Name: Zhao Shuyun
Gender: Female
Age: 56
Address: Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia
Occupation: Finance industry worker
Date of Most Recent Arrest: June 7th, 2008
Most Recent Place of Detention: Masanjia Forced Labour Camp
City: Shenyang
Province: Liaoning
Persecution Suffered: Detention, beatings, torture, hung up, sleep deprivation, electric shocks, brainwashing, handcuffed, physical constraint, solitary confinement, interrogation, extortion.
Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Zhao Shuyun worked in the finance industry in Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia. In the past eleven years, she has been held six times at detention centres, brainwashing centres, and police stations for a total of eight months, and she has been detained at forced labour camps three times for a total of eight years.
1. Torture
Ms. Zhao suffered severe torture while in detention. At the Hexi Detention Centre in Tongliao, Shao Jun, director of the Domestic Security Division, beat Ms. Zhao's back with a wooden board that was about one meter long, ten centimetres wide, and five centimetres thick. He didn't stop until the board was broken. Her back was bruised all over, with heavy bleeding. At the Changtu Police Station, Ms. Zhao was doing the meditation exercise one day, when a lead guard came and kicked her knees. He dragged her by the collar and threw her into a cement wall. Then he dragged her into a police car and took her to the Changtu Detention Centre, where she was handcuffed to a metal chair and tortured to produce a confession. A police team leader and two court judges severely bashed her face. The three of them grabbed her head, squeezed her throat and shoved her chin downwards. Ms. Zhao refused to answer their questions. They then dragged her into a small dark room, handcuffed her and hung her up, and beat her until she fainted.
Ms. Zhao was detained at the Tumuji Forced Labour Camp for three years. One day she refused to recite the prison regulations. Policeman Zhou then dragged her into a room and severely beat her. After the beating, her ears rang all the time and her eardrum was damaged. She became deaf for quite some time before she finally recovered.
On August 26th, 2003 a guard found Ms. Zhao reading some of the Falun Gong teachings. He then handcuffed her hands behind her back. Seven guards severely beat her in turn with rods. Almost half of her hair was pulled out. Several guards pinched her ears, kicked her, and punched her. They beat her for three hours until her body was covered with blood, her head and limbs were swollen, and her face was bruised all over. She fainted again and didn't regain consciousness until two hours later. When she returned to her cell, some of the inmates were frightened by her condition and cried.
On September 2nd, Ms. Zhao was dragged into a small room. Over ten guards and over ten inmates monitored her closely in turn. They didn't allow her to have any sleep. They tortured her for more than twenty days. Guard Di brought in a dagger and an electric baton. One guard tried to force Ms. Zhao to sign the “transformation statement”, but she refused. One day guard Yin Guijuan tried to force practitioners to recite the prison regulations. The practitioners refused to do it. The guards then hung all the practitioners up by handcuffs. Yin shocked Ms. Zhao's face with electric batons. She still has the scars on her face.
On May 30th, 2004, Ms. Zhao was transferred to the notorious Masanjia Forced Labour Camp. She was locked in an underground cell. Inside there were only several straw mats and a few pieces of black cloth. More than ten guards and ten inmates attacked her and beat her in turn. She was not allowed to sleep. Ms. Zhao still refused to renounce Falun Gong. Sun Lina, a collaborator (a former practitioner, brainwashed against Falun Gong, who is made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners), carried Ms. Zhao with a group of guards to the Comprehensive Building. Dong Lixia led a group of inmates to torture Ms. Zhao, and then she was to be subjected to brainwashing. At that time she only weighed 30 kilograms and couldn't walk properly. When she made it to the room where the brainwashing was conducted, she was left to lie on the cement floor in the hallway for one month.
Because Ms. Zhao refused to give up her belief, guard Dong Lixia sent her to another room and forced her to watch videos that slandered Falun Gong. She lost consciousness from all the abuse that she'd suffered. When she came to, she found that she was handcuffed.
