A Chinese official who had ordered the cremation of a 52-year-old woman while she was still alive has been purged from the Chinese Communist Party in a corruption case. Xia Xianlu, the former director of the Public Security Bureau in Xiangyang City, Hubei Province, was stripped of his position and will now go on trial.
The Feb. 28 announcement was made by the website of the Central Commission of Discipline Inspection, the Chinese regime’s anti-graft regulator.
An investigation that started last July found that Xia abused power, gained profits through cadre promotions, accepted a “huge number of bribes,” and was cheating on his wife, the announcement stated.
For years, Xia had led the persecution of Falun Gong in his city, through his titles as head of Xiangyang City Public Security Bureau and the deputy secretary of the city Politics and Law Committee. Xia’s involvement in human rights abuses were not mentioned in the announcement. His crimes against humanity were previously exposed by an international human rights group.
Falun Gong is a spiritual practice rooted in ancient Chinese culture and based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. The practice was banned by the Chinese Communist Party in July 1999, and practitioners have been subjected to arrests, torture, and death by forced organ transplants.
The Chinese regime’s Politics and Law Committee and public security system are directly involved in the persecution. A Gestapo-like extra-judicial security agency called the 610 Office was established in 1999 by the Chinese regime specifically to persecute Falun Gong.
Xia’s role in the persecution was exposed in two reports by international human rights organization, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong. A report released in May 2013 shows that Xia ordered the cremation of a detained Falun Gong practitioner who was still alive.
The Falun Gong practitioner, a 52-year-old woman named Liu Weishan, was ordered by the 610 Office in Xiangyang City to be sent to a funeral parlor for cremation when she still had a heartbeat at a hospital in August 2011, the report stated.
Staff at the funeral parlor found that Liu was still alive, and refused to proceed with the cremation, which saved her life, the report stated.
However, Liu has been in a vegetative state from being tortured while in detention. She had been detained multiple times since 2000 on charges she told other people that Falun Gong is good and the Chinese regime’s slandering and defaming of Falun Gong was wrong.
Liu had gone on a hunger strike while in the detention center, and was forced to undergo brutal force feeding and was given unidentified psychotropic drugs, which severely damaged her nervous system.
A report from overseas Falun Gong information website Minghui.org states that according to incomplete statistics in 2014, at least 6,415 Falun Gong practitioners in 30 Chinese provinces and regions were detained without trial for their beliefs, at least 983 were put on trial, and at least 91 were tortured to death.
