Atrocities In Beijing: 8 Fingers Beaten and Broken

When recalling my unforgettable experience, I cannot remain at ease, for it is forever etched into my mind. It was the middle of December in 2000, when I went to Beijing for my third appeal against the persecution of Falun Gong. I was arrested and detained at the Tiananmen Square police station. In just a few short hours there I witnessed the most atrocious and heinous tortures against Falun Gong practitioners.

Police separated Falun Gong practitioners into two groups: those who had given their names, and those who did not. Police locked all those who gave their names into rooms, and rounded up those who did not into an alley outside the courtyard. There were about three hundred practitioners. We recited Teacher's articles in unison and shouted "Falun Dafa is good!" The police who guarded us would strike practitioners with their rubber coated wooden clubs and batons without hesitation. They beat practitioners indiscriminately and so violently, it was as if they would beat practitioners to death right then and there. They cursed with foul and filthy language while beating practitioners. Many practitioners' heads were badly injured.
The police dragged a gentle looking practitioner who is about 20 years old and who lives in Southern China to the balcony outside the building. Several policemen pressed his arm against the ground and smashed his hand with rubber batons. The eight fingers on both hands with the exception of his two thumbs were broken. They also broke his nose and face, spraying blood everywhere. His light gray sweater was soaked with blood and turned red. The intense pain and severe loss of blood caused his face to turn ashen, and his body began shaking uncontrollably. The Falun Gong practitioners shouted out at the police officers to stop the cruel torture, but such cries fell on deaf ears. Instead of stopping their attack, the police further intensified their beatings. They beat the practitioners with clubs, resulting in many injuries. Later, more practitioners were brought in and eventually the alley could no longer hold all the people. According to the police, just that day alone from 7:30 am until 11 am more than 3,000 practitioners were arrested and brought in from Tiananmen Square. After that day, police arrested and detained a large number of practitioners each day, resulting in over crowding of Beijing police stations, detention centres and prisons. They would later transfer groups of practitioners to detention centres in other parts of the country.

At around lunch hour many practitioners and I were transferred to the Chaoyang District Police Station. There were about 20 Dafa practitioners in my cell, and they came from a dozen different provinces and cities. Police labelled us with numbers since we refused to reveal our names. Each day police would take us out of our cells for interrogation. Some would be interrogated twice in one day and suffered various forms of torture. Everybody in my cell was tortured. Four female practitioners started a hunger strike to protest the illegal detention. Police instructed regular inmates to tie them onto wooden crosses with rope. It was the middle of winter and only a thin layer of clothes were allowed. Then police used thick plastic tape to wrap them tightly. It did not take long before they lost blood circulation in their arms and legs. With the freezing temperature, they suffered from numbness, and eventually their hands and feet would swell and turn purple-blue. One practitioner was tied up for more than 8 hours. More than 20 days later she still could not regain feeling in her right hand. During meals, she could only use her left hand.
Even so, the police were not content with torturing practitioners on the wooden cross. They would ask the inmates to violently beat practitioners on their face, head, and other parts of the body with the heels of shoes. The inmates would pinch practitioners' faces and bodies in order to force them to reveal their names and addresses. As long as practitioners withheld their names, torture would be assured. Many were stripped of their clothes layer by layer until only underwear remained. Then police would force practitioners to take off their shoes and to stand bare foot on the frozen ground. One practitioner from Huludao City was tortured like this several times. Finally the police forced her to sit outside on the concrete ground for more than three hours, wearing just a thin layer of clothing. Because she refused to comply, two police poured a large bottle of cold water right onto her chest. Her clothes were soaking wet and later froze up. She was so cold she could not control her teeth from chattering.
Another practitioner was interrogated several times. Each time the police would beat her up, and then apply a torture called "riding the airplane." During the torture, the police would strip off her clothes until she was only wearing underwear. Then her hands would be handcuffed from behind and pushed all the way up until her body was bent at a 90-degree angle. It was extremely painful to stand like this. Other practitioners had bruises all over their bodies from being kicked by the police. One practitioner from Changsha City was beaten many times, yet she refused to cooperate. Finally, a policeman named Ge Tao started to use a slingshot to slash her face. Her face was slashed by the heavy rubber band until it showed many bloody marks. Her face swelled to nearly double its size and she could not open her eyes due to swollen eyelids. They tortured her like this on three occasions.

I hereby appeal to the "World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong" to go after these atrocious criminals without delay and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/4/5/47746.html