On March 8th, 2005, forced labour camp officials brought the practitioners who were firm in their belief into one room. The practitioners supported each other and didn't cooperate with the guards' orders. Ms. Zhao was handcuffed to a heating pipe for four days. She was not allowed to sleep and had to eat meals with one hand while handcuffed. On July 3rd, guard leader Zhang Xiurong pushed Ms. Zhao into a ditch of faeces which was one and a half metres deep. Ms. Zhao's feet and pants were covered with faeces and urine. At around 8:00 a.m on July 7th, Zhang called Ms. Zhao into the office. Inmate leader Ma Jianjun closed the door. In the room were two electric batons, a pair of handcuffs, and some tape. Zhang started to force Ms. Zhao to put on the prison uniform. Ms. Zhao refused to do so. Zhang called in four collaborators (Wu Qiang and Wang Qiuli were among them) and another two guards Tang Yan and Ma Xiaodan; altogether there were eight people in the room. Zhang ordered them to take off Ms. Zhao's clothes and to punch and kick her. Then they sealed her mouth with tape. They stripped off her clothes so that she only had undergarments on. Zhang then called male guard He Yanxiang in and asked him to put the prison uniform on Ms. Zhao. They pushed her to the ground. He stepped on her arms and legs, and forcibly put the prison clothes on her. Then they beat her for two and a half hours. Her back was badly bruised and her clothes were matted with blood and flesh. Her hair was ripped out and scattered on the ground. She lost consciousness at some point during the beating.
On August 3rd, Ms. Zhao went to see Su Jing, director of the forced labour camp, and questioned her about He Yanxiang's behaviour. Su left without providing an answer to Ms. Zhao. Deputy team leader Zhou Qian and guard on duty Fu then put her into a solitary cell, and handcuffed her to a tiger bench1. She went on a hunger strike to protest and was not taken back to a normal cell until ten days later. One day team leader Shi Yu and inmate Zhang Fengzhi gave Ms. Zhao a bottle of water when she was eating. She drank a mouthful and detected the taste of a strong drug. She immediately spat the water out and questioned the guard as to whether they had put drugs in the bottle of water and if they wanted to poison her. Zhang Fengzhi then dropped the bottle, which shattered.
In early April 2006, the labour camp forced practitioners to do hard labour and held practitioners who were not cooperative together to peel garlic. The guards and inmates watched the practitioners closely. The practitioners still refused to cooperate with them. The guards locked up the practitioners separately, each in a different room, and tortured them using different instruments. An agent named Wang Qi pushed Ms. Zhao down to the ground and forced her to kneel down and stay motionless for two hours. Wang Qi dragged Ms. Zhao by her hair and slammed her head against a wall. She developed a large bump on her head and bled heavily. She still has the bump now.
One day the guards intended to forcefully “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] over sixty Falun Gong practitioners. Wang Qi and another guard hung Ms. Zhao from a bed against a wall. Wang dragged Ms. Zhao by her hair and slammed her head against the wall and at the same time asked her, “Do you want to be 'transformed?'” Ms. Zhao still refused to cooperate with them. Guards Li Mingqiang, Zhang Jun, Feng, and another guard locked her in another room and hung her up between two beds with her limbs tied to the four corners of the beds. Half an hour later, guard Shi Yu came and loosened the ropes a bit. But Li Mingdong came a few minutes later and tightened the ropes again. Ms. Zhao was hung up like this until midnight, and she lost consciousness again from the pain.
On June 18th, 2007, the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp continued to detain Ms. Zhao even though her sentence had expired. She went to see officials of the camp, but this didn't produce any results. They tried to make her sign on a review form, but she refused. Guard team leader Zhang Chunguang and other guards Zhang Jun (female), Zhao Guorong, Zhai Yanhui, and Xiang Kuili grabbed her hands and forced her to give her fingerprints. Zhai Yanhui beat the back of her hands with a metal bar. Zhang Chunguang handcuffed her arms behind her back. Zhao Guorong brought a toilet mop and shoved it into her mouth. Xiang Kuili dragged her by her handcuffed arms into a dark room. Four of them hung her up with her four limbs tied to the four corners of a metal bed again. The guards tightly tied her legs with a white cloth. It only took half a day for Ms. Zhao's hands to bleed heavily. Then a guard brought in a piece of paper and forcibly pressed her hands on the paper in order to get her fingerprints.
On June 27th, guards Zhai Yanhui, Zhao Guorong, Zhang Chunguang, Zhang Jun, Gao Luan, and Xiang Kuili called Ms. Zhao into the team leader's office and asked her to sign the discharge form. She refused again. The guards hung her up for two and a half hours. Her hands became bruised and bloody again.
Due to the brutal torture at the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp, it took two months for Ms. Zhao to recover after she came back home.
