(Minghui.org) Tang Yijun, the former minister of justice of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was put under disciplinary investigation on suspicion of serious violations of discipline and law on April 2, 2024. He was the third justice minister to undergo disciplinary investigation since 2017, followed by Wu Aiying and Fu Zhenghua. Wu was expelled from the CCP for graft and Fu was given life in prison for bribery.
Wu Shaoping, a Chinese human rights lawyer, commented that the fact that three ministers of justice were placed under serious investigation doesn’t only show the widespread corruption in the CCP, but also highlights the impossibility of CCP’s ruling by the law.
Tang was appointed as the mayor of Ningbo City in Zhejiang Province in August 2016. He then served as the deputy Communist Party secretary of Zhejiang and governor of Liaoning between 2017 and 2020. He took office as minister of justice in April 2020, until he was ousted in February 2023. His last post was the chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Committee before his downfall.
With each role, Tang has actively participated in the persecution of Falun Gong, resulting in many practitioners being arrested, sentenced and tortured.
Formulating Persecution Activities Targeting Falun Gong Practitioners
On March 25, 2020, the website of the Ministry of Justice published “Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of Rural Areas Under the Rule of Law” issued by the Committee for Comprehensively Governing the Country by Law of the Central Committee of the CCP. The opinion stated that it is necessary to severely crack down on rural cult organizations, a label that the Party falsely applies to Falun Gong.
Falun Gong is not a cult, but the CCP and its Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC), as well as the Ministry of Justice, cited the opinion to justify its new round of persecution of Falun Gong. After the opinion was published, it was circulated to judicial departments at all levels of the CCP, which then introduced various corresponding measures to cooperate with the implementation of the opinion. Although this opinion was issued a month before Tang became minister of Justice, it was implemented during Tang’s tenure.
On August 24, 2021, the Ministry of Justice announced the new “Prison Scoring and Assessment of Criminals Work Regulations,” which took effect on October 1, 2021. For the first time, the newly-revised assessment regulations for prison inmates classified Falun Gong as a cult. The regulations slandered Falun Gong in item 5 of Article 23, categorizing anyone doing the practice as “failing the assessment standard” and thus giving license to intensified persecution of practitioners illegally detained in prisons.
For prisoners, the scoring and assessment regulations determine the actual sentences that they are given. Because “transformation of Falun Gong practitioners” is linked with assessment scores and commutation of sentences, there have been instances where prisoners are incentivized to cooperate with guards to persecute Falun Gong practitioners to gain a lighter sentence.
The Torture of Falun Gong Practitioners in Prisons
In China’s legal system, prisons are supervised by Prison Administration Bureaus, which are affiliated with either the Ministry of Justice or Provincial Department of Justice.
Prisons are key places where the CCP detains and persecutes Falun Gong practitioners. Most of the illegally sentenced practitioners suffer all kinds of physical and mental abuse in the prison. The Ministry of Justice and its affiliated Prison Administration Bureaus regularly instigate inmates to torture Falun Gong practitioners in prisons.
From January 2020 to April 2022, at least 278 practitioners died as a result of torture across China. Most of them were detained, persecuted, and tortured in prisons or other detention facilities. Among them, 37 were tortured to death in prison. Below are a few such death cases.
1) Mr. Liu Xiyong was a resident of Dalian City, Liaoning Province. In February 2017, he was sentenced to three years in prison for talking to people about Falun Gong. On April 9, 2018, he was admitted to Dongling Prison in Shenyang City. On April 8, 2021, his term expired, but instead of being released, he was transferred to the Jinzhou District Detention Center in Dalian City. He was then sentenced to four more years in prison, and on September 28, 2021, he was admitted to Dalian Third Prison. On December 9, 2021, he was rushed to Dalian Central Hospital due to his deteriorating health. His family repeatedly asked that he be released on medical parole, but the Dalian Third Prison denied their requests. He died on December 29, 2021, at the age of 81.
2) Mr. Lv Guanru was a resident of Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province. On July 1, 2019, he was sentenced to seven years in prison by the Ranghulu District Court of Daqing City. He held a hunger strike to protest and was force-fed. The force-feeding caused heart failure and stomach bleeding. He was sent to the hospital many times for emergency treatment. On July 30, 2019, he was taken to Hulan Prison straight from the hospital. He was later transferred to Tailai Prison in November 2019. Despite his health, Tailai Prison continued to torture him and kept him in a small cell for more than a month. He suffered a cerebellar hemorrhage and died in prison on April 4, 2021, at the age of 69.
3) Mr. Yin Guozhi worked for the Bajia Farm in Jianping County, Liaoning Province. On September 26, 2019, he was seized by the police from Bajianfang Police Station in Lingyuan City and Bajia Farm Police Station in Jianping County. He was first detained in Jinzhou Prison and then transferred to Shenyang No. 1 Prison, where he died as a result of torture on May 22, 2022, at the age of 56.
4) Mr. Gong Piqi, of Qingdao City, Shandong Province, was the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Shandong Provincial Reserve Antiaircraft Artillery Division, with the rank of colonel, before he retired. On July 20, 2018, he was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison by the Shibei District Court in Qingdao. On April 12, 2021, he died as a result of torture in Jinan Prison, Shandong Province, at the age of 66. His head was swollen and he was bleeding from his ears.
5) Ms. Fu Guihua of Jiaohe City, Jilin Province, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison by the Lishu County Court of Jilin Province on February 26, 2021. On May 27 that year, she was taken to the eighth division of the Jilin Provincial Women’s Prison. Less than two months later, she died as a result of torture on July 25, 2021, at the age of 56.
6) Ms. Su Yunxia from Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, was arrested by Sankeshu Police Station officers in the Daowai District, Harbin City, on September 7, 2016. On March 31, 2017, she was sentenced to five years in prison by the Daowai District Court and admitted to the Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison, where she was brutally tortured. Two days before her release date on September 4, 2021, she died at the age of 67.
Implementing the Persecution Policy in Liaoning Province (January 2018 – April 2020)
Between 2018 and 2020, Tang served as deputy secretary of the Liaoning Provincial Party Committee, governor, and secretary of the Provincial Government Party Leadership Group. During his tenure, incidents of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in Liaoning Province increased significantly.
According to Minghui.org, in 2018, a total of 663 practitioners in Liaoning Province suffered varying degrees of persecution. Among them, 23 died, 131 were sentenced, 164 were arrested, and 108 were harassed. From January to December 2019, in Liaoning Province, 12 practitioners died due to the persecution, 91 were sentenced and 445 were arrested, including a practitioner who was 83 years old.
Persecuting Falun Gong Practitioners in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province
During Tang’s tenure (April 2010 – February 2011) as secretary of the Ningbo Political and Legal Affairs Committee in Zhejiang Province, at least nine practitioners, including Yu Yongyuan, Li Yaling, and Yue Xiuping, were arrested, two were sentenced to prison, and five were held in brainwashing centers. Ms. Jiang Xiaoying, a native of Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, was arrested in Ningbo City and detained for more than three weeks. She was then taken to the Jiujiang Fifth Hospital (a psychiatric hospital) and treated as if she was mentally ill.
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