(Minghui.org)
Name: Guan ZhaoqiChinese Name: 关兆起Gender: MaleAge: 56City: DaqingProvince: HeilongjiangOccupation: Factory managerDate of Death: July 26, 2009Date of Most Recent Arrest: September 6, 2002Most Recent Place of Detention: Daqing Prison
Name: Yu GuixiangChinese Name: 郁桂香Gender: FemaleAge: 70City: DaqingProvince: HeilongjiangOccupation: Audit managerDate of Death: February 19, 2025Date of Most Recent Arrest: June 28, 2012Most Recent Place of Detention: N/A
A married couple in Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province, were subjected to decades of brutal persecution after the Chinese communist regime ordered the eradication campaign of Falun Gong in July 1999. The husband, Mr. Guan Zhaoqi, died on July 26, 2009, merely ten months after he finished serving a six-year term for practicing Falun Gong. While mourning his passing, his wife, Ms. Yu Guixiang, continued to face constant arrests and harassment, also for sharing the same faith. She died on February 19, 2025.
When Mr. Guan was still serving time, his father, in his 80s, worried about him and became distressed. He died in September 2005, without seeing his son for the last time. After Mr. Guan also died years later, his mother suffered a mental breakdown and often wandered off from her home. She died in a few years.
While it’s the persecution that rendered the couple unable to care for their parents and families, the communist regime authorities spread propaganda against them, saying that it was because they practiced Falun Gong that they didn’t care for their parents.
How the Couple Began to Practice Falun Gong
Mr. Guan used to work as the deputy manager for the Daqing Petroleum Administration Building Materials Company Anti-corrosion Pipeline Factory. He took up Falun Gong in May 1996 and soon recovered from many ailments, including a severe heart condition, pneumonia, and lumbar muscle strain. He quit many bad habits, such as drinking and playing mahjong. Living by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, he became more considerate and upbeat.
Ms. Yu was the audit manager for the infrastructure construction department under the Daqing Petroleum Administration Bureau. She also began to practice Falun Gong in May 1996, and she credited the practice for curing her heart disease, cystitis, and ovarian cysts.
Decades of Persecution That Claimed the Couple’s Lives
After the persecution of Falun Gong started in 1999, the couple were repeatedly arrested, detained and tortured. Mr. Guan was fired by his workplace in 2000, and Ms. Yu lost her job in 2001.
Arrested for Appealing for Falun Gong in Beijing
The couple went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong on January 1, 2001. They displayed a banner that said “Falun Dafa is good.” Three plainclothes officers pushed them to the ground and kicked them. After taking them to a police car, an officer shocked Mr. Guan’s neck with an electric baton and took away the money he had. The couple refused to report their names at the Qianmen Police Station and were taken to the Fangshan District Detention Center.
Mr. Guan was held at the detention center for two weeks. His right thigh became deeply bruised from beating, and he was unable to walk on his own for over two months. When he was escorted back to Daqing, his family was forced to pay 7,000 yuan to cover the police’s travel expenses.
Ms. Yu was taken to the Yancun Police Station during her detention. The police cuffed her one hand to the window frame and the other hand to the heating pipe. The cuffs were so tight that her hands soon lost feeling. They also opened the window to freeze her. As she still refused to report her name, the police beat her for over seven hours, until she was unable to get up from the ground. They kept her cuffed to the heating pipe for another day before taking her back to the detention center.
To protest the persecution, Ms. Yu started a hunger strike. The detention center guards kept her handcuffed and shackled for nine days. The handcuffs and shackles were chained together, so she was unable to sit up or lie down. The guards and inmates dragged her out for force-feeding and beating her every day, sometimes grabbing her hair and hitting her head against the wall. She remained on a hunger strike for 17 days and was released in very serious condition.
After she returned to work, her manager forced her to attend a six-week brainwashing session and ordered her to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong. She refused to comply and was demoted from her managerial position to be a regular worker. Her 2,000 yuan salary and 3,000 yuan year-end bonus were suspended. She was fired later that year.
The Couple’s Other Arrest
The couple were arrested again on September 6, 2002, by more than ten officers. One officer hit Mr. Guan on the head with the metal handle of a large paper cutter. He fainted and bled profusely. The officers handcuffed him, covered his head with a bed sheet, and carried him downstairs. The sheet was soon soaked with blood.
Ms. Yu was also hit on the head and pushed to the ground. Several officers handcuffed her, covered her head, and dragged her by the handcuffs from the fourth floor to the first floor. The cuffs cut deep into her wrists and yet the police continued to drag her for another 60 meters (about 66 yards) until they reached the police car. When she shouted “Falun Dafa is good” in protest, the police stuffed her mouth.