On June 7th, 2008, Ms. Zhao was arrested and sent to the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp again for two years. Several guards watched her closely and tried to “transform” her. On June 17th, Ms. Zhao was called into an office at the labour camp where eleven guards, including the deputy director of the forced labour camp, team leader Zhang Jun, and guards Zhou Qin and Zhang Zuohui, were present. Zhang Jun pushed Ms Zhao into the office and asked her, “Do you want to be 'transformed?'” Ms. Zhao said no. Then all of them held her tightly and forced her to put her fingerprints on the “transformation” statement. Then they dragged her out of the room and slammed her against the wall outside the office, causing compound fractures and dislocation of her kneecap. Her ankle and the second toe on her right foot were also dislocated. She had to bear the intense pain as she set right the ankle and toe. Her right leg became badly swollen and the skin became dark and bruised. She was not able to walk until two months later. She was disabled as a result.
On July 20th, 2009, Ms. Zhao questioned the guards as to why they were hanging Falun Gong practitioners up with their limbs stretched out. Guards Wang Shuzeng and Ren Hongzhan then locked her into a small dark room and hung her up with her limbs widely apart and stretched. Her whole body was in extreme pain, as if it was being torn apart. Wang Shuzeng didn't put her down until she saw that Ms. Zhao was about to lose unconsciousness.
Every time Ms. Zhao was tortured, she lost all feeling in her body. She couldn't walk properly and many joints were out of place. She could hardly take care of herself after the torture.
2. Family Affected by the Persecution
During her detention in 2001, Ms. Zhao's eighty-year-old father suddenly suffered a stroke when he heard that his daughter was detained. He didn't recover, and every day over the next six years he waited for his daughter to come home. He murmured her name all the time until he passed away, never getting the chance to see his daughter again.
Ms. Zhao's daughter was preparing for her mid-term examinations when Ms. Zhao was arrested. Her daughter was a very good student. She missed her mother very much and couldn't go to sleep at night. When she felt bad, she would dig into the wall beside her bed with her fingers. A hole was burrowed into the wall and her fingers ended up bleeding. Three years later, she was eligible for university entrance examinations. The school recommended five students to go to Tsinghua University, the top university in China, and she was one of them. When she completed the application form, she was not allowed to sit for the entrance exams to Tsinghua University because her mother was a Falun Gong practitioner. She was traumatized and had to give up the exams. She recovered a bit after staying at home for two years. She took the university entrance exams again but only achieved scores enabling her to go to an ordinary university. She cried when she received the acceptance letter. She felt humiliated for not doing well with her studies. For eight years she didn't have her mother around. She could not understand why her mother has been detained for such a long time, and has become estranged from her mother.
Ms. Zhao's sister has been in constant worry about her sister all these years and developed heart problems. When she hears the police siren, she suffers tremendous anxiety.
On April 22nd, 2002, Ms. Zhao's husband drove to the Tumuji Forced Labour Camp and tried to force her to sign divorce papers. She believed that this was part of the persecution and refused to sign. Her husband gave cash to the judges on the spot. Judge Zhang Zhikui declared their divorce official without going through any legal procedures. Almost all of the family's property went to her husband, and she only received property worth less than 2,000 yuan2.
3. Financial Loss
Since July 20, 1999, police from the local Public Security Office and officials from the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) have constantly harassed Ms. Zhao and her family. They would come to knock at her door regardless of whether it was day or night. These police officers include Shao Jun, team leader from Domestic Security Division of the Ke District Public Security Bureau, Wang Bo, Bao Jiriyaotu, Zhao Nasitu, and Cui Liancheng. They went to Ms. Zhao's workplace each week to harass her using the excuse of reviewing her performance. In the end, her boss persuaded her to resign and gave her a severance fee of 90,000 yuan. She was forty-five at the time and could have worked another ten years before being eligible for retirement.
Ms. Zhao has been held in prison for almost eight years and has gone through unspeakable persecution. The above accounts are only a small portion of the persecution she has experienced.
Related article:
http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2008/10/30/101866.html
Note
1. "Tiger Bench": Prisoners are forced to sit on a small iron bench that is approximately 20 cm (6 inches) tall with their knees tied together. With their hands tied behind their backs or sometimes placed on their knees, they are forced to sit straight up and look straight ahead without movement for long periods of time.
2. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/12/15/33660.html
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