Investigative Report on the Persecution of Falun Gong by Liu Zhitian
Full Name of Perpetrator: Liu (last name) Zhitian (first name) (刘志田)
Gender: Male
Country: People’s Republic of China
Date/Year of Birth: November 10, 1956
Place of Birth: Shishou City, Hubei Province
Title and positions:
April 1997 – May 2001: Vice secretary of Macheng City’s Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Committee and Mayor of Macheng City
May 2001 – March 2006: Secretary of Macheng City’s CCP Committee
August 2009 – January 2015: Vice secretary and President of the CCP’s Hubei Changjiang Publishing Media Group LLP. Vice director of Hubei Province’s Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress and the Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Overseas Affairs Committee.
Major Crimes
Since July 1999, the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of Macheng City, the “610 Office” and the Department of Public Security have meted out bloody persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in the Macheng City area. They employ techniques including kidnapping, detainment, extortion, torture, hard labor, illegal sentencing, etc.
One female Falun Gong practitioner who was a mother of two was burned to death, but she was accused of self-immolating.
Based on incomplete data, when Liu Zhitian was the mayor of Macheng City and secretary of Macheng City’s CCP Committee, at least ten Falun Gong practitioners had been persecuted to death. More practitioners had been kidnapped and illegally detained and countless were extorted. Liu Zhitian should take primary responsibility for all forms of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in Macheng City while he was in charge.
Partial list of Falun Gong practitioners persecuted to death
Case 1: Wang Huajun was beaten nearly to death before being doused in gasoline and burned to death
Wang Huajun, a female Falun Gong practitioner, was kidnapped by police on the morning of April 18, 2001. Between the night of April 18, 2001 and early morning April 19, 2001, she was beaten into unconsciousness. Then, she was dragged to the city’s main plaza where policemen poured gasoline on her body and burned her to death. They accused her of self-immolating and claimed that she did it because she practices Falun Gong. Wang Huajun’s remains showed that one of her ears was missing and there were two deep holes in her throat as a result of being stabbed. When Wang Huajun passed away, she was only 30-years-old and was a mother of two.
Case 2: Huang Jianyong passed away only four days after he was released from the detention center
Huang Jianyong, a male Falun Gong practitioner, was illegally detained at Macheng City Administrative Detention Center for three months after he went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in 2000. Because of the cruel persecution, his body was severely deformed. Since the detention center was afraid to take responsibility for his death, they sent him home and left him there. Four days later, Huang Jianyong passed away at the age of 28.
Case 3: Li Xuechun was tortured to death
Li Xuechun, a male Falun Gong practitioner, was 63-years-old. In 1999, Li Xuechun went to Beijing for appeal for Falun Gong and was illegally detained by local policemen for more than ten months. He was tortured until he became frail and could hardly walk. One month after he was released, he was kidnapped by Macheng City policemen again and was forced to sit on a “tiger bench” (see picture below) for more than 36 hours. In the heat of August, the policemen would not let him drink, eat or sleep. There were six shifts split up between the policemen where they would beat, interrogate, and torture Li Xuechun. But Li Xuechun would not renounce his faith. After, the policemen put him in the detention center for more than three months. The elderly man was tortured to such an extent that he passed away at the end of December 2000.
Case 4: He Xinzhong was choked to death by policemen
He Xinzhong, a male Falun Gong practitioner, was 55-years-old. On December 8, 2001 at 2 a.m., he was posting Falun Gong informational posters on telephone poles. He was discovered by local policemen and was choked to death on the spot. When his family members viewed his remains, they found two deep choke marks on his throat. The back of his head was severely wounded and his testicles appeared to have been squashed.
Case 5: Li Jiju was tortured and killed
Li Jiju, a female Falun Gong practitioner, was 37-years-old. On May 15, 2002 at noon, more than a dozen policemen broke into her home and performed an illegal search. She was severely beaten to the point that one of her ribs was fractured. The policemen abducted her to Macheng Detention Center. On May 20, with two other men, the secretary of Macheng Commission of Discipline secretly sent Li Jiju to the Longchi police department for illegal interrogation. During the interrogation, Li Jiju was tortured to death. Li Jiju’s eyes were wide open even after her death. Her body showed several wounds from beatings, several fractures and choke marks on her throat. The policemen said that Li Jiju died because she committed suicide by jumping from a building.
