An Account of the Persecution My Wife and I Suffered and How She Was Tortured To Death

By Zhang Qizhen, a Practitioner from Hebei Province

An Xiukun

My name is Zhang Qizhen and I am fifty-five years old. My wife An Xiukun was born in 1951. She became a Party member in 1970. She was an excellent teacher, and worked at Hengshui City Central Street Elementary School in Hebei Province. In September of 1997, we both were fortunate enough to attain Dafa, and we benefitted enormously both physically and mentally.

My wife went to Beijing four times to appeal. Each time she was arrested, detained, and tortured. In June of 2000, the director of Lubei Detention Centre, Geng Zhanwu, and the police brutally force-fed her. She was rendered comatose. When intravenous infusion failed to revive her, she was sent to the hospital on June 7. She died on June 11 at age of forty-nine.

Geng Zhanwu abuses his power, disregards the law instead of enforcing the law, and he extorts confession by torture. His inhuman treatment of Falun Gong practitioners is the main cause of An Xiukun's death. The following are some specific details of the torture she suffered:

In late October of 1999, the principal at the Central Street Elementary School, Li Lanjiang, set up a private tribunal and illegally detained my wife for sixteen days. Another two practitioners Wu Xinmei and Yan Shujun were also detained. They were forced to attend brainwashing classes during the day and write statements denouncing Dafa at night. Late in November of 1999, An Xiukun went to appeal in Beijing and was taken to the Tiananmen Police Station. She was taken back by Li Lanjiang later. On November 30 two people from Renmin Road Police Station took her to the Lubei Detention Centre, where she was detained for one month. She had to pay 20 Yuan each day, totaling 600 Yuan as living expense.

In May of 2000, the director of Taocheng District Education Bureau, Ma Bingshan, together with deputy director Zhang Guoliang, blatantly disregarded the law and secretly detained and interrogated Dafa practitioners. An Xiukun and Wu Xinmei were detained upstairs, and watched by many guards. They were not allowed to go home, and were only released after their families' strong request. Because of her belief in "Truth, Compassion and Tolerance," An Xiukun's school penalized her for two years: she was forced to pay a 2,800 Yuan fine, her salary was not paid for several months and she was only given 280 Yuan for living expense. After her appeal to the school officials against the unjustifiable treatment failed, she once again went to appeal in Beijing on May 21. Later she was taken back and sent to the detention centre on the 24th.

When I brought her the bed quilt that night, she told me, "We were quite spirited at the time and appealed according to the provisions of the law. But the public security dismissed us as 'looking for trouble.' They are going to detain us for half a month but we refuse to sign the form."

The next day, director Geng Zhanwu forcefully put handcuffs on An Xiukun because she refused to denounce Falun Gong. She was handcuffed for five days and five nights straight.

An Xiukun went on a hunger strike to protest the torture. On the sixth day into her hunger strike, Geng Zhanwu directed Kun Zhongshan and four or five policemen to force-feed her. They pushed her down onto a chair with both legs pressed down and arms forced to the back of the chair. One person pushed her head down forcefully and another pinched her nose. Geng Zhanwu then pried open her mouth with a metal device. They forcefully pushed food into her through a large syringe as fast as they could. The food spewed out from her mouth and nose, suffocating her. Food also went into her airway, causing her to cough violently, coughing out blood.. The torture lasted until the 6th when she fell unconscious, with urinary and fecal incontinence.

On June 2 I went to see her. She looked very thin and weak, and was very unsteady when she walked. After torturing her to this shape, Geng Zhanwu still would not release her. He had An Xiukun brought to the warden's office to write a promise to "give up her belief in Falun Gong and never to practise again." I appealed to Geng Zhanwu to release her so that she could get medical treatment, but he refused.

On the morning of the 6th, An Xiukun remained unconscious and incontinent. Geng Zhanwu had someone at the detention centre give her an intravenous infusion, but that did not make any difference. She was not sent to the department of internal medicine at the city hospital until 10:00 pm that day. At this point Geng Zhanwu still blocked all information about her from getting out, and only informed her family at 11:00 AM the next morning. The physician-in-charge kept saying that An had too much phlegm for some unknown reason. At 7:30 AM on June 11, she passed away in the hospital.

After my wife's death, I tried to appeal to the officials of the Hengshui City municipal party committee, the local government, the National People's Congress, the Women's federation, the Education Committee and the district committee. Nobody cared at all. I went to the hospital and asked for her medical record, but the record was blocked by the security, claiming that it could only be released if I had written authorization from the Public Security Bureau.

The following is the persecution I suffered since July 20th of 1999:

In October of 1999, Zhang Zhifu from the Political and Legal Committee in Hexi Office, Hengshui City (he is now the secretary of Political and Legal Committee in Zhonghua Office, Hengshui City) and two others took me to the hotel on the fourth floor of the office, where I was detained for five days. I was not allowed to go downstairs while they attempted to force me to denounce Falun Gong. I was also forced to pay 300 Yuan (I still have the receipt). In November of 1999, I went to appeal in Beijing and was taken to the Tiananmen Police Station. Later director Wang of the Hengshui City Public Security Bureau from the Beijing Liaison Office took me to his office and handcuffed me to the heating pipe. The deputy director of the Taocheng District Appeal Bureau took all my cash, over 400 Yuan. Later director Wang (female) from Hengshui City's Hexi Office came and took me back to my hometown. I was forced to pay 3,000 Yuan: 1,500 for the Tiananmen Police Station and the other 1,500 was for the transportation expense.

