2008 Olympic Profile: Yang Maodong (AKA: Guo Feixiong)
By Jimmie on Aug 9, 2008 in 2008 Olympics, Featured
In July, 2005, the villagers of Taishi, China decided they had grown tired of being mistreated by the head of the village committee, Chen Jingsheng. They placed a recall referendum on the local election ballot. They got help from a lawyer named Yang Maodong (who also went by the pen name of Guo Feixiong). The local authorities responded by intimidating the villagers. Their efforts were in vain as the vote passed though it was quickly declared invalid in September. Maodong was arrested and held without charge shortly thereafter and was released in December. In February of 2006, he visited Taishi with another lawyer and, as they were leving, they were set upon by several unidentified men who beat them severely. Maodong, fearing for his safety, went into hiding for several days.
He emerged from seclusion to send a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. All he wanted was for the government to stop stepping on the throats of the people in rural areas who were trying to get a little shoulder room from corrupt local officials and to stop evicting people from their homes. He then went to a public place and began a hunger strike. He invited other people to join along.
He wrote a letter and stopped eating, folks. That’s it. He didn’t rise up in rebellion. He didn’t bomb a government building. He didn’t threaten a soul. For that he was thrown into prison again. Here’s what he endured in prison, according to the US State Department:
suffered repeated torture, including electric shocks and being tied to a “tiger bench” for four hours. When on a “tiger bench” the victim reportedly sits on a bench with legs tied stretched out straight on the bench and hands tied behind a vertical back support. Bricks or other hard objects are then pushed under the victim’s legs or feet, causing the legs to bend upwards, sometimes until they break. The abuse reportedly drove Guo to attempt suicide.
This is from Amnesty International.
According to local unofficial sources, Yang Maodong claims to have been deprived of sleep for seven nights, beaten and tied down for 40 days in custody… On the night of 19 January he was transferred to Shenyang city, Liaoning province, northern China to “facilitate investigation”, where he also says he was tortured in unknown locations by police who strapped him down onto a so-called “tiger bench” for four hours, hit him with an electric prod in arms and legs and genitals while hung from the ceiling by his arms and legs, and slapped him until his face was swollen. He claims he attempted suicide the following day.
On 19 March police officers reportedly beat him continuously for around five minutes with electric prods (not switched on). Yang Maodong says this made him decide to confess to anything he was asked.
Maodong was sentenced to five years in prison for “illegal business activity” after his trial was twice thrown out for lack of evidence. I guess the confession they tortured out of him did the trick. As best I can find, he’s still in prison, serving his sentence on the trumped-up charges.
Previous 2008 Olympic Profiles:
Mao Hengfeng
Stumble it!
So, his treatment was a little lighter than what we would give an enemy combatant. Color me unimpressed. He wasn’t even waterboarded. Even the light treatment the Khmer Rouge gave was more severe than that. And we go well beyond what the Khmer Rouge did. You don’t have the credibility to criticize the Chinese. You endorse far worse.
fostert | Aug 9, 2008 | Reply
Hope you don’t mind if I add this…
Here is a picture (hand drawn sketch-nothing gross) & an explaination of the “tiger bench” if any one is interested:
Lori | Aug 9, 2008 | Reply
Oops…here’s the link:
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/6/12/49036.html
Lori | Aug 9, 2008 | Reply
Hardly, Tom and it’s deeply offensive that you make the moral comparison.
Prisoners in China don’t gain weight while they’re there. They don’t have their holy books handed to them by guards wearing gloves so as not to befoul the covers with their infidel skin. They aren’t treated for their pre-existing medical conditions.
They are tortured - real torture that results in burn scars and crippled legs. I’m sorry you haven’t the clarity of mind to see that. These probably aren’t the threads for you.
Jimmie | Aug 9, 2008 | Reply
So, Jimmie, explain to me how about a hundred of our prisoners have DIED from the treatment we gave them if we didn’t torture them.
fostert | Aug 9, 2008 | Reply
All right, I will. And I’ll use an article quoted favorably by a moron to do it.
So only 26 of the deaths, in five years, could be attributed to direct improper actions of our soldiers. Unlike the Chinese, we decry these deaths and fully investigate the incidents. We put those guilty of abuse in prison.
I don’t expect that you’ll see that as different from what the Chinese do to their prisoners, but I don’t particularly care to try either. Like I said, if you can’t see a clear difference between the US and Red China, I don’t have any help for you. You’re beyond me.
Jimmie | Aug 9, 2008 | Reply
“We put those guilty of abuse in prison. ”
Okay, so Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and George Bush have ordered the mistreatment of prisoners. They aren’t in jail yet. Why is that? And why aren’t the members of Congress who have legalized waterboarding and every technique you described above in jail? Clearly, we have only enforced previously existing laws on those that committed the acts. We have not enforced those previously existing laws on those that ordered the acts. But, hey, it’s all legal now, so so why worry? You have expressed support for the Military Commissions Act. And that act legalized the techniques that China uses. You are criticizing China for using techniques that you praise America for using. Unlike you, I have actually talked to people (Tibetans, naturally) who have been tortured by the Chinese. And its clear that the Chinese methods are very similar to ours. And those Tibetans are astonished that we would would use methods that are just as harsh as what they received. They used to think we were better, but now they know the truth. It made me stop and think when a Tibetan monk who was tortured by the Chinese prayed for my soul because my country uses Chinese torture techniques. You need to travel to Asia and get a lesson in reality. Sadly, I know you would approve of their methods if only an American were using them. You have already expressed that view clearly. There is a moral equivalence, and it is simple: Torture is torture, and nobody should be let off the hook just because they’re American. And that includes the entire Bush Administration. Unlike you, I don’t support torture, but I might be willing to make an exception for those that approved it. So let’s start with Dick Cheney if we want to torture people. And then let’s move on to fanatical right wing bloggers who praise torture when we commit it, but rail against it when someone else does it. You wouldn’t mind a light waterboarding, would you? After all, you think it’s perfectly harmless.
fostert | Aug 9, 2008 | Reply
Because what they, and the Democratic leadership of Congress explicitly approved, was legal. Here in America, we don’t put people in jail for stuff that you think ought to be a crime.
Not yet at least.
Still, your moral equivalence sickens me. If all the Chinese had done was to waterboard three people every six years, I would not complain nearly as much. But they don’t. They do far, far worse. And they do it for reprehensible reasons that should deeply offend someone who professes a love of freedom and human rights like you have.
That you feel the need to spend more time criticizing this country rather than China tells me that your moral compass is in sore need of recalibration.
Jimmie | Aug 9, 2008 | Reply
Fostert, if the US was as bad as China, you do realize that you would probably be brutally tortured executed for the criticism you just posted against government officials, right?
(And I mean real blood, burned flesh, broken bones kind of torture; not shook up after a simulated suffocation/drowing session, of which you will fully recover.)
But, you probably still think China is better. Why don’t you move there?
Lori | Aug 10, 2008 | Reply