Engineer Dies After 18 Years of Persecution

Mr. Wei Chunyu, a mechanical engineer and resident of Changchun City, Jilin Province, passed away on April 14, 2020, due to more than 18 years of persecution from the authorities and living on the street for his belief in Falun Gong. He was 56.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1999.

In early 1997, after working excessive hours as a mechanical engineer for an automotive manufacturer with his health declining, Wei went for a hospital checkup and was told that he had glaucoma, cerebral infarction, insomnia, and binocular optic nerve atrophy.

After surgery then treatment at Changchun City No. 2 Hospital, plus trying various Chinese herbal medicines, his condition didn’t get better and he had to quit his job as a professional engineer. 

After starting Falun Gong on January 7, 1998, Wei’s health recovered and he was able to return to work. Then the Communist Party started persecuting Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999.

On October 6, 2000, Wei went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and was immediately illegally arrested by police.

Over the next twenty years, Wei lost everything, including finally his life, because of the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong.

According to Minghui.org, Wei was arrested five times, and tortured on countless occasions. His father, a hardworking farmer, passed away while Wei was in detention in 2001. Wei’s mother, who originally practiced Falun Gong, because of persecution from the authorities, became very frightened and stopped practicing, her health deteriorated, and she passed away in 2013.

On October 9, 2000, Wei was transferred to Changchun No. 2 Detention Center, where he was detained for 27 days and regularly tortured by the inmates, under the direction of the guards. They often tortured him by dousing him with 50 to 60 basins of cold water, piercing his finger tips with needles, and grabbing his hair to smash his head against the wall.

On June 12, 2001, Communist authorities kidnapped Wei to Xinglongshan Brainwashing Center. When being admitted to the center, and after he refused to slander Falun Gong, police officer Zhao beat him by repeatedly punching him in the face until he became too exhausted to continue, and had to tie his hands with medical tape.

Wei escaped the brainwashing center on September 2, 2001, and had to go into hiding, was fired from his job, and lived a homeless life from that day until he died.

After his escape, due to the intense pressure from the CCP, his wife divorced him.

At the time of the divorce his son was 12-years-old, and because of being hunted by the authorities and living on the street, Wei couldn’t see his son for a ten-year period afterward.

It was discovered after his passing that despite the tremendous pressure he was under, Wei had taken the large risk to file an 11-page criminal complaint against the former CCP dictator who initially ordered the persecution of Falun Gong, Jiang Zemin. 

Due to the harsh living conditions on the street and the tremendous torture he suffered, Wei’s health deteriorated over time. Tortures possibly contributing to this were having his legs and ankles beaten repeatedly until he couldn’t walk for days, which caused his feet to fester and become swollen. His hands and fingers were also mangled during a squeezing torture with a toothbrush. 

In 2018, Wei gave his house to his son, who had then grownup without a father.

Mr. Wei Chunyu died on April 14, 2020, after 18 years of living on the street and losing everything to the CCP’s persecution of his faith.