Falun Dafa Practitioner Ms. Wei Hongying From Qinhuangdao City Dies as Result of the Persecution

Falun Dafa practitioner Ms. Wei Hongying from Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province went to Beijing to appeal for the third time in July 2000. She was abducted and sent to the No. 2 Detention Centre in Qinhuangdao City, where she was tortured until she was on the brink of death. She passed away in August 2002 after she was released.

Ms. Wei Hongying, 56 years old, lived at No. 24, Building 16, Division 2 in Tiexinli, Qinhuangdao City. She was a retired worker at Qinhuangdao Knitting Factory. She started practicing Falun Gong in 1995. Her heart disease was cured, and she became very energetic and healthy after practicing Falun Gong. Ms. Wei's temper also improved and her family grew closer.

In early September 1999, she went to Beijing to peacefully appeal for a stop to the persecution of Falun Gong. Police from Qinhuangdao arrested her and sent her back.

On December 30, 1999, she escaped from the surveillance of family members and the blocking off from the police, took a bus to the Beidaihe Train Station and went to Tiananmen Square to validate Falun Dafa. Police from north Qinhuangdao City abducted her and sent her to the No. 1 Detention Centre in Qinhuangdao City for one month, during which time she was tortured severely. The perpetrators released her after extorting money from her family.

After she returned home, she thought she should help more practitioners to step forward and to speak up for Falun Dafa. She discussed this with fellow practitioners and convinced them to step forward.

In July 2000 she went to Beijing for the third time to appeal. The police and perpetrators from Qinhuangdao City "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.] sent her to the No. 2 Detention Centre in Qinhuangdao City, where she was interrogated, beaten, tortured and starved. Ms. Wei held a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Seventeen days into the hunger strike, the guards force-fed her. They pried her mouth open with bamboo sticks and force-fed her concentrated salt water. They scratched and bruised her mouth in the process. They also forced her to drink dirty wash water, which caused intestinal problems that nearly killed her. The perpetrators then sentenced her to two years of forced labour, but the labour camp refused to take her. The perpetrators were afraid she would die in the detention centre and sent her home.

Wei Hongying didn't recover from the torture, and often suffered shortness of breath and swelling of her body. In spite of her condition, perpetrators from the street committee, her work unit and from the police station often monitored, harassed and threatened her. Furthermore, they extorted nearly 10,000 Yuan from her family, which plunged her family into a very difficult financial situation. Her family was deceived by former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and his followers' propaganda and resented Falun Gong.

A hospital examination revealed later that Wei Hongying had internal injuries and blood poisoning as a result of being force-fed salt water and dirty water, which eventually led to leukaemia. Wei Hongying died in August 2002. Before she passed away, she asked her family not to resent Falun Gong, because certain police officers and Jiang's group are the ones who deprived her of her life.