamber.
The temperature in the brick-baking chamber is extremely high during August. One's feet will soon feel as though they are burning even while wearing shoes. Yet, these criminals took off Liao's shoes and forced him to stand inside the chamber. Liao started jumping up and down since his feet were burning under the intense heat. Two criminals (one by the name of Du Shengke) stepped on Liao's feet from both sides, causing him to squat down. They then packed red-hot bricks under his buttocks to burn him (the scars remain to this day). As Liao was unable to sustain any more torture, they dragged him outside. Shi Heping, who gave the order for this, then asked Liao, "How was it? Are you now going to stop your practice?" Liao replied, "Impossible!" and proceeded to tell those criminals who were present, "You people are eye witnesses to the fact that I'm being tortured to death!" Shi shouted, "Don't let him talk. Push him back into the chamber!" This was repeated countless times until Liao fell unconscious inside the chamber. To this day, the scars from the burns remain on Liao's feet, buttocks, and right shoulder.
Liao's body temperature had reached 41 degrees Celsius (106o F) when he passed out. He remained unconscious even when they poured cold water on him. He was then taken to a hospital. Even after sustaining such injuries, his hands were still handcuffed to the frame of the bed and his injured feet were also locked to the bed with foot shackles. The only way he could stay in bed was to lie on his stomach, due to the severity of the burns on his buttocks. His body was badly burned in so many places that he couldn't wear any clothes. During the day, they forced him to watch the so-called reforming video by placing a TV just a foot away from him. At night, they started a new round of torture. With the excuse of cleaning his body, they took him outside in the hallway. For the entire night he was suspended by foot shackles, so that he had to use only his thighs to support his entire body. His burned feet were oozing pus and badly swollen by the following morning. Sometimes, using the excuse that they were going to "replace his medication," they sat on the foot shackles, which were locked to the bed, to prevent him from being able to move his body. They then continuously and forcibly rubbed the severely burned bottoms of his feet with a broad, prickly leaf. It was so painful that he cried out in great anguish. To prevent him from crying out, a guard pried open his mouth and stuffed in a piece of towel that had human excrement on it. They sometimes stuffed a medicine bottle into his anus, and then stood on his body until the bottle popped out. Another method of torture used was to pour ethanol, which was used to treat his wounds, into his mouth [Those who practice Falun Gong do not drink alcohol, so this form of torture is not only physically damaging but also a form of humiliation and psychological torture.] If they couldn't open his mouth, they poured it through his nostrils. During hot days, they hooked a stool around his neck and placed a burning incense stick by his face to cause burns. He was forced to stand for long periods of time, even though his feet were still severely injured from the prior torture. During winter, he was not allowed to sleep, and if he fell asleep, they poured a bucket of cold water over him. They locked his feet and hands together, suspended him in the air, and then pushed him back and forth. They called this a "swing set." His hands and feet were bleeding from the handcuffs cutting into the flesh. The scars on his wrists bore witness to the brutality of such torture. Even after they had tortured him for four months in the prison hospital, they still didn't succeed in forcing him to renounce his beliefs.
In November of 2001, Liao was sent back to prison once again. He was made to stand for extended periods of time, subjected to sleep deprivation, and was denied use the restroom. The Administration Brigade head Xiao Tianbo and criminal Pan Guangfu told others, "Without my permission, he is not allowed to use the restroom." Liao asked Xiao, "How often will you let me use the restroom?" Xiao replied, "Whenever I come, I'll decide then." Once Liao asked to use the restroom and was denied. Liao demanded loudly, "What kind of crime did I commit by practicing Falun Gong. Why are you persecuting me like this?" Immediately five or six criminals pushed him to the floor and started to savagely beat him. Pan even smashed a small stool while striking him across the back with it.
At the end of March 2002, Xiao sent Liao to an isolated cell, since Liao wouldn't admit that practicing Falun Gong was a crime. Xiao told Zou Xiong and Pan Guangfu to physically torture Liao. The methods they used included: being forced to stand all day, sleep deprivation, denial of food or providing only a tiny amount of food, smearing the eyes with hot pepper paste, slapping the face with a shoe, smashing his head against the wall, rounds of violent beatings, etc. One day a jail guard named Zu asked Liao whether he would stop practicing Falun Gong, but the negative answer remained the same. He then told the criminals, "Beat him until he gives it up." The criminals removed Liao's pants, and two criminals then took turns beating his buttocks. Meanwhile, several Dafa practitioners were kept in isolated cells (Chen Peisheng and others). Criminals on one side of the jail would yell to the criminals on the other side, "How come we can't hear anything?" After only a short while screaming was heard from those practitioners being detained on the other side, then the other side would yell, "How come we can't hear anything coming from your side?" Then, the criminals on that side started to rampantly assault Liao. The isolated cells now became a common place for torturing those who practice Falun Gong. Liao's ears were deformed as the result of the torture. A surgical procedure that was carried out later was unable to correct the deformation.
In July 2003, when Liao heard about the incident of fellow practitioner being beaten severely in the isolated cell, he immediately started a hunger strike as a form of protest, and requested that the prison guards stop the persecution. During this time, Liao realized that participating in forced labor is actually cooperating with the illegal persecution, so he refused to participate in the so-called "labor reform," where practitioners were forced to produce colored lights.
On August 1, 2003, Liao was officially isolated. Three criminals were monitoring him 24 hours a day. On September 26, 2003, Liao started a hunger strike again, demanding the right to practice and study the teachings of Falun Gong. Prison guards isolated Liao in a deserted hospital room. They then locked both his hands and feet to the bed frame and inserted a feeding tube into his stomach to force-feed him. After Liao had persisted on the hunger strike for 33 days, the guard finally allowed him the right to practice the Falun Gong exercises, but that was it. Liao wouldn't accept this halfway offer. What he wanted is a total stop to the persecution of all the practitioners. So Liao continued the hunger strike. On October 28, he was transferred to the Shayang Prison Hospital to undergo more forced-feeding. He was injected with some unknown drugs while his hands and feet were tied to the bed frame. During the last eight months of his imprisonment, Liao never gave up his request to practice and study Dafa. On June 9, 2004, the local "610 Office" returned Liao to his home. Their plan to break Liao's will at the provincial brainwashing facility had completely failed.
Liao survived four years of the most cruel and grueling persecution. The brutal torture he went through included: being forced to stand on hot bricks with his bare feet, being beaten with a metal hanger, having his mouth stuffed with a towel that had been smeared with feces, having his four limbs being tied together and being swung in the air like a swing set, having his eyes smeared with hot pepper paste, having his head smashed against the wall, having alcohol poured down his throat or nostrils, being locked in isolation, having his burns rubbed with a prickly leaf, being denied the use of a restroom, being deprived of sleep, being injected with unknown drugs, being brutally force fed, having a stool smashed across his back, being forced to stand all day long, being stomped on so as to force a bottle which was stuffed into his rectum to come out, and having a lit incense stick placed next to his face.
This upright officer and a compassionate person who practices Falun Dafa had to endure such horrific torture just because he persisted in truthfulness and didn't fear their threats or violence. Just because he went to Beijing to peacefully and lawfully appeal to his government, he was forced out of his party, imprisoned for four years, and subjected to over thirty unthinkable tortures. It is said that the Discipline Committee and Procurator Bureau in Wuxue City are prepared to suspend his working permit.