Falun Gong Practitioners Lose Ability to Live Normal Lives as Result of Torture at Maoming City Brainwashing Centre

Since 2001, officials in Maoming City have sent abducted practitioners to a brainwashing centre in the city. Practitioners are forcibly brainwashed by means of threats, deceit, and torture, in order to force them to give up Falun Gong.

Ms. Li Yanmei, 43, is from Xiazhongpo in the Town of Poxin, Maoming City. She has been detained at the Maoming Brainwashing Centre since December 2001. Her 90-year-old mother and two young daughters are at home and they are experiencing financial hardship. In August 2003, the brainwashing centre asked the police from the Poxin Police Station to take Li Yanmei back. Upon seeing Li, the police found that she was delirious and could not walk due to weakness. They did not dare to take her back; they had to have her relatives take her home. She was on a hunger strike for more than 30 days. During this time, she was locked in a room with sealed windows on the highest floor. The temperature outdoors was above 80 degrees, and it was over 98 degrees inside the cell. They did not allow her to drink water. Now Li Yanmei is bedridden at home, unable to gain a clear consciousness. Her younger daughter has to take care of her. Her family is having even greater financial difficulty.

Ms. Lu Xiuqing, 58, from the town of Wonei in the Maogang District of Maoming City, has been detained at the brainwashing centre. She is being tortured continuously. In order to prevent her from practising the exercises, the guards cuffed her hands to a basketball hoop, leaving her feet dangling above the ground. The cuffs bit into the flesh and bone of her wrists. During the time she was on hunger strike, the guards still pressured her to write statements slandering Falun Gong. Lu Xiuqing has been very firm in her belief despite pressure. In July 2003, the brainwashing centre asked her family to pick her up. Her family members found Lu Xiuqing unconscious and very weak. Back home, she still could not live her daily life. She can not move her legs; she has to crawl with her arms. During a period of consciousness, she told her family that someone in the centre injected her with an unknown substance during her hunger strike and she immediately lost consciousness. Her health is worsening now.

There are now more than 30 practitioners illegally detained at the brainwashing centre. Because of the detention, practitioners' families were broken, many of their belongings were stolen, and their children became homeless.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/8/21/55988.html