Jinan City Practitioner Ms. Tong Ruilian Died of Torture-Induced Illnesses in 2001

Tong Ruilian was a 62 year old lady working at the Energy Research Institute of Jinan Academy of Science in Shandong Province. She began to practise Falun Gong in March 1999. Before that, she suffered from various diseases and could no longer work. She often felt annoyed because of her illnesses. However, just several months into her practice of Falun Gong, all her illnesses went away. She was also able to look at her own faults whenever there was a conflict, and her family became harmonious.

After the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20, 1999, the Jinan Academy of Science and the Keyuanlu Police Station had all practitioners, including Tong Ruilian, register with them. They also interrogated practitioners and attempted to force them to write pledges promising not to practise Falun Gong. In October 1999, Tong went to Beijing to appeal, but she was arrested as soon as she arrived. She was taken back to her local area. Keyuanlu Police Station fined her 5,000 yuan.

Since she refused to write pledges renouncing her practice of Falun Gong, the police did not allow her to go home. Instead, they jailed her in a very small, dark and cold room in the Sangle Solar Energy Company affiliated with the Energy Research Institute. It was very cold then and the temperature was many degrees below zero. She was locked in the room and watched over by some designated person. Party Secretary of the Energy Research Institute, Wang Chungong, instructed the guard watching her not to allow her family to come visit her. Even during the Chinese Spring Festival of 2000, she was still kept in that room. Her family had to deliver food to her every day. Thus she was held for over four months from November 1999 to March 2000.

In July 2000, Tong practised the Falun Gong exercises openly in a park and was thus arrested. Keyuanlu Police Station sent her and six other practitioners to Zhangzhuang Detention Centre, where they were forced to do hard labour. Fifteen days later, they were transferred to a rest house at the Jinan Academy of Science, where they were forced to go through brainwashing for 17 days.

In October 2000, Tong went to Beijing again and was arrested and sent back to Keyuanlu Police Station. After suffering torture there for 7 or 8 days, she was sent to a detention centre where she was detained for 15 days. Then she was transferred to Liuchangshan Detention Centre. While in detention there, her old illnesses recurred due to the torture. Liuchangshan Detention Centre did not want to keep her, fearing she might die there, so they sent her to Guodian Brainwashing Centre. Because Tong refused to give up her belief in Falun Gong, she was later sentenced to three years of 're-education through labour' and sent to the Wangcun Labour Camp. But because of her extremely poor health, the labour camp refused to accept her. So the police then took her to the Labour Camp Bureau hospital. After being detained at the hospital for about 5 or 6 months, her health deteriorated rapidly. She could not even take care of herself. Later the hospital instructed her family to pick her up.

After her release, she was hospitalized several times. The medical expenses amounted to 100,000 yuan. The Energy Research Institute was supposed to cover her health care costs. However, it did not reimburse a penny of her medical expenses, nor did it give her any of the pension she was entitled to. In fact, shortly before her death, the leader of the Energy Research Institute came to her home, saying, "As long as you say you will not practise, we will pay for your medical expenses right away." But she simply refused to give up her belief in Falun Gong. Several days later she passed away.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/3/30/71237.html