The couple was taken to a guest house owned by the Daqing City Domestic Security Division. Mr. Guan was handcuffed behind his back while being restrained in a chair. When the police informed his family to deliver clothes to him five days later, his family was shocked to see that the clothes he had given them in exchange were covered with bloodstains. After another two weeks of torture, Mr. Guan was transferred to the Daqing City Detention Center.
Ms. Yu was also restrained in a chair for five days. The police accused her of “colluding with overseas anti-China forces.” They frequently interrogated her, threatened and verbally abused her, slapped her in the face, and deprived her of sleep. Her feet became extremely swollen from the torture. The officers also burned the photo of Falun Gong’s founder in front of her. She remained firm in her faith and was taken to the Daqing City Detention Center ten days later.
At the detention center, Ms. Yu firmly demanded her immediate release. One guard, surnamed Han, kicked her on the chest, causing her to cough frequently afterward. Ms. Yu shouted, “Falun Dafa is good” in protest, and the inmates gagged her with a cloth used to clean the restroom. They also handcuffed her behind her back and refused to allow her to use the restroom. She held a hunger strike to protest, and the guards forced her cellmates to sit motionless for long hours in order to incite their hatred towards her. The inmates threw her around, yanked her hair, and stomped on her ribs. She had severe swellings on her body and was unable to sit up after lying down.
Ms. Yu shouted “Falun Dafa is good” again one morning during roll call. The detention center director Bai, ordered the guards to beat her and restrain her in a torture chair for a day; her legs and chest were stuck in the chair, and she was unable to move.
Ms. Yu was transferred to the Sa District Lockup on November 24, 2002. The guards whipped her with a leather belt and kicked her legs. Her body was covered with injuries from the beating.
Ms. Yu was given a three-year labor camp term on January 21, 2003, and taken to the Heilongjiang Province Women’s Drug Rehab Center. Due to her poor health, she was denied admission and released four days later on January 25.
Husband Sentenced to Six Years, Dies Ten Months After Release
Mr. Guan was sentenced to six years by the Ranghulu District Court in May 2003, and he was transferred from the Daqing City Detention Center to the Daqing Prison on June 2, 2003. He was held in solitary confinement, beaten, force-fed, and shocked with electric batons.
On November 11, 2003, the guards found Falun Gong teachings when searching Mr. Guan. They held him in solitary confinement for 15 days, didn’t allow him to use chopsticks while eating, and made him sleep on a metal sheet without any bedding.
In late March 2004, the 7th division ordered Falun Gong practitioners detained there to transform in three days. As Mr. Guan refused to comply, he was forced to stand for two days straight. As the inmates in his cell didn’t want to torture him, the guards transferred him to the 14th division and instigated the inmates to beat him.
Inmate Fan Zhaoyao and others dragged Mr. Guan to a warehouse around 1:30 p.m. on March 24, 2004. They tied him to a 20 cm by 2 m wood cross and questioned him as to whether he would continue to practice Falun Gong. He said yes, and Fan slapped him in the face over 20 times.
After Fan became tired from the beating, he ordered inmates Zhong Haibin, Li Laiquan and Li Dawei to drag Mr. Guan to the hallway. Li Dawei smashed his kneecap with a wooden plank. He and Li Laiquan also burned Mr. Guan’s ten fingernails with cigarettes. When he remained firm in practicing Falun Gong, they beat him with wooden sticks and rubber clubs.
Mr. Guan fainted three times from the beating. Each time, the inmates poured cold water over him to wake him up and then continued the beating. His back became black and purple; his face was disfigured; and all of his teeth became loose. Before the inmates finally stopped the beating before dinner, they hung up Mr. Guan, who was already severely injured, to the upper bunk bed, and he fainted from the pain again.
When Mr. Guan came to, he found himself tied up in a chair in the “study room.” Inmate Fan said to him, “Guard Li Fengjiang told us that no torture is considered excessive when it comes to Falun Gong.” Mr. Guan tried to reason with the guard, but was stopped by the inmates. The guards also avoided him.
The inmates continued to torture Mr. Guan. When he was too weak to stand, two inmates held him and forced him to continue standing. Inmate Fan also fabricated his signature on a statement to renounce Falun Gong and submitted it to the guards.
The guards later ordered Mr. Guan to answer questions to smear Falun Gong. He refused to comply and tore up the paper. The guards forced him to stand for eight days without any sleep. His legs and feet were so swollen that he could no longer fit into his shoes; his legs also became dark later on.
Mr. Guan started a hunger strike on January 26, 2006, to protest warden Wang Yongxiang’s beating of another practitioner. He was force-fed twice a day during the one-month hunger strike. Guard Li Fengjiang ordered inmates Fan, Zhong, Li Laiquan, and Li Dawei to repeatedly beat him on the head, which caused him to have frequent nosebleeds and vomit blood.
