In a two-bedroom apartment in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, China, a little girl is often heard asking her grandfather, “Why doesn’t Mommy talk to me? Where is my Daddy?” In tears, the old man can’t find the words to reply to his granddaughter at such times. Her eyes rest on the figure of her mother, who is lying nearby on the bed, lost in a vegetative state.
A Family Is Broken
The young girl, 4 years old, daughter of Falun Gong practitioner Quan Peijun of Zhengzhou City, never met her father. When her mother was two months pregnant with her, her father was abducted by staff the 610 Office, an agency specifically created to carry out a persecution against Falun Gong. He was taken to the Baimio Forced Labor Camp in Zhengzhou City.
Her mother went through a difficult labor during her delivery. Her grandparents went to the labor camp and showed the prison authority the hospital notice, asking that her father be allowed to come home to see her mother. The camp officials refused, and, in the process, a police officer broke her grandfather’s thumb. The grandparents returned home, feeling hopeless and heartbroken.
Distressed over the family’s misfortunes, her mother was overcome and drifted into a vegetative state.
Sentenced Again and Again
According to a report on Clearwisdom.net, Quan Peijun, a former employee with the Transportation Department of the China Changcheng Aluminum Company, was abducted on Jan. 11, 2001 as he was passing out flyers near a post office to explain facts about Falun Gong
Authorities detained him at the Baimiao Forced Labor Camp for one year. When he still refused to give up his faith, he was taken to the Wanqingshan Brainwashing Class.
When Quan came out eight months later, the [Chinese Communist] Party chief of his employer, Li Guogang, refused to reinstate him under the pretext that the Transportation Department was a “model unit.” Quan was again sent to the Baimiao Forced Labor Camp, this time for one and a half years.
After Five Years, Still No Word of His Release
In August 2004, when Quan’s camp term was almost over, his family went to visit him, but the camp authorities turned them away, telling them there was no need to come anymore, as Quan would be released as soon as he finished his term. This turned out to be a lie.
When the family came back to pick up Quan at the end of August, the officials said he had already been taken away by staff from the Political and Legal Committee of Shangjie District and the Transportation Department of the Changcheng Aluminum Company.
The family hurried to the Committee of Shangjie District, only to be told by 610 Office staff and committee member Li Meng that Quan was taken to a brainwashing class at Xiliu Lake, Zhengzhou City.
A sympathetic lawyer offered some advice to the girl’s grandparents, “They are actually violating the law while implementing it. Go ask for the release of the kid’s father!” When they did, Li Meng told them, “If you want him released, then he has to write a guarantee statement pledging to give up the practice of Falun Gong.”
Five years have now passed since Quan’s abduction and still no word is available about when he will be released.
Tortured at Will
Over these five years, Quan has been subjected to all kinds of torture for his faith, especially while detained at the Baimiao Forced Labor Camp. There, his hands and feet were tightly bound, and dozen of camp guards savagely beat him. They used eight fully charged electical batons to shock his head, neck, ears, mouth, and chest simultaneously, leaving burns all over his body.
According to accounts from Falun Gong practitioners who were also detained in the camp, the officers resorted to torture at will and routinely forced Falun Gong practitioners to sit on the Tiger Bench, a torture tool designed to stretch the victim’s bones to the breaking point. They also force fed them a mixture consisting of chili powder, water, and sometimes salt.
Quan’s brother was also detained for illegally practicing Falun Gong; he was taken to Mi County, Henan Province. Their 80-year-old mother is a widow in failing health. With the lack of social benefits in China, she now must live with her relatives because of her sons’ abductions.
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