(Minghui.org) A Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province resident has been detained for over a year and is now awaiting a verdict for his faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Song Zhi, a 46-year-old flight engineer, was arrested on September 28, 2019. He has been held at the Xi’an City Detention Center ever since. He was indicted by the Yanta District Procuratorate around May and tried by the Yanta District Court on July 16, 2020.
The authorities have kept his family in the dark about his case status and didn’t allow his two sisters to meet with him until the day before his hearing. Fearing that their father in his 80s and mother in her 70s may not be able to take the news well, Mr. Song’s sisters haven’t informed them of his prosecution.
This is the ninth time that Mr. Song has been arrested for his faith in Falun Gong. He was constantly held in brainwashing centers and served two labor camp terms for a total of three years and one month.
Mr. Song was first arrested in December 1999 for going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. He was detained for a month after being taken back to Xi’an and was beaten by the guards.
He was arrested again in April 2000 and detained for over twenty days.
Mr. Song was given two years at Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp after his third arrest in July 2000. The guards hung him up by the wrists onto the window frame and didn’t allow him to sleep for seven days. His use of the restroom was also limited. When Mr. Song held a hunger strike to protest the persecution, the guards tied him to a bed and force-fed him more than ten times. He was also constantly beaten and forced to do unpaid labor.
Torture illustration: Hung up by the wrists
At the end of his labor camp term in July 2002, the authorities directly sent him to the Lintong District Brainwashing Center and held him for three months, before transferring him to the Chang’an County Brainwashing Center and detaining him for another three months.
In November 2004, Mr. Song was arrested together with his fiancee and detained in the Pucheng County Detention Center for a month.
He was arrested again in May 2006 and given another thirteen months at the Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp. Half of his term was spent in solitary confinement. The authorities sent him to the brainwashing center again after his term expired.
Due to his repeated arrests, the Flight Testing Research Institute he worked at issued him a warning in June 2008 and reduced his monthly salary to 1,000 yuan, when an entry-level new-hire received 3,000 yuan per month.
Only two months later, the officials at his workplace cooperated with the police to arrest him again and held him at a brainwashing center for four months.
Mr. Song was arrested again on March 18, 2010, and held at a brainwashing center for more than 20 days. He was deprived of sleep and had his hands and feet cuffed together.
Torture illustration: hands and feet cuffed together
Mr. Song’s eighth arrest was on July 17, 2014, together with several other practitioners. He was detained at the Yanta Detention Center and released on April 3, 2015, after he held a hunger strike to protest the persecution.
Related reports:
Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners from Xi'an Aircraft Industry Company
