Dafa Practitioner Ms. Yuan Xiangfan Dies as a Result of Torture at Shibalihe Female Labour Camp

Ms. Yuan Xiangfan was a Falun Gong practitioner in Ruyang County, Henan Province. Since Ms. Yuan was abducted in 2001 to the Shibalihe Female Forced Labour Camp in Ruyang County, Henan province, she had been on a hunger strike, protesting her abduction and illegal incarceration which is against the Chinese Constitution. In addition to the illegal imprisonment, Ms.Yuan had been continuously tortured by the prison guards and inmates. On December 9, 2002, Ms. Yuan's family was notified to take her home from the Shibalihe Female Forced Labour Camp because she was at the brink of death. Ms. Yuan was beyond medical help and died on September 8, 2003.

[Note: It is common procedure for the forced labour camp authorities to release Falun Gong practitioners to their families once they are considered to be in critical condition as a result of their torture. Based on Jiang Zemin's persecution policy, each forced labour camp gets a "death quota", or "the number of Falun Gong practitioners a forced labour camp is allowed to kill." Each forced labour camp is also rewarded for making a Falun Gong practitioner renounce his/her belief in Falun Gong.  The camp officials did not want to forfeit one of their death quota numbers for a dying Falun Gong practitioner without first obtaining their bonus reward from making her renounce Falun Gong. The second reason is to save the trouble of handling the dead body. Typically, if a dying Falun Gong practitioner should survive and their condition stabilise after being sent home, the forced labour camp will abduct him/her once again to be detained in the forced labour camp and then begin the torture process all over again until the practitioner either dies of torture or earns the staff a bonus reward by renouncing Falun Gong. A practitioner can only be considered to have fully renounced Falun Gong when he/she has written multiple declaration renouncements and assist in the persecution of other Falun Gong practitioners being detained under the same conditions.]

Ms. Yuan Xiangfan died at the early age of 38. She used to be a worker at Ruyang County Printing House in Henan Province.

The police abducted Ms. Yuan Xiangfan in February 2002 in Beijing while she tried to exercise her constitutional right to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong. Ms. Yuan was transferred back to Henan Province and thrown into the Ruyang County Detention Centre in Henan Province without trial. There the disciplinary staff forced her to kneel down for an extended time in order to force her to renounce her belief in Falun Gong. When Ms. Yuan refused to give in, she was tied to what is called the, "Iron Chair"[1] for three whole days and nights. Her arms, wrists, legs and ankles were also tied to the "Iron Chair" so that she could not move at all during the torture. In the middle of the torture, the Henan Provincial Government happened to come to inspect Ruyang County Detention Centre. In order to hide the evidence of the illegal torture, the disciplinary guards kept moving her from room to room during the inspection. Thus many prison inmates and Falun Gong practitioners witnessed Ms. Yuan in excruciating pain, and all of them could not help crying.

[The torture of "Iron Chair" is often combined with the deprivation of food, water, sleep, and the use of the toilet. This torture can result in poor blood circulation to the lower limbs and nerve damage from the waist down.]

In May 2000, five determined Dafa practitioners, including Ms. Yuan Xinagfan, were abducted to the Juvenile Delinquency Center in Luoyang City, Henan Province. Each of the five practitioners was detained separately from each other so they could not speak to or encourage each other. The disciplinary staff ordered the inmates in their respective cells to curse them and beat them at will just as long as it would help make them renounce Falun Gong. At one time, Ms. Yuan was forced to keep kneeling on both knees for 15 consecutive days.

In February 2001, the police broke into Ms. Yuan Xiangfan's home and abducted her from her home. They illegally locked her up in Ruyang County Detention Center again, and did not release her until five months later. Because Ms. Yuan kept on practising Falun Gong, in just more than 10 days after her release, the officers from the Public Security Bureau deceived her into getting into a police car, and threw her into the Shibalihe Female Forced Labour Camp for two years of illegal detention without any charge or public trial. While in the labour camp, the disciplinary staff subjected Ms. Yuan to many types of torture. Ms. Yuan refused to do the stretching exercises required for all prison inmates, or to answer when the disciplinary staff called her name during each head count of prisoners. Each time she refused to be treated as a prison inmate, four to five disciplinary staff jumped on her, beat her to the ground, and crushed her body while beating and cursing her. They would even grab her head and slam it against the concrete floor. Because Ms. Yuan refused to give in after being attacked in this manner on several occasions at the 3rd platoon, they transferred her to the 2nd platoon for escalated torture.

