Mr. Xu Jishan, male, age 41, was a resident of Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province. His work unit, Daqing City Petrochemical Company fired him because he practiced Falun Gong.

In March 2004, Mr. Xu was arrested for distributing flyers that clarified the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong. He was sentenced to three years in prison and detained in the Daqing Prison, where he was brainwashed and tortured in various ways, including being forced to stand for long periods of time, deprived of sleep, beaten, sprayed with cold water on his naked body for a long time, and choked with water while his whole body tied up tightly.

In May 2005, under orders of the secretary of the Communist Commission of the Daqing Prison, Tang Guofu; the vice head of the prison, Jiang Shuchen; and the director of the local “610 Office,” Guo Chuntang, the prison intensified the torture. Mr. Xu was forced to stand for seven days and nights. One day, when Mr. Xu was so tired that he could no longer hold himself upright, guards tied him to the ladder of a bunk bed. One night, guards instructed inmates to spray him with water, soaking and freezing him from head to toe.

At 8 a.m. on June 7, 2005, team leader Li Liancai instructed inmates to strip off Mr. Xu’s clothes and fasten him to a wooden cross. Then they moved him to a bathroom. They closed the window, taped his mouth, and continuously sprayed cold water on him from a high-pressure water pipe. At about noon, the guard director Zhang Dezhi entered the bathroom to direct the torture himself. They sprayed so much water, sharply directed all over his face and body, that Mr. Xu had trouble breathing. At about 1 o’clock in the afternoon, Mr. Xu was removed from the bathroom and sent to a hospital emergency room. At that time Mr. Xu was not breathing and his heart was not beating. His mouth and nose were filled with coagulated blood. Mr. Xu had died from being choked with water. At about 4 p.m., the authorities informed his family that he had died from a “sickness.” To conceal the fact that Mr. Xu had been tortured to death, the authorities said that he had died of a heart attack.

type=case, death; type=prison, Daqing Prison;location=Heilongjiang ,Daqing