Officials Suspected of Murdering Ms. Lin Lingmei 14 Years Ago

Ms. Lin Linmei, a Falun Gong practitioner from Boli County, Heilongjiang Province died in May 2000 in Beijing, where she appealed for her right to practise Falun Gong. Officials claimed that she had committed suicide, yet we are suspicious that this is not the real cause of her death. For that reason, it is being brought up 14 years after her death. In particular, because of known facts about the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the past 14 years, the claims by the Chinese officials should not be taken at face value.

Arrest and Detention

Ms. Lin and her younger sister Ms. Lin Lifen went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practise Falun Gong on May 11th, 2000. They practised the Falun Gong exercises in the heavily guarded Tiananmen Square on May 13th, were spotted, and arrested by police.

As a deterrent against practitioners' appealing for Falun Gong, the CCP made it mandatory that all practitioners arrested for petitioning must be taken back to their hometown by their local officials and punished.

The Beijing police were able to identify the two sisters and transferred them to the Heilongjiang Qitaihe City Beijing Office based in the Jingqi Hotel. They were held in room 308. The officers cuffed them to an iron-framed bed and brutally beat them. They were monitored throughout the day and lights were on around the clock.

Police officers from Qitaihe City came to Beijing and took Ms. Lin Lifen back in the afternoon of May 14th, but not Ms. Lin Lingmei, claiming that she was not from the Qitaihe jurisdiction. They instead demanded that the Boli County Forestry Bureau, her employer, take her back. After that the officers left Beijing, leaving Ms. Lin at the Qitaihe Beijing Office.

Death Claimed to Be Suicide

The Qitaihe Beijing Office then called the Boli County Forestry Bureau to take Ms. Lin back. The bureau sent some officers to Beijing, who went sightseeing on their arrival in Beijing. When they arrived at the Qitaihe Beijing Office they were told that Ms. Lin had died. They then notified Ms. Lin's family that she had committed suicide by jumping out of the hotel building window.

The scene of her death was horrifying. She was stabbed in her back by the fence spikes of the hotel yard facing upward with her hands cuffed. According to an acclaimed witness, Ms. Lin had been cruelly beaten by police officer Bi from the Political and Security Section of the Qitaihe Police Department. She tried to escape from the building by jumping out of the window, when she fell onto the fence below the window and the sharp fence spikes stabbed her in the back. She hung on the fence for more than 10 hours until she died.

On seeing the body, the family found that on the inner side of her thigh was a cut that had been stitched. Her lower arms were injured. There were some red spots on her neck, a bruise on her lower back, and some syringe pinholes on her wrist.

The officers were evasive when the family asked about the cause of her death. They asked the family to sign a statement that she had committed suicide and they had to agree to the immediate cremation of her body.

After cremation the death certification was issued to the Woken Town, Boli County by the Beijing Xuanwu Police Department. It stated that she committed suicide by jumping out of a building on May 15th, 2000. The issuing date of the certificate was May 18th, 2000. The crematory certificate said Ms. Lin died on May 14th, 2000 and her body was cremated on May 18th, 2000 in the Beijing East Urban Crematory.

Body Showed No Signs of a Fall

Falun Gong requires its practitioners to cherish all lives and strictly forbids killing or suicide of any form. Ms. Lin had said that as a Falun Gong practitioner she would never kill herself, no matter what happened to her.

Fourteen years after she died, people are still confused as to how she died. How could she possibly jump out of a window with her hands cuffed and being closely monitored? For what reason had she committed suicide, as claimed by the officials? Why was there not any pictorial or video record of the scene of her death? Why was there no injury on her body indicative of a fall from a building and hitting the ground? Why did the hospital make no official record about their diagnoses? Why was the room 308 renovated after her death, and why did they hide the iron-framed bed to which Ms. Lin had been cuffed?

It is the officials responsibility to provide a true accounting of what had transpired on the night of May 14th, 2000 in room 308 of the Qitaihe Beijing Office.

Details about Ms. Lin

Ms. Lin was born on January 7th, 1971 in Xingsheng Village, Woken Town, Boli County, Heilongjiang Province. She was an intelligent and sensible child. In her early 20s she married. Her husband was an employee of the Hongxing Forest Farm located deep in the mountain of Boli County. She had one daughter.

Ms. Lin began practising Falun Gong in 1998. She appreciated its guiding principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She took adversities in stride. Many people admired her for being tenacious. Furthermore, she was easy to get along with and didn't fight back when being wronged.

Ms. Lin died at the age of 30, leaving behind her then 10-year-old daughter.