Ms. Du Jinglan Dies as a Result of Torture at the Heilongjiang Province Women's Prison

Falun Dafa practitioner Ms. Du Jinglan from Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province was tortured in Heilongjiang Province Women's Prison for more than two years. She died on October 27th, 2005 (see http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/11/3/66481.html).

Ms. Du Jinglan, 55 years old, was an employee of the Daowai District Candy Factory in Harbin City. After she began practising Falun Dafa, her moral character improved and her illnesses disappeared. She went to Beijing to appeal three times after the persecution began, and was arrested twice.

Ms. Du was sentenced to one year of forced labour after being “illegally arrested ¹” at the beginning of 2001. She was tortured in the Wanjia Labour Camp. She was arrested again in August 2002, and detained at the Heilongjiang Province River Transportation Bureau Detention Centre. Although she was suffering from high blood pressure, she was nevertheless beaten by the guards for telling the facts of Falun Dafa to them. She started a hunger strike to protest the persecution, but the guards tortured her with the "Hanging Up in the Air” method²”for three whole days, disregarding the fact that she could have died at any moment from her high blood pressure condition. The guards beat her brutally. The torture caused open wounds on her wrists with the bone exposed. She was in extreme pain.

In April 2003, Ms. Du was sentenced to seven years in prison, and was taken to Heilongjiang Province Women's Prison where she was inhumanely tortured. She was deprived of the right to sleep at night and was tortured during the day. She was handcuffed to the heating pipes, hung up and beaten with wooden sticks, and was brutally dragged around by other prisoners. She went on a hunger strike to protest the abuse. Her blood pressure was 250 mm Hg, but she was still tortured. Once, her face and head were beaten until they became deformed after she was caught reading Teacher Li's new articles.

After suffering long-term, inhumane torture, Ms. Du was close to death on October 23rd, 2005. She was taken to the Second Hospital of the Medical University, but the Prison Administration refused to pay a penny, forcing her family to pay the bill. Her family was very poor, and had to borrow money to have her treated. The Deputy Ward Head Zhang also tried to force her family to pay for the taxi and meals of the guards, claiming that it was following regulations. Ms. Du's family asked to see the written rules. They could not produce the alleged rules, and so they were unable to extort any more money from the family. Zhang threatened the family, saying, "If you refuse to cooperate with us, we will take her back to the prison." That night, Ms. Du was handcuffed to the bed while unconscious, despite her family's pleas to have the handcuffs removed. They dared to torture a dying woman even with so many witnesses.

Ms. Du Jinglan died three days later, on October 27th, 2005 at 3:30 a.m. Her family members found fresh injury marks on her face while in the hospital. The guards claimed that they were caused by her falling out of bed. The guards had repeatedly stopped her family members from talking to her, fearing she would expose their evil deeds. Ms. Du Jinglan's body was cremated on October 29th, under strict police monitoring.

In addition, Ms. Du Jinglan's brother-in-law, who is not a Falun Dafa practitioner, was sentenced to one year in prison because he spoke out about his sister-in-law's abuse. He was beaten by other prisoners and his hair turned white due to the severe mental and physical trauma.

Note

1. “Illegally arrested”: Contrary to what former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who initiated the persecution, and the Chinese Communist Party would like the world to believe, practising Falun Gong is NOT illegal in China. Although the Public Security Department issued an unconstitutional set of restraints on the practice at the onset of the persecution in 1999, no laws have been passed by the only legislative body in China, the People's Congress, banning Falun Gong or granting the police the authority to arrest Falun Gong practitioners for practising the exercises or distributing leaflets.

2. There are two forms of this torture: 1) With both hands cuffed behind the back and only the toes touching the ground, one is hung up by a rope that is tied to the metal window frames; 2) One hand of a practitioner is cuffed to one bunk bed and the other hand to another bed. The two beds are then pulled in opposite directions. One feels extreme pain as the body is pulled. See illustration on http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/11/17/54624.html.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/11/12/114214.html