Former Railroad Bureau Employee Held at Brainwashing Center for Practicing Falun Gong

Torture illustration: Burning with cigarette butts.

Mr. Luo Wen, a 54-year-old resident of Huangshi City, Hubei Province has been held at a brainwashing center for his faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Chinese officers arrested Mr. Luo on November 23, 2022 and confiscated his cellphone, computer and Falun Gong books. He was taken to the Xialu Brainwashing Center and has been held there since his arrest. More details about his current situation weren’t available at the time of writing.

Mr. Luo, a former employee of the Huangshi Railroad Bureau, has been arrested multiple times since the persecution started in 1999. Details below describe when he was subjected to one year of forced labor and sentenced to seven years in prison between 1999-2014.

One Year of Forced Labor

At the onset of the Chinese communist party’s persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, Mr. Luo was arrested and detained for three days.

He was arrested again on August 7, 2003, after being reported to the police for raising awareness about the persecution. He was held for one year at the Shayang Forced Labor Camp.

Tortured in the Police Station

On March 21, 2007, Mr. Luo was arrested again. Zhou Xianjun, head of the Domestic Security Office interrogated him at a guesthouse. Officers stomped on his head and knocked out eight of his teeth. He lost his hearing in one ear and he kept having spasms. When he was on the verge of death, he was taken to the hospital.

After being discharged from the hospital, Mr. Luo moved to Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province to avoid further persecution. The police ransacked his home multiple times while he was away.

Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison

On July 19, 2011, police arrested Mr. Luo in Shenzhen City. In mid-August, they transferred him to the Huangshi No. 1 Detention Center. When his lawyer visited him on May 21, 2012, he was held by two officers, his head was slumped, and his back was bent over 90 degrees. Mr. Luo was so weak that he didn’t have the strength to talk.

On December 6, 2012, Mr. Luo appeared in the Xisaishan District Court, handcuffed and shackled. The judge stopped his lawyer from entering a not-guilty plea for him.

On December 27 detention center officials informed Mr. Luo’s family that he had been sentenced to a seven-year prison term. When his elderly mother went to the court to ask for a copy of the verdict, the court staff members drove her away.

In 2014 Mr. Luo was taken to the Fanjiatai Prison. Falun Gong practitioners jailed there have been subjected to many forms of brutal torture, including sleep deprivation, hanging from handcuffs, electric shocks, and savage beatings.

In addition to the physical torture, the practitioners were also subjected to involuntary drug administration. Such drugs came in the form of tinctures, jellies, powders, sprays (pesticides, sulfides), and biological pathogens added to medicines. Such drugs have damaged practitioner’s internal organs and have often led to illnesses, including heart failure, kidney failure, and stroke. The drugs have also damaged the nervous system and the entire ‎digestive system, caused skin disease, and other severe health problems. The drugs have been known to come from the higher officials or the prison hospital.

Based on an original report published in Minghui.org.