Woman Dafa Practitioner: "The Brutal Force Feeding and other Tortures I Suffered in Harbin Criminal Department and Wanjia Hospital"

On April 19, 2002, over seven hundred police officers from the Harbin Anti-riot Team came to Shuangcheng City, Heilongjiang Province. Along with police from the "610 Office" [an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems] of Shuangcheng, they carried out a large-scale arrest of Falun Gong practitioners. During that time I was forced to leave home and move from place to place in order to avoid persecution. However, I was arrested later and tortured at the Seventh Division of the Harbin Criminal Department (located in Yaziquan). Afterwards I was deceived into going to the Wanjia Hospital, where I was held for a total of four months and five days and suffered inhuman torture.

Since the day I was arrested, I had refused to eat and drink in order to protest the illegal detention. No one paid any attention for the first seven days. Instead, the police incited the criminal inmates to beat me and insult me, not let me use the toilet and not let me sleep. Later, seeing me in a severely weakened condition, the police sent me to the hospital where I was forcefully injected with a drug that disrupted my mental faculties. They also carried out force-feeding. One official in charge of the Falun Gong issue said, "We want you to live a miserable life." The personnel in charge of torturing us included officer Wang (male, over sixty years old), officer Song (female, over fifty years old), and the president of the Wanjia Hospital, Song Zhaohui. Over ten guards and five or six inmates, including inmate Xu Dagang (male, over forty years old), assisted the abovementioned officials in the persecution. Officer Wang said to me, "So you're not eating. OK, this is how we deal with you: force-feed! We don't care if you die from force-feeding. You know that many people have died from force-feeding. But they die in vain. No one cares!"

During one brutal force-feeding session, they constrained me on a long, rough wooden bench. Inmate Qiao Li pulled my hair forcefully so that my head was forced down to one end of the bench (my neck was right on the edge of the bench). One person tightly held my ears to prevent me from moving. Jia Hongliang, who weighs over 178 pounds, sat on my stomach. Others held my legs and arms, with my ankles were just off the edge of the other end of the bench. They held my body tightly so that I could not move at all. I had trouble breathing and felt pain all over. It was truly unbearable. They then forcefully opened my mouth with a mouth-opening device. As a result, my lips were cut and my teeth became loose. At one point, the device hit my upper palate, causing severe bleeding. They then inserted a tube the width of a finger down into my throat all the way to my stomach. One end of the tube was connected to a funnel. One person who stood on the table poured food into the funnel, which caused a vomit reflex, and I repeatedly threw up. They fed me corn paste and concentrated salty water, causing me to vomit a mixture of the solution and blood. My hair and face were covered with food and I fainted several times. They also pinched and beat me during the force-feeding. Afterwards, I was extremely thirsty. After force-feeding, they would grab me by my arms and carry me to the cell and throw me on the bed. Often times I would end up fainting even before I hit the bed in my cell.

I was force-fed like this twice every day. With every force-feeding session I lost more and more hair due to the torture, and I became almost completely bald. My thighs, hands and chest were black and blue from the numerous torture sessions. They had force-fed me through the stomach tube over forty times. Later, they changed to a tube inserted through my nose to my stomach. My throat was damaged and I suffered from a long-term lung infection. They beat me and slapped me continuously. They slapped my ear with a fly swatter (three iron wires twisted together) and poked my mouth with a broom, while striking me on my chest and armpits. They also taped my mouth shut so that I couldn't make any noise during the savage torture sessions.

After all of the brutal torture I suffered, my weight dropped precariously and I became almost unrecognizable to those who used to know me.

Several practitioners, who were arrested at the same time as I, could not sustain the torture and started taking food. But they were still sentenced to ten years in prison. Eventually I was diagnosed as having late stage tuberculosis. They thought that I would die soon, so official Song sent me home. My second son could not recognize me due to my weight loss and change in appearance. Even though I was in such terrible physical condition, the authorities still tried to force my family to sign documents promising never to allow me to practise Falun Gong. My husband righteously said, "Why should I sign? I do not even know whether she will live! What did she do wrong? She only practises Falun Gong!" The perpetrators then left.

After being home, I did not take any medicine or nutritional supplements. Instead, I only studied the teachings of Falun Dafa, did the exercises and followed the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance." I completely recovered after one month. My younger sister said, "Wow! You recovered so fast. Falun Gong is truly wonderful!"

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/3/14/69941.html