A prominent prisoner of conscience in China has died, Bitter Winter reports. Colonel Gong Piqi was arrested in 2017 for practising Falun Gong—a spiritual discipline outlawed in mainland China. Jailers told his family that he died of a “sudden brain haemorrhage” on the evening of 12 April 2021. However, his body showed signs of torture, his family said. The case illustrates the violent and pervasive persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

FALUN GONG: IN & OUT OF FAVOUR

Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline which combines meditation, exercise, and controlled breathing with a Buddhist moral philosophy. The discipline grew out of qi gong practices, which have existed in China for centuries, founded in the early 1990s by Li Hongzhi. Li and Falun Gong were initially tolerated by the Chinese state.

However, Li’s refusal to accept communist control and anti-government protests by practitioners prompted a state crackdown. The largest protest involved thousands of protesters who gathered outside Zhongnanhai compound, where most senior Chinese leaders live and work, on 25 April 1999. The protest was the largest seen in Beijing since the Tiananmen Square Massacre of 1989.

Three months later, security forces detained thousands of practitioners. On 22 July 1999, the Ministry of Public Security forbade citizens from displaying Falun Gong symbols or possessing its teachings and banned group practices. On 30 October 1999, the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, banned Falun Gong as a “heretic cult”.

GONG PIQI’S CASE

Gong Piqi was caught up in the persecution that followed the ban. Colonel Gong was Deputy Chief of Staff of the Shandong Provincial Artillery Division before it was discovered that he practised Falun Gong. “He was forced to retire, deprived of his salary, dispossessed of his home, and his children were expelled from school.” In May 2005, he and his wife were arrested and charged under article 300 of the Chinese Criminal Code, which prohibits membership of “illegal organisations”. Gong and his wife were sentenced to five-and-a-half years and five years in prison respectively. According to his daughter, while in prison, Gong was “tortured… He could not walk by himself, and his internal organs were damaged from the beatings.”

Gong was rearrested in 2017 after visiting another Falun Gong practitioner. He was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years and sent to Shandong Province Prison. Other inmates have reported being tortured by jailers at the prison (here and here). For 18 months, Gong was denied visits from his family. He was suffering from high blood pressure but his family was unaware of his condition. On 12 April 2021, jailers told his family that Gong had died of a “sudden brain haemorrhage” but initially denied them access to his body. His brother and nephew were eventually allowed to see his body. Gong’s brother said his head was swollen and there was blood in his ears. They were not permitted to take photographs or recordings.

TOGETHER THROUGH THE STORM

Colonel Gong’s case is not unique. For the past two decades, Falun Gong practitioners and their defenders have suffered violent state persecution (here, here, here, here, here, and here). In March 2020, the China Tribunal concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that the following crimes had been committed against Falun Gong practitioners:

[M]urder; extermination; imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law; torture; rape or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;… and enforced disappearance.

The tribunal also concluded that “forced organ harvesting has been committed for years throughout China on a significant scale”. Falun Gong practitioners are the principal victims, alongside Uyghur Muslims. However, China has not faced the same scale of criticism over its persecution of Falun Gong—but it should.

Samuel is a trainee solicitor and postgraduate at Cardiff University. He is active in several U.K.-based organisations campaigning on behalf of Hong Kong and BNOs. His research interests include transitional justice and the rule of law.

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