Case 6: Luo Kaijun was severely beaten by policemen
Luo Kaijun, a male Falun Gong practitioner, was 56-years-old. On December 3, 2000, Luo Kaijun was illegally detained by Macheng policemen because he went to Beijing to appeal for an end to the persecution. Policemen forcibly searched his home and brutally persecuted Luo Kaijun for the next five months.
The policemen forced every Falun Gong practitioner to shout slurs in front of photos of the founder of Falun Gong and step on the founder’s photo. Luo Kaijun refused and picked up the picture of the Falun Gong founder. The policemen got so angry that they threw Luo Kaijun onto the ground and knocked him out. The policemen poured cold water on his body to wake him up then threw him down to the ground again and again. Luo Kaijun’s head and face became swollen. Luo Kaijun was tortured until his head swelled up and blood and gore was matted into his flesh.
He suffered severe internal injuries that brought him to the brink of death. Local police were afraid to take responsibility and released him on April 28, 2001. Luo Kaijun’s wife was illegally sent to a hard labor camp. His son was forced to leave their home to flee persecution. Luo Kaijun finally passed away on September 23, 2002.
Case 7: Husband was sentenced, son was abducted and Wang Renying was persecuted to death
Wan Renying, a female Falun Gong practitioner, was 66-years-old. Her husband and her second son were both Falun Gong practitioners. When the CCP began to slander and persecute Falun Gong in July 1999, Wang Renying went to her local provincial government to appeal the persecution and was illegally detained. She was forced to sign a so-called guarantee statement to not practice Falun Gong in exchange for her release.
Since then, local police and officials harassed her, including illegally searching her home, subjected her to extortion, and forced her to attend brainwashing classes. Her husband went to local government offices to tell them the facts of the persecution and was sentenced to three years in jail. Her son had been illegally detained at Macheng 2nd Detention Center and forced to join the Baiguo brainwashing class more than four times. Wan Renying’s son’s home was illegally searched several times and he was also extorted out of money. Because of too much mental stress and intimidation from the local Political and Legal Affairs Commission, Wang Renying mentally broke down. She passed away on February 24, 2002.
Persecuting Falun Gong practitioners with brainwashing classes
In early 2000, in order to prevent local Falun Gong practitioners from going to Beijing to appeal, the Macheng City government and Political and Legal Affairs Committee began a brainwashing class in January. They kidnapped lots of local Falun Gong practitioners and forced them to attend brainwashing classes if they refused to give up their faith. They also extorted money from the Falun Gong practitioners they arrested.
Falun Gong practitioners are also beaten at the brainwashing classes. Falun Gong practitioners were forced to take off their shoes which were used to hit their faces and heads. Some female Falun Gong practitioners were wearing high-heeled shoes which were also used to hit their heads and faces. Some Falun Gong practitioners’ faces were beaten to the point of deformity. Military veterans were recruited to act as thugs to take turns beating the practitioners. They used a special poplar stick to beat practitioners’ genitals and sharpened sticks to beat their upper body. They even used bamboo brooms for the beatings.
During their detainment, some Falun Gong practitioners would go on hunger strike in protest. Xu Shiqiang, the secretary of Political and Legal Affairs Committee of Baiguo town in Macheng City, claimed, “I could care less if you eat or not. I’ll just wait until you’re just about dead and only have one breath left. Then, I will drag you back home and leave you to die there.” He said, “I just want to lock each of you up until you go insane. Then I will be satisfied.” There were multiple times when he threatened to detain practitioners who were especially steadfast in their belief.
Between November 5 and 6, 2002, Luo Xuelin, Lu Gongyou, Zhu Changzheng, Jiang Zhengsong, Guo Jinghua, Li Jijiao, Zhu Liwen, Liu Dezhen, and Peng Weixiang were kidnapped and sent to brainwashing classes for further persecution.