After being brought back to Hengshui City's Hexi Office, I was locked up in a cold room for one night. Next day I was locked up in a cold and dirty garage. Liu Xiujie, the secretary of Political and Legal Committee in Hexi Office, used various means to extort money from me. I was forced to pay 2,900 Yuan (I kept the receipt). On November 30, Chen and Wang (full name not known) from Renmin Road Police Station took me to the detention center, where I was detained for one month. Criminals only needed to pay 5 Yuan per day, and some did not even have to pay at all. But Falun Gong practitioners had to pay 20 Yuan each day. At that time my wife was also detained there.

On June 5, 2000, Li Haitao from the first division of the City Public Security Bureau forcibly took me to the detention center to tell them the source of certain material. I was detained there for three days. Later I was only released because my wife was sent to hospital. The person in charge of my case was Sun Jiancai.

On June 28 my wife's body was cremated. On June 29 Hu and another person from Taocheng Public Security Bureau secretly detained me for three days.

On July 19 I was abducted by the Renmin Road Police Station. On July 20 I was sentenced to three years of forced labour and sent to the Balizhuang Labour Camp in Baoding City, Hebei Province, leaving behind my two sons at home, one of whom is 22 and the other 18. The person responsible for sending me to the labor camp is Li Haitao from the City Public Security Bureau, and Li Yibing from the district division of the public security bureau.

In Balizhuang Labour Camp, I suffered brutal torture:

1. Loud noise: I was locked up in the same room with other Falun Gong practitioners, and we were closely watched by the criminals. From 6:00 AM when we got up until 10:00 PM when we went to bed, the TV was on with the maximum volume. The noise lasted 16 hours a day.
2. Forced to sit on hard bench: we were forced to sit facing the wall and were not allowed to talk to each other. Sometimes this torture would last several months.
3. Forced to stand facing the wall. We were not allowed to talk while standing.
4. Exposure to the sun: during the hottest time in summer, we were forced to line up and run under the scorching sun. Sometimes we had to run several kilometers.
5. Our families were prohibited from visiting us sometimes for as long as half a year.
6. Strictly monitored: we were always followed and constantly monitored. We were not allowed to talk to others, to practise the exercises, to study the Falun Dafa teachings.
7. Slave labour: they forced me, an over fifty year old man, to perform the same hard labour as a young man.
8. Deprivation of sleep: if we refused to denounce Dafa, we would be deprived of sleep for several days straight.

Policeman Li Liang (male, 23 years old. He was very vicious at the time. Now I heard that he has changed a lot after practitioners clarified the truth to him) often tortured practitioners at will after he got drunk. He would practise boxing using my head as a punching bag, punching me and causing my face to bleed and swell. He also tortured other practitioners. Another practitioner, Ma Lin, who is from Baoding City and is forty-two years old, was viciously tortured. His nose was swollen from beatings. Police also used chopsticks to poke at his mouth until there was profuse bleeding, and he was unable to eat for days. They also shocked his mouth with an electric baton. Practitioners who refused to denounce Falun Gong would be tied up on the "death" bed: whereby the victim is cuffed to four corners of a bed board with arms and legs stretched out. A rope is then used to tie and wind round the body. A tape recorder is then turned on to to the maximum volume. The victim is not allowed to close his eyes.

After getting drunk at night, the police officers Liu Qingyong and Li Liang would tie me up and torture me. They struck my face and tied me to the heating pipe and did not allow me to sleep.

It is routine for these police to torture practitioners after they get drunk. Just about every practitioner who refused to be brainwashed suffered their torture. All eleven police from the 1st division except one tied me up, kicked me to the ground, took off my coat (it was winter), tied me up with my arms behind my back using wet nylon ropes encircling my arms. Several people stepped on my back in order to tie me tightly. They then inserted beer bottles in between my arms and my back, raising my arms and shouted: "practise or not?" If I refused to answer, they would continue inserting more bottles. They had inserted as many as six bottles, causing excruciating pain. Even they admitted that it would take half a year to recover from 30 minutes' of such torture. If the torture goes on for more than one hour, the arms would become permanently disabled. I still have marks from the torture that are unlikely to ever heal. They would then beat me up. Policeman Wang Lei would specifically strike my eyes. After he got tired, he took off his coat and continued to beat me. He beat me like this for 30 minutes, and I could hardly see out of my eyes afterwards.

Next day, I told policeman Liu Yongqing that there was something wrong with my eyes. Policeman Zhang Qian responded by shocking me all over with an electric baton for 30 minutes. I have wounds all over my body and still have scars on the scorched parts.

On May 2, 2003, I finally walked out of that hell on earth.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/6/19/77462.html