Two Elderly Falun Dafa Practitioners from Hunan Province Have Recently Died from the Persecution

Ms. Lu Yongzhen from Jin City, Hunan Province, Died from Persecution in October, 2004

Ms. Lu Yongzhen, 63, was a Falun Dafa practitioner employed by the Jin City Paint Factory in Changde, Hunan Province. She went to Beijing twice to peacefully appeal for Falun Gong and was twice sentenced to forced labour and cruelly beaten numerous times. She died from the persecution on October 8, 2004.

On February 25, 2000, Ms. Lu went to Beijing to appeal for the first time. She was tied up and brutally beaten while being held at the detention centre for over nine months. On December 27, 2000, Ms. Lu went to Beijing again and was arrested and taken back to Jin City. The same night that she was taken back to the detention centre in Jin City, the police officers tied her up and physically abused her for over six hours. The officers even stepped on her head with their feet. The marks left by the ropes were clearly visible on her body for many days afterwards.

On March 25, 2001, Ms. Lu and fifteen other Falun Gong students were placed on a big truck. Eleven police vehicles made up the motorcade, with large signs reading, "disruption of social order," hung on the practitioners' necks. The Falun Gong students were humiliated by inmates convicted of criminal offenses. On April 2, Lu Yongzhen was sentenced to one year of forced labour and was sent to the Baimalong Forced Labour Camp in Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province.

On the evening of March 26, 2003, the police ransacked Ms. Lu's home and abducted her. She was not released for over a month. On June 7, 2003, she was again arrested. In July 2003, Lu Yongzhen was sentenced to one and a half years of forced labour. The labour camp authorities refused to accept her due to a high blood pressure reading of over 200.

The police, nevertheless, still did not release Ms. Lu, and instead took her to the detention centre. She was released on December 28, only after the police had successfully extorted 1,000 yuan from her for so-called living expenses. As a result of the abuse at the hands of the police, Ms. Lu suffered from severe injury to her head. After she exposed the brutal persecution she had experienced over the past six months, officials at the Xiangyang Street Neighborhood Administration Office called her in and asked her why she told about her experiences and reported then over the Internet. Lu Yongzhen told them, " The whole world needs to know of your brutality."

Ms. Lu suffered from daily harassment by the authorities until October 8, 2004, when she finally died from the persecution.

Zhang Lingwu from Jin City, Hunan, Died from Persecution in January, 2005

Mr. Zhang Lingwu, 60, was a Falun Dafa practitioner from Jin City, Hunan Province. On February 25, 2004, the police ransacked his home and took him into custody. He was brutally beaten the same night and was subsequently sentenced to one and a half years of forced labour. Mr. Zhang was released after going on a hunger strike.

Mr. Zhang passed away on January 4, 2005. So far, there are four Falun Gong practitioners who have died from the persecution in the Jin City area.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/1/28/94393.html