When Mr. Guan was finally released on September 18, 2008, his physical and mental health had dramatically declined. He had a big swelling on his back; his memory declined; his reaction was slow; his eyes were dull; and his steps were unsteady. He died on July 26, 2009, merely ten months after his prison release. He was 56.
Wife Arrested a Few More Times and Eventually Passed Away
While Mr. Guan was still serving time, Ms. Yu was harassed at home around 6 p.m. on October 23, 2003. The police confiscated the portrait of Falun Gong’s founder and attempted to take her to the police station. She refused to go with them, and they almost pushed her to the ground.
Ms. Yu was arrested again at a friend’s home on the evening of September 18, 2004. Her body kept twitching while on the way to the Daqing City Detention Center. Fearing that she might die in the police car, the officers took her to the Longnan Hospital and extorted her family 10,000 yuan before releasing her on bail. After she returned home, another officer extorted her family another 3,000 yuan. She was forced to live away from home when the police attempted to arrest her again ten days later.
In her temporary residence, Ms. Yu was seized by Kang Yunfeng of the Ranghulu District Domestic Security Division on December 11, 2004. She kept twitching again and was denied admission by the detention center. Kang took her to the Daqing People’s Hospital; four officers held her and a doctor gave her a shot. She lost consciousness and was then admitted to the detention center.
Ms. Yu held a hunger strike to protest, and the inmates carried her out every day for force-feeding during her entire 37-day detention there. She almost suffocated as they covered her mouth during one force-feeding session. Her mouth was severely injured. Her nostrils were also damaged as the male doctor surnamed Yu was very careless when inserting the feeding tube. Yu once said to her, “We don’t have to be humane to you Falun Gong; it’s none of our business if you die.”
Ms. Yu often threw up all the food she was force-fed. And she went into shock three times as a result of the force-feeding.
One morning during roll call, Ms. Yu shouted, “Falun Dafa is good” and demanded the guards release her. The detention center director Du, ordered three inmates to beat her and slam her against the wall. The beating lasted a few days, and she lost consciousness once. She was so weak that she was unable to walk on her own and had to be carried to the restroom by the inmates.
Despite her weak physical condition, the police gave her another three-year labor camp term. She was taken to the Harbin Women’s Drug Rehab Center on January 12, 2005. After she was rejected for admission, the police took her back to the Daqing City Detention Center and released her on January 18.
A group of officers from the Longnan Police Station broke into Ms. Yu’s home with the help of a professional locksmith on September 23, 2005. As soon as they barged in, they forced her to the ground. When a family member (gender unknown) tried to stop the police, the police hit the family member on the chest and head and put the person in a chokehold. Ms. Yu again had the twitching episode, and the police eventually left her alone.
On March 3, 2006, a local practitioner, Mr. Cheng Peiming, escaped from the Daqing Prison. Because Mr. Cheng had called Ms. Yu, over 30 officers broke into Ms. Yu’s home on the morning of March 4. One officer hit her child on the head with a baton. To avoid being arrested, Ms. Yu was forced to live away from home.
The police put Ms. Yu on the wanted list and posted her photos around her neighborhood. Plainclothes officers also went around and asked people if they had seen her. Her family members, including her mother-in-law in her 80s, were followed and had their phone calls monitored. The police even lived at her sister-in-law’s home for three days. Local Falun Gong practitioners who lived nearby or near Ms. Yu’s mother-in-law were also harassed. The police even went to the prison and attempted to force Mr. Guan to find out Ms. Yu’s whereabouts, but he refused to comply.
Mr. Cheng, who survived the partial removal of his liver and left lung, lived with a fake name for the next few years. He eventually escaped China and came to the U.S. in 2020. He testified at a press conference in Washington, D.C. on August 9, 2024, as the first survivor of the communist regime’s organ harvesting crime.
In April 2012, the Daqing Oilfield Company 610 Office ordered Ms. Yu to sign a statement to renounce Falun Gong. She refused to comply and was taken to the Wuchang Brainwashing Center on June 28, 2012. She began to twitch on her way to the brainwashing center. Only when the medical experts confirmed they were unable to treat the condition did the 610 Office director Liu Xiping stop pushing to have her admitted to the brainwashing center. Liu made another attempt to send Ms. Yu to the brainwashing center in August 2012, but was still unsuccessful due to Ms. Yu’s strong protest.
The persecution over the years took a huge toll on Ms. Yu’s health. She gradually lost her appetite. She had frequent coughs, vomited blood, and often fell into a coma in her final days. She died on February 19, 2025, at the age of 70.
Copyright © 1999-2025 Minghui.org. All rights reserved.
