The Devastating Torture Endured by Ms. Chen Yulian for More than 3 Years

Summary of Key Persecution Factors

Name: Chen Yulian

Gender: Female

Age: 57

Address: Liantang Town, Nanchang County, Jiangxi Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: May, 2011
Most recent place of detention: Jiangxi Province Women's Forced Labour Camp

City: Nanchang
Province: Jiangxi

Persecution Suffered: Detention, brainwashing, forced labour, being hung by handcuffs, binding, pinpricking, food deprivation, denial of toilet use, torture, being doused with cold water, filthy rags stuffed in mouth, brutal beatings, sleep deprivation, mental torture.

After Ms. Chen Yulian began practising Falun Gong in 1998, her chronic ailments, including lobular hypertrophy and bone hyperplasia disappeared. She also successfully quit drinking and gambling.

Since 1999, Ms. Chen Yulian has suffered severe persecution, for clarifying the facts about Falun Gong to the public. In 2000, she was sent to a brainwashing centre. In 2004, she was sent directly to a detention centre. In 2008, right before the Beijing Olympic games, she was sentenced to a one-and-a-half-year forced labour term.

In May 2011, when Ms. Chen Yulian was distributing Shen Yun DVDs [Shen Yun performance, a world-class traditional Chinese cultural show] in the Ximazhuang Market in Nanchang City, she was arrested and sentenced to two years in a forced labour camp. In the Jiangxi Province Women's Forced Labour Camp, she suffered inhumane torture for three and a half years.

Hung Up by Handcuffs, Long-Term Binding, Needle Piercing and Head Smeared with Glue

When Ms. Chen Yulian began her forced labour term in May 2011, she was firm in her refusal to participate in the forced labour. She persisted in sitting in meditation. Chen Ying, the associate head of the brigade, handcuffed Ms. Chen Yulian to the metal rail of an upper bunk bed for 48 hours. Ms. Chen was deprived of food and the use of a toilet.

Because Ms. Chen still persisted in doing the Falun Gong exercises, she was subjected to torture by the drug addict inmates incited by the prison guards. She was often bound with rope or handcuffed in painful positions for extended periods of time. For example, her right hand was handcuffed to the rail of an upper bunk, while her left leg would be horizontally cuffed to the lower bunk bed, with her other arm tightly bound to her chest.

The head of the brigade, Hong Chuanghua, used a so-called “new product” to torture Ms. Chen. This is a super long, flexible cuff. During the torture, both of her legs were put close together and both arms were placed tightly on her chest. The flexible cuff was applied to her feet first, and then in a spiral went from her feet up her legs, to her abdominal area and then all the way up to her chest. At this time, her entire body could not move at all. She even had difficulty breathing. The more she tried to struggle, the tighter the flexible cuff would become. Ms. Chen Yulian was tortured like this for three days and nights.

Undeterred the torture, Ms. Chen continued with her exercises and sitting meditation. She also loudly called out “Falun Gong Is Good!” The prison guards transferred a vicious inmate, Ding Xiaoqing, to the brigade to intensify the persecution of Ms. Chen. When Ms. Chen was doing the sitting meditation, Ding Xiaoqing poured glue onto Ms. Chen's head and then smeared the glue on her face and body. Ms. Chen Yulian still persisted in doing the sitting meditation, so Ding Xiaoqing used a needle to viciously pierce the back of Ms. Chen's hand and her knee.

Hot Water Scalding, Cold Water Drenching and Dirty Cloth Stuffed in the Mouth

One day in the hot summer of 2012, when Ding Xiaoqing saw Ms. Chen Yulian sitting on a bed meditating, she took a full cup of boiling water and poured it around her mid-section. The burning pain caused Ms. Chen Yulian's body to shake. At the end of 2012, Ding Xiaoqing poured bone-chilling water into Ms. Chen Yulian's underclothes. Ding also rudely detached the toilet in the monitoring room and then forced Ms. Chen Yulian to use her sink as a toilet.

At the end of 2012, Ms. Chen Yulian was handcuffed to a bunk bed when she was found doing the Falun Gong exercises. She loudly declared, “Falun Gong Is Good!” The prison guards were afraid that people in other monitoring rooms would hear her, so they directed the drug addicts Hong Yan and Wang Xiaoqiong and security guard He Xueying to shove a dirty rag, laden with feces and urine, into Ms. Chen's mouth and then seal it with packing tape. This devastating torture lasted for several hours until Ms. Chen almost suffocated.

Brutal Beating, Sleep Deprivation and Mental Torture

In August 2008, not long after Ms. Chen Yulian first arrived at the Women's Forced Labour Camp, the head of the brigade, Hong Chuanghua, bound her arms to her chest and then beat her back with a pair of shoes for over 10 minutes.

In the summer of 2009, since Ms. Chen Yulian refused to do the forced labour, the counselor Zhou Qianqin and heads of the brigade Lu Xiuying and Hong Chuanghua, directed two security guards to punch and kick her for 30 minutes.

One day in 2012, another brigade head, Shi Qiongying, punched Ms. Chen's head three times while Ms. Chen was handcuffed and hung up. Ms. Chen Yulian shouted out, “The hooligan guard is beating people!” Shi Qiongying shamelessly replied, “Who witnessed you being beaten?" Shi Qiongying also urged drug addict Hong Yan to snap Ms. Chen Yulian's back with a wet towel twisted into a tight spiral.

Ms. Chen Yulian was nearly 60 years of age, but has been subjected to such unbearable, painful tortures. The perpetrators forced her to bend her body until her spine almost fractured. They also knelt on her arms and stomped on them. She nearly lost consciousness from the excruciating pain.

On a winter night of 2012, brigade head Shi Qiongying, associate head, Chen Ying, and sectional leader, Cai Yanfang, ordered the drug addicts to take apart Ms. Chen Yulian's bed. Ms. Chen had to sleep on the concrete floor. Then they poured cold water on the floor. Ms. Chen had to endure the hard, cold wet floor all through the night, and was unable to sleep at all.

During the years that Ms. Chen was in the Women's Forced Labour Camp, the prison guards also forced her to watch various propaganda videos slandering Falun Gong. The torture she endured was both physical and mental. Furthermore, the forced labour camp deprived Ms. Chen's family the right to visitation. They also threatened the personal freedom and security of Ms. Chen's entire family.

At the end of May 2013, after years of abuse and torture, Ms. Chen Yulian was finally set free. The scars and bruises all over her body, her swollen legs, and her mental devastation are the undeniable hard evidence of the tortures used on Falun Gong practitioners in the Chinese Communist Party's forced labour camps!