Abuse in a Mental Hospital: The Experience of 52 Year Old Dafa Practitioner Ms. Liu Hongzhen from Zhenjiang City

My name is Liu Hongzhen and I am 52 years old. I live in Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province. I began practising Falun Dafa in May 1997 and have benefited both physically and mentally.

In July 1999, Jiang started to persecute Dafa. With his policy, "Defame them, bankrupt them financially and destroy them physically," and "All murders [of practitioners] are to be counted as suicides," Falun Gong practitioners around the nation have suffered brutal persecution. I was incarcerated at the Zhenjiang City Detention Centre seven times. During the detention, the guards handcuffed and shackled me and bound me to a board for three days and three nights. They knocked out two of my teeth and they sent me to a mental hospital where I was tortured for two months.

In January 2001, five days before the Chinese New Year, a group of police officers broke into my home and dragged me by my heels with my head on the ground, down six flights of stairs. They sent me to a brainwashing class set up in a police cadet school. When I walked out of the classroom, Shao Xiangrong, head of Jingkou District's "610 Office," (1) struck me to the ground, tearing my clothes and beat me until my body turned black and blue. I could not raise my left arm for many days after the beating. He stopped beating me only when other Dafa practitioners strongly protested. The authorities then locked me in another classroom. In the evening, to intimidate the other practitioners, they announced in front of all other the Dafa practitioners that I would be sent to a detention centre. I was held at the detention centre for three months.

One evening, the police took me from the detention centre to the police department, where my family was present. Ma Yugen, head of another "610 Office," said I would be immediately released if I said, "I give up Falun Gong practice." He also said this evening was my last chance, and if I would not relent I would be sent to a forced labour camp. Right away I told him, "I am a Dafa practitioner and I will persist until the end!" Seeing that their threats yielded no results, they sent me back to the detention centre.

On April 4, several police officers came to the centre and drove me to a mental hospital, with me wearing the detention centre uniform. Zhao Fumin, the head of the police station, Cheng Tianming, a local police officer, and Zhu Xianguang, the driver, were in the car with me. Upon arrival at the hospital I saw Shao Xiangrong from the Jingkou District National Security Bureau and several others waiting there. I asked my husband about this later. I found out that they had called my husband and my two sisters and asked them to appear at the police station the day before, where Zhang Zhiqiang from the "610 Office" was also present. They lied to my family and said they would release me after confirming the status of my mental health at a hospital. They also threatened my family, saying if they didn't agree to the plan, they would send me to a forced labour camp. My family asked who was going to take me to the hospital, and they responded, "Pay us 2,000 Yuan (2) and keep your mouth shut." My husband refused to pay, but my sister thought the "mental exam" was going to be just a formality, and if she complied I would be spared forced labour; therefore my sister paid them 2,000 Yuan.

The doors and windows of the hospital were shut and the place looked terrifying. The first night, a sharp pain awoke me. When I looked, I saw a nurse giving me an injection. I confronted her, and she said she was giving me sedatives. I wondered why they gave sedatives to a sleeping person. Around 8:00 a.m. the next day, I was called to the nurse's office where there were many people inside. They started to give me large doses of injections and pills and threatened that if I didn't cooperate they would tie me up and shock me with electric batons. A doctor surnamed Fang said I had "illnesses resulting from Falun Gong practice" and I would be "cured" if I stopped practising Falun Gong.

My husband went to the mental hospital and pointed out assertively that I didn't have any mental illness and as my family member, he had the right to refuse treatment for me. The hospital staff, though, said that the police had ordered everything and they had no control over it. My husband then went to the Jingkou District Police Department to reason with the police, and was told, "She is being cared for by the hospital, and therefore the doctors are in charge of deciding her medication and dosage. We know nothing about medicine and we don't intervene in these issues." My husband then realized that the police department and the hospital were conspiring to persecute me. A hospital worker told me the police department was strictly monitoring me, to see whether other Dafa practitioners came to visit me.

Within one week after I received forced injections I started to have nosebleeds, swollen legs, irritable moods, depression, drowsiness and other abnormal conditions. Nevertheless, the doctors continued to use drugs on me and wrote, "Liu Hongzhen is in serious condition and must be treated with medications" on a blackboard in the doctor's office. My husband was extremely anxious. He kept asking, "Who caused all this? What kind of world is this?"

After two months of detention at the mental hospital, my condition worsened drastically. My husband and two sisters paid numerous visits to the police department. Under their pressure, the police allowed me to leave the hospital. When I left, my husband asked for my diagnosis, treatment summary and medical records. The hospital was unable to produce any of these documents! Instead of sending me home, however, the perpetrators locked me in a dark room at my work unit and watched me. I kept getting weaker. Two months later, the police sent me to a forced labour camp, supposedly for the next two years. The labour camp refused to accept me due to my shaky condition and I was sent back to the detention centre. In order to protest the persecution, I started a hunger strike. Eight perpetrators, five of whom were inmates, pinned me to the floor and force-fed me. They knocked out another two of my teeth in the process. I was at the brink of death.

My husband learned of my experience and soon fell ill from anguish. My once happy family was falling apart because of the persecution.

Prior to writing this article, I was detained for one month and have just recently regained my freedom. I know there are countless other Dafa practitioners who have similar persecution experiences. I hope that kind-hearted people will join us in resisting this human rights violation and persecution of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance!

(1) The "610 Office" is 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.

(2) Yuan is the Chinese currency; 500 Yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/5/9/74225.html