(Minghui.org) A 60-year-old resident of Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, was issued a formal arrest warrant on March 15, 2024, for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Yang Xuegui, a veteran and the former manager of the General Services Section of Lanzhou City Second People’s Hospital, is now facing indictment, having previously served two prison terms totaling 13 years for upholding his faith.
Mr. Yang was arrested on March 4, 2024. As he left home around 4 p.m. that day, he was seized by officers who were waiting outside, including captain Guo Wenbin (+86-13399316075) of the Anning District Domestic Security Division and agents from its subordinate Jingyuan Road Police Station.
The police searched Mr. Yang and grabbed his house key. They then took him inside and raided his home. Not long after, his mother returned to their shared home to see the police still rummaging through everything. When they finally left at 9 p.m., they took Mr. Yang to the Lanzhou City Third Detention Center (located in Xiguoyuan Town in the Qilihe District). The police never gave Mr. Yang or his mother a list of confiscated items as required by law.
The Anning District Police Department issued a notice on the day of Mr. Yang’s arrest that he was being held in criminal detention for “using a cult organization to undermine law enforcement,” the standard pretext used to frame and imprison Falun Gong practitioners.
Mr. Yang’s family received another notice on March 27 that the Anning District Procuratorate had issued a formal arrest warrant for him for “using a cult organization to undermine law enforcement.” The notice was dated March 15.
His lawyer visited him in the detention center and learned that he had never been deposed.
Mr. Yang credits Falun Gong for improving his health and helping him quit smoking and drinking, but his simple pursuit of an illness-free life landed him in police custody multiple times.
Mr. Yang was first arrested on September 4, 2001. He appeared in the Qilihe Court in late August 2002 and was sentenced to eight years. During the time he was held in Linxia Prison, Lanzhou Forced Labor Camp Hospital and Lanzhou Prison, he was subjected to frequent beatings, verbal abuse, freezing, force feeding, and solitary confinement. The guards sometimes tied him to a bed in a spread-eagle position or forced him to wear a metal vest. He barely survived the torture and was released on September 11, 2009.
Mr. Yang was arrested again on September 14, 2016, while putting up a banner which had information about Falun Gong near an overpass. He was sentenced to five years by the Chengguan District Court on February 2, 2018, and released from Lanzhou Prison on September 14, 2021.
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