Once Incarcerated and Tortured for Five Years, Tianjin Man Sentenced to Five Years Again
(Minghui.org) A native of Tianjin working in Fujian Province was recently sentenced to five years for his faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since July 1999.
Mr. Huang Min was arrested on July 23, 2019 in Xiamen City, Fujian Province at the temporary housing provided by his workplace. Two cellphones that he used to send information about Falun Gong to the public were confiscated and used as prosecution evidence against him.
Mr. Huang was indicted by the Jimei District Procuratorate on April 15, 2020 and tried through a video conference by the Jimei District Court on December 10, 2020. His lawyer entered a not guilty plea for him. The judge announced his verdict in August.
Mr. Huang, 52, began to practice Falun Gong in the summer of 1997. For upholding his faith after the communist regime ordered the persecution, he has been detained and tortured for a total of five years.
Tortured in the Detention Centers
Two months after the onset of the persecution, Mr. Huang went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, but was arrested on September 7, 1999 and detained for nearly two months.
At Changping Detention Center in Beijing, Mr. Huang and over 30 other practitioners were held in one large cell. When a guard found them reading Falun Gong books together, he brought in over 20 guards. They hit every practitioner in sight. The practitioners’ bodies were covered with injuries and some of their hair was plucked out by the handfuls.
Mr. Huang was transferred to the Dagang Detention Center in Tianjin four days later on September 11. All practitioners who refused to renounce Falun Gong were held in the felon cell in the detention center, and the inmates were instigated to torture the practitioners.
Every morning, the practitioners were forced to clean the cells. Afterwards, the inmates would begin to torture them.
There were many kinds of abuse. In one torture, Mr. Huang was sandwiched by two inmates who stood facing each other. They punched him back and forth like a volleyball. Another torture involved striking at his outer thighs with their knees until his inner thighs became severely bruised. He was unable to stand or walk afterwards.
The inmates also forced Mr. Huang to stand with his back against the wall. Then they placed a pillow on his stomach and then repeatedly punched his stomach.
Other types of torture included forcing him to bend forward 90 degrees while the inmates struck his lower back with their elbows; punching his face; or twisting toothbrushes between his fingers that were held tightly by the inmates.
Tortured in the Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp
After two months of torture, Mr. Huang was given two years of forced labor and taken to Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp in Tianjin on November 2, 1999. Another twelve practitioners were also sent there with him. One of the practitioners was 20-year-old Mr. Jia Zhiming, who was given two years of forced labor for submitting a letter to the then Premier to appeal against the persecution. On the first day he was taken to the labor camp, Mr. Jia was beaten and shocked with electric batons for hours.
A few days later, the labor camp guards took all 13 newly admitted practitioners to the bathroom, stripped off their pants and spanked each a dozen times with a large wooden plank.
In addition to the constant beating, Mr. Huang was also subjected to long term sleep deprivation and electric shocks.
With more and more practitioners taken to the Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp, it reached its maximum detention capacity. As a result, Mr. Huang was transferred to the Ji County Forced Labor Camp on September 13, 2001.
A month later, the guards started to torture him in order to make him renounce Falun Gong. Four inmates beat him an average of six times a day. When Mr. Huang still wouldn’t give up Falun Gong, they hit his wrists and finger joints with a pair of forceps used to pick up cotton in the workroom until all the soft issue and tendons were badly swollen. Then they hit him in other areas sensitive to pain, including the ankles and toes.
The inmates made a hammer out of copper wires and used it to hit Mr. Huang’s head, causing bumps to appear all over his head.
Finally, they poked his fingertips with large sewing needles until his fingers bled profusely. They also kept chopping the nape of his neck and Adam’s apple with their hands. He wasn’t unable to utter a sound a long time after the torture. As his face was severely swollen, the guards jeered at him that he looked fatter.
Torture reenactment: poking needles into fingers
Mr. Huang held a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Eventually he became skin and bones, and weighed less than 88 pounds. Only then did the guards stop beating him.
At the same time, they began to force feed him. The guards forcibly inserted a non-medical tube as thick as an adult male’s index finger into his nose, causing his nose to bleed profusely. As the tube was too thick to go down to his stomach, the guards used chopsticks, a wooden stick and a metal spoon to pry open his mouth. The stainless steel spoon always scraped a piece of skin and flesh off his upper jaw and caused a lot of bleeding and pain.
They force fed him twice a day. At first, they force-fed him with nutritious food, but later replaced it with spicy water mixed with lard, salt, and cornmeal. The extremely spicy soup inflicted a lot of pain.
When Mr. Huang still wouldn't give in to the torture, the labor camp doctor injected him with unknown drugs. Guard Liu Julong said that upon learning that Mr. Huang would be admitted to the labor camp, they started working on how to “transform” him two months before his arrival. They came up with several plans, and one of the plans was to treat Mr. Huang as a patient with mental illness.
Another Three-year Labor Camp Term
Only one month after Mr. Huang was released, he was arrested again in October 2002 and given another three years at the Dasuzhuang Forced Labor Camp.
Due to torture during his previous torture and hunger strike, he was almost incapacitated. He had pain in his lower back, legs, and neck and had to walk very slowly.
In late 2003, he was transferred to the Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp again. The guards held him in solitary confinement and ordered two inmates to monitor him around the clock. He was forced to sit still on a small stool from 6 a.m. to 12 a.m., except when he needed to use the restroom. He was on the verge of death when he was released on April 6, 2005.
Perpetrators’ contact information:
Tu (涂), judge of Jimei District Court: +86-592-6208335Chen Qingshan (陈清山), prosecutor of Jimei District Procuratorate: +86-592-6068110Yu (于), manager of Mr. Huang that testified against him: +86-18559136353