After Ten Years of Incarceration, Beijing Man Faces Prison Term for His Faith Again
(Minghui.org) A Beijing resident was arrested on March 6, 2022 for practicing Falun Gong. Mr. Tan Shouli is held at the Shunyi District Detention Center and is now facing trial by the Shunyi District Court after he was indicted on July 18.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Tan Shouli
Mr. Tan, 64, used to be the Chief of General Affairs of the Chinese Writers Association. Because he refused to renounce Falun Gong, he has been repeatedly arrested in the past 23 years, and served ten years at the Qianjin Prison.
Arrested for Appealing for Falun Gong
Mr. Tan was first arrested on December 1, 1999, when he went to the National Appeals Office to demand the right to practice Falun Gong. Two practitioners who went with him, Ms. Xu Jing and Ms. Li Fengqin, were also arrested.
The three of them were brought to the Xinyuanli Police Station and locked in metal cages. In the evening, they were taken to the Chaoyang District Detention Center. The police took them back to the Xinyuanli Police Station on December 29 and locked them in metal cages again. Mr. Tan and Ms. Xu were later released in the evening and Ms. Li was detained one more night before being allowed to go home.
Torture illustration: metal cage
Sentenced to Ten Years
Mr. Tan hung up a banner on a building facing the Beijing Police Department in late 2001 and was arrested by officers of the Qianmen Police Station.
He was held at a brainwashing center for three months. The authorities arranged for armed police to monitor him around the clock. They recorded everything he did, including how many times and when he turned during sleep, when he snored and whether he talked in his dreams.
During the day, Mr. Tan was subjected to brainwashing. The guards ordered him to sit on Falun Gong books. When he refused, they sat on him to force him onto the books. They also poked his ears and nose with a broomstick. He was ordered to squat for long hours and not allowed to sit down, no matter how tired he was.
A guard named Yue Aihua sat on his abdomen and pressed down very hard. Yue forcibly pulled his ears upwards. Yue used so much force that not only his ears were in terrible pain, but his face was also swollen. Yue also forced Mr. Tan to stand overnight, with his nose touching the wall. He became so exhausted that he collapsed to the ground.
Mr. Tan was sentenced to ten years by the Haidian District Court on March 27, 2003 and transferred to the Qianjin Prison.
The practitioners newly admitted to the prison were all subjected to strict management. The torture methods used the most frequently included being forced to sitting on a four-inch-tall stool for extended periods of time without moving and sleep deprivation. Each practitioner was monitored by two to four inmates around the clock. They reported everything the practitioners did to the guards for them to make customized plans to brainwash them. Even after a practitioner was forced to renounce Falun Gong, the guards still arranged for an inmate to monitor him.
Torture instrument: the tiny stool
When the strict management ended, the guards would transfer those practitioners who refused to renounce Falun Gong to an isolation room and shackle them. The practitioners would then be forced to stand all day long, except when using the restroom. The inmates also watched them around the clock.
Continued Harassment and Arrests
After Mr. Tan was released, he still faced constant harassment and arrests, especially during major political events or anniversaries related to Falun Gong.
The police ransacked his home on July 20, 2015 (the anniversary of the onset of the persecution) and kept him at a lockup for two weeks. Then he was taken to a brainwashing center for further persecution.
A group of officers broke into his home at 7 a.m. on April 20, 2016 (five days before the anniversary of the historic appeal by 10,000 practitioners for the right to practice Falun Gong) and ransacked his place. Although Mr. Tan escaped as he wasn’t home when the police came, he was still located and arrested at around noon, as the police had been monitoring his cellphone and tracking his location.
Mr. Tan was arrested again on March 8, 2017 while passing a train station. After one month at the Huairou Detention Center, he was taken to a brainwashing center in Chaoyang District on April 8. He held a hunger strike to protest the persecution and was released a day later.
Mr. Tan’s next arrest was on the evening of March 28, 2019. His two laptops, Falun Gong books and informational materials were confiscated. The authorities transferred him to the brainwashing center again after holding him at the Chaoyang District Detention Center.
Since June 2021, the police has frequently harassed him. Some officers stayed outside of his apartment to monitor him day-and-night.