On October 18, 2001, Ms. Yuan Xiangfan was transferred to the 2nd platoon where the disciplinary staff members were far more ferocious than those in the 3rd platoon. The inmates detained for drug abuse were often ordered to pull Mr. Yuan into the bathroom where they subjected her to a private torture session. They kept beating her and slamming her head against the concrete floor. Even when they returned to the bedchamber, they continued to beat her savagely. Due to the lack of any means for her to file a complaint about the abuses, Ms. Yuan Xiangfan decided to go on a hunger strike to protest the illegal detention and torture. Ms. Yuan started the hunger strike on October 23, 2001. Twelve days later she was too weak to go on, and began eating. On November 6, 2001, Ms. Yuan started another hunger strike for more than two months. During this period of time, she was subjected to force-feeding, which is used as a form of torture in the labour camps to achieve the result of getting Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their belief. One disciplinary staff or prison inmate held her head, two held her arms, another sat on her body, another pried her mouth open with two steel spoons and kept it open while another poured the contents into her mouth. The torturers kept pouring in the food and could not care less if she swallowed or choked on the food. After each amount they poured in, they held her head steady, pinched her nose and shut her mouth to prevent her from spitting the food out. However, in this extremely painful position, one could neither spit out the food nor swallow it. She choked on the food and could not breathe. She was in indescribable pain. The food began coming out through Ms. Yuan's nose and mouth, which splattered on her torturers. Next they started to beat and kick her, and hit her head with the metal spoons. Later the torturers replaced the metal spoons with a metal screwdriver to pry her mouth open, and injured the tissue of her mouth, tongue and throat. In December 2001, Ms. Yuan was given a glucose injection three times, and force-fed twice with a tube inserted into her stomach. When they inserted the tube by force for the first time, they poured clear soup into the tube. For the second time, they poured two syringes of high density salt-water which causes intense pain and vomiting, even death. The tube they used for force-feeding was a thick plastic tube, one metre in length and 1cm in diametre. Each time four to five people without proper medical training kept her still using force, and forced the thick plastic tube into her stomach. After each force-feeding, Ms. Yuan turned purple and gasped for air. For several days following each force-feeding, she kept vomiting blood.

Later Ms. Yuan's blood pressure dropped to 70/30, so the forced labor camp sent her to Zhengzhou City People's Hospital for a health examination. However, the medical staff only did a blood and a kidney test, and reported that everything was fine. Thus they sent her back to the Shibalihe Female Forced Labour Camp. In the middle of December when everything is covered in ice and snow, Ms. Yuan Xiangfan and another Falun Gong practitioner who was also on hunger strike were taken to a workshop inside the forced labour camp daily. Despite the fact that these women had become extremely frail and could not stand up, the prison inmates were ordered to drag them by the arm and make them "learn to walk," as if these two women pretended to be sick. They kept forcing these two women to walk until they were completely worn out and gasped for air.

By March 2002, Ms. Yuan's whole body had become so swollen that she could not walk for over two months. The forced labour camp pretended to send her to the same Zhengzhou City People's Hospital, and unsurprisingly the hospital still declared that everything was absolutely fine with her. By June, the overall swelling receded except for her belly. In fact, her belly was so swollen that one might mistake her for a woman in her seventh or eighth month of pregnancy. She was unable to eat anything and could only drink a little soup everyday. For another two months, Ms. Yaun could not stand up. Later she lost the ability to sit as well. She could do nothing but lie on the bed. Even so, she had trouble breathing. Now she could neither eat nor drink. When she was close to death, Shibalihe Female Forced Labour Camp called her family and demanded 3,000 yuan in advance for "medical treatment." [500 Yuan is the average monthly income for an urban worker in China]. Her family was unable to produce 3,000 yuan because her family had become poverty-stricken because of Jiang Zemin's persecution. This new attempt of extortion and the news of Ms. Yuan's health condition drove her husband to the edge. He divorced Ms. Yuan Xiangfan. In fact, it was fellow practitioners who paid for the previous "medical checkups," and the glucose infusions out of their own pockets. When the forced labour camp failed to extort any money from Ms. Yuan's husband, they gave up and sent her to a hospital. But they did not dare to let her family know the actual result of the examination. They simply hurried her family to pick her up after they received the report of the medical exam.

On December 9, 2002, Ms. Yuan's family brought her home. On the third month after the release, Shibalihe Female Forced Labour Camp sent its staff to check on her. They actually wanted to know if she had recovered her health. If so, they would abduct her to the forced labour camp again because, even when Ms. Yuan was close to death, they refused to release her unconditionally. Instead, they simply put her on a three-month medical parole. Ms. Yuan remained paralysed and stayed in bed after she was brought home. She could not eat or sleep, and suffered from great pain. Under the care of her mother, younger sister and many fellow practitioners, Ms. Yuan struggled for her life for a little over 6 months. She finally passed away on the night of September 8, 2003.

The above are only facts of persecution that her fellow practitioners had personally witnessed. We all know that Ms. Yuan Xiangfan suffered a lot more than these tortures. She was tortured to death by Jiang Zemin and his accomplices. The Shibalihe Female Forced Labour Camp and many others who had persecuted Ms. Yuan will eventually be held for their legal responsibility and be brought to justice.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/21/62964.html