After 22 years of harassment and torture by the Chinese government for his spiritual beliefs, Taishi Higashi died at the age of 60 on February 11, 35 days after the Chinese government arrested him again for handing out pamphlets. I did. His wife, Guan Fengxia, died in severe persecution by the government.
Die has been working as a freight truck driver for the past few months. On January 8, he filled a tank on his way to delivery in Lindian County, northeastern Heilongjiang Province, China, and handed a pamphlet about his beliefs to a gas station clerk. Immediately after leaving the gas station, a group of police appeared out of nowhere and stopped his truck. They then detained him overnight without issuing official documents and brought his keys home.
The next day, police released Dai after having him pay 10,000 yuan ($ 1,570). When Die got home, he was shocked to see his house being attacked. Police emptied all his drawers and cabinets to the floor and ate half a box of oranges he bought before the final delivery. After that, the tangerine peels remained scattered all over the floor.
Police also stole 5,000 yuan ($ 786), the only savings Die had at home.
Die couldn’t stand decades of intimidation and torture, and the symptoms of severe illness rapidly appeared, as he lost his wife so badly that he was out of money and worried that police would harass him again. I fell down. Die had no insurance or money, so he died at his home on February 11.
For the past two decades, Dai and his wife have been severely tortured by China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) simply because they refused to condemn their beliefs in Falun Gong.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient Chinese spiritual practice consisting of Qigong practice and moral teaching, which promotes life according to the principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance. However, the CCP administration launched a systematic exclusion campaign in July 1999 simply because its practice attracted 70 to 100 million supporters in China.
Dai and Guan had a happy family in Daqing, a city in Heilongjiang Province. I worked at the training center of a submersible pump company of the Daqing Oil Bureau. Guan was the conductor of the Sartu railway station in Daqing. They enjoyed a stable income from work and health from daily Falun Gong learning.
“Practicing Falun Gong not only freed me from the suffering of illness, but also saved my soul,” said a US-based website that tracks the persecution of Falun Gong in China. Dai writes in a share published on Minghui.org. “I now understand how to be a good person.”
He wrote that he joined her a year later after Guan began practicing Falun Gong in 1995 and witnessed how she turned into a much better person.
Dai and Guan are survived by their 34-year-old son.
Zhang Zhidong
Dai suffered from harassment, kidnapping, detention, deportation, torture, and financial extortion under the Chinese government and tried to force him to abandon his beliefs. according to Go to Minghui.org.
In December 1999, Ma Zhifeng, a CCP employee overseeing Dai’s employer, forced Dai to pay 3,000 yuan ($ 470), several times Dai’s monthly salary, for Practicing Falun Gong. did. Ma claimed that after the persecution of Falun Gong began in July of that year, the administration no longer allowed people to practice Falun Gong and did not allow practitioners to petition. Gold will be held by the administration to ensure that Dai does not go to Beijing for a petition.
In April 2000, local police asked Die to appear at the police station and answer some questions. When Dai attended, he was detained for more than 45 days simply because he did not abandon his faith in Falun Gong.
On June 18, 2000, Dai agreed with Guan, who was facing persecution for practicing Falun Gong, and stated that petitions were the only way for them to regain their freedom of thought and belief. So they bought a train ticket and traveled to Beijing with their teenage son.
Already under government surveillance, the family did not reach Beijing. They were detained by the railroad police on the train and sent back to Daqing. Dai was detained for 75 days, fined 4,500 yuan ($ 710) and fired without severance pay. Guan was detained for 45 days.
Police continued to harass Die after he was released. In December 2000, they kidnapped him. Die found a chance to escape and fled before authorities could detain him in the detention facility. Dai traveled to Harbin hoping to avoid the Daqing police looking for him, but he was eventually found. He was fined 2,300 yuan ($ 360) and sent back to Daqing for further detention.
Die fled again until police found him on April 22, 2002. This time, prison guards at Daqing Detention Center beat him badly and forced him to give chili pepper water. To protest his torture, Die launched a hunger strike. As a punishment, the prison guard used his nose feeding tube to tear the die’s esophagus. Die told his family from detention a few months later that he frequently vomited blood.
One day in late June 2002, Dai’s family was told that Dai was being treated at the hospital. They visited him immediately and saw their loved one sick. They went to Minghui.org, Die was handcuffed to a chair, his lips and teeth were covered with a layer of dry, fresh blood, his face was pale, his nose was purple, his eyes closed, and he was unresponsive. He said it was.
The family couldn’t bring Dai back home because he didn’t have the money to pay the police. They helplessly saw the police send the die back to the detention center.
In September 2002, Daqing was transferred to Daqing Prison and was tortured even more severely for nearly seven years. According to Die, prison police continued to beat his severely injured body. He lost consciousness several times throughout the years of his torture. At some point, his ears were in pain for half a year when he lost most of his hearing. His leg was also injured and he couldn’t walk for two weeks.
Other torture methods were also cruelly used by the die. His prison guards often did not put Die to sleep. The longest sleepless period they were forced to keep him away was three days. They also let him sit in a small chair for several days, nearly 20 hours a day. They took off all his clothes and poured cold water on his body in the winter when temperatures were below freezing. Another form of torture imposed on Die was slammed on the ground and dragged by his feet over 110 yards. After the torture, Die’s sweater broke and the skin on his back was injured.
Dai felt congratulated that he survived to leave prison on April 21, 2009.
Guan Fengxia
Guan was also persecuted for believing in Falun Gong. Just one month after the persecution of Falun Gong began, Seki was sent by train to Jiagedaqi’s CCP school, where he was invited to participate in a daily brainwashing session for five months.
After she was released from school, Guan was not allowed to go home and was forced to stay at the station for another five months. When she finally arrived at her house in late May 2000, she noticed that her husband had been detained and her 12-year-old son lived alone at home.
At that time, Seki still believed that the central leadership of the CCP administration in Beijing would provide religious freedom as recognized by the Chinese Constitution. She was arrested and sent to the Qiqihar Shuanghe Women’s Labor Camp for two years when she tried to go to Beijing to appeal.
“The prison cell was dark and damp, with water seeping through the walls. It freezes in the winter and is full of mosquitoes and insects in the summer. Every morning, more than 10 species of insects die under my body. I was able to find it, “Guan told Minghui.org after she was released in 2002.
In the labor camp, Guan, like her husband, was also beaten, sleep deprived, and suffered the torture of sitting on a small stool without moving. Her worst suffering for her Guan happened when she engaged in slave labor. She was poisoned when the camp forced her and other prisoners to stuff her with pesticides.
“Every day I felt that not only was my face, hands and body covered with pesticides, but my nasal passages and trachea were also full of pesticides. I was coughing and my nose was running,” Guan said. Told.
As Dai was detained in prison, Guan was left alone for six and a half years to raise his son alone. Due to constant harassment and police intervention in daily life, Guan had difficulty finding a job and felt a lot of mental pressure every day.
Guan died on March 5, 2021 after being unable to eat for two years.
follow
Nicole Hao is a Washington-based reporter focused on topics related to China. Prior to joining the Epoch Media Group in July 2009, he was the Global Product Manager for the Railroad business in Paris, France.