(Minghui.org) A 39-year-old art teacher in Jinan City, Shandong Province, was sentenced to two years and three months for his faith in Falun Gong. He has been subjected to ongoing abuse since he was admitted to the Shandong Province Prison more than a year ago.
Mr. Xu Wenlong was arrested some time in 2023. Minghui.org recently confirmed that he was wrongly convicted by the Tianqiao District Court in June 2024 and transferred to the 11th Division of Shandong Province Prison in August 2024. No further information about his arrest, indictment, trial, or sentencing is available.
The 11th Division of Shandong Province Prison was specifically set up as a brainwashing center aimed at forcing Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith. To that end, prison guards instruct the inmates to physically and mentally torture practitioners, including by punching, kicking, and slapping them, shocking them with electric batons, restraining them in iron chairs, tying them up with ropes, hanging them up suspended by handcuffed wrists, depriving them of sleep, and forcing them to stand for long periods of time without moving.
For nearly three months, Mr. Xu was forced to sit on a small stool for nearly 18 hours every day without being allowed to get up and move around. He usually wasn’t allowed to go to bed until midnight and then had to get up at 1 a.m. to stand the night duty for one and a half hours. He was made to get up at 6 a.m. and continue to sit on the small stool until midnight again. He had pain throughout his body and was exhausted.
Mr. Xu, a native of Muling City, Heilongjiang Province, took up Falun Gong when studying at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. On June 17, 2011, one year after he graduated, the then 25-year-old was arrested and sentenced to eight years by the Chaoyang District Court in Beijing. He was transferred to Tailai Prison in Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province, on December 26, 2012 and brutally tortured there.
Mr. Xu moved to Jinan City, Shandong Province after he was released in 2019. He was arrested again in April 2022 for distributing QR codes to access software to circumvent the Chinese Communist Party’s Internet censorship and given six months of house arrest. When the six-month house arrest was about to expire, the police took him back into custody on October 4. They handcuffed his wrists behind his back until the next afternoon. They also collected a blood sample and threatened to kill him. Mr. Xu was later taken to a designated location and placed on residential surveillance for six months. He held a hunger strike to protest and was released on December 23, 2022.
See the related reports for details of Mr. Xu’s past persecution.
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