Persecution Renders Young Woman Paralyzed from the Waist Down (Photo)

I was born in a peasant family, but I became an excellent student when I was studying at the Nursing Class of the Advanced Medical School of Changchun City, Jilin Province. After graduation, I landed a job at the Dehui City People's Hospital.

During my school years in Changchun, I began to practise Falun Gong. In July 1999, Jiang Zemin launched the brutal persecution against Falun Gong. On November 4, 2001, after an informer reported a group of us, the Zhenxing Police Station arrested us. The police officers said plainly, "Yes, we are doing this for the sake of money. For every Falun Gong practitioner we arrest, we'll get 500 Yuan [equivalent to the average monthly salary in China]. We'll go to a restaurant to celebrate as soon as we send you away." That night, we were sent to a detention centre and interrogated. Because I did not cooperate with them, officer Ge Xuquan beat me severely. He knocked me down several times, and then grabbed my hair, pulled me up and continued to beat me. There were bruises all over my body. Then he wanted to handcuff me but couldn't find his handcuffs, so he forcefully twisted my arms behind my back. Later I was sent to the Detention Centre of Dehui City, and they imprisoned me there for forty days. After I was released, I returned to Dehui City People's Hospital for work. As soon as I arrived, however, the Dean of the hospital, Fan Changsheng, told me, "You can go home now, and you will not be paid." His only reason for laying me off was that I continued to practise Falun Gong.

On April 10, 2004, 36 police officers surrounded the building that I lived in, and some of them attempted to break in. To avoid being arrested and persecuted again, I was forced to jump down from the fifth floor. I suffered a compression fracture in my back and my legs suffered comminuted fractures. Normally in cases of such severe injury, the patient is moved to a stretcher and sent to the hospital immediately to avoid nerve damage. However, two police officers pulled me to my feet and forced me to walk, which promptly caused the fractured bones to stick into the flesh and, as a result, damage the nerves in my back and legs. According to the diagnosis from the Dehui City People's Hospital, I would be permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Despite the diagnosis, the authorities at the Political Security Office of Dehui City sent me to the forced labour camp hospital in Changchun for further persecution. The medical staff there handcuffed both of my hands to the bed and started an IV. On the eighteenth day, I became extremely weak, and I was in critical condition. Afraid of being held responsible, the authorities at the Dehui Political Security Office reluctantly decided to send me home. Before they escorted me home, they tried to persuade my father to sign a "Guarantee Statement" [A statement to declare that he or she is remorseful for practising Falun Gong and guarantees not to practise Falun Gong again, not to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and never again associate with any Falun Dafa practitioners.] They deceived my father by saying that if he signed the statement, they would give him a release certificate once they sent me home. My father believed them, so he signed the paper. But after I was sent home, they gave my father a medical parole form instead. They also told my parents that I only broke my legs. When my parents saw that I was paralyzed, they angrily questioned the police, who had no explanation.

When the police van arrived at my village, about three dozen villagers came to see me. Seeing my emaciated state and paralysis, they were outraged. My next-door neighbour noticed that on the four-hour trip home, I had been lying down merely on a slab of cracked wooden board, with only a bed sheet beneath me. She said angrily, "Even just laying a quilt on it would have been helpful. The police officers aren't treating us like human beings!"

The van continued on to the Detention Centre of Dehui again. Awaiting me there were the head of the detention centre Liu Yuhu, "instructors" Wang Renbiao and Liu Chunxia, a prison doctor named Li Yazhou, and three inmates. The assistant head of the Political Security Office Zhang Qingchun walked up to tell me that he was from Chalukou Township. I recalled that it was him that had followed my fellow practitioners and me in the Chalukou Township.

On the fifteenth day after I returned home, four officers from the Political Security Office of Dehui City again came to my village to pick me up for interrogation. After word got around that the police had come again, my neighbours all came to my house, worried that I would be further persecuted. Afraid of their crimes being exposed, however, the police officers shut the door and blocked any of the villagers from entering our house. In addition, they broke into my brother's room without showing a search warrant. One neighbour said angrily, "The policemen have lost their minds. The girl was persecuted to this extent, yet still they won't leave her alone." Because of the way the policemen treated me, in addition to my very weak health, my body twitched and I could hardly breathe. When I regained consciousness as a result of the neighbours' help, the policemen had all disappeared.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/5/29/75906.html