A Shanxi Province Falun Dafa Practitioner Tortured to Death at the Dongcheng Detention Centre in Beijing in 2001

A Falun Dafa practitioner from Shanxi Province, in his 50s, and a woman practitioner named Cheng Zhuanyu went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong in early March 2001. They were arrested. The male practitioner was detained and later tortured to death in Room 9, Floor 1 of the Dongcheng Detention Centre in Beijing.

The guards at the Dongcheng Detention Centre claimed the practitioner hung himself from a shower head. Detention centre officials watch practitioners' every move. Surveillance monitors are installed inside the practitioners' rooms. The practitioners are also followed when they use the toilet or take a shower. Dafa practitioners are completely deprived of personal freedom. Besides, how can a shower head withstand the weight of a grown man of more than 120 pounds? The guards are clearly trying to evade responsibility. After his death, the detention centre guards told practitioners holding a protest hunger strike, "If you die, you'll only become an unidentified corpse."

This practitioner came from Shanxi Province. His last name is probably Wang. There are about 20 households living in his village. They live in earthen caves.

The other Dafa practitioner, Cheng Zhuanyu, was sentenced to forced labour in April 2001. She was sent to the Daxing District Labour Reeducation Dispatch Division near Tuanhe, Beijing. She was tortured with so-called "military drill" and was only permitted ten minutes to eat and three minutes for a toilet break. The guards there had no facial expressions and forbade practitioners to speak. Practitioners were forced to say "report" whenever they entered a room, whether or not someone was present. When the practitioners ate, they had to kneel on the floor and shout, "The guards are wonderful!" Instead, the practitioners shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" and refused to kneel, and the guards savagely beat them. The guards even withheld all of the regular inmates' meals to force them to verbally and physically assault practitioners.

In the summer, practitioners were forced to stand under the scorching sun during so-called "military training." Many of them became unconscious from dehydration. The lawless officials forced the practitioners to squat on the ground with their elbows on their thighs and to stay in this posture for a whole day. This soon causes excruciating pain. Sweat dripped from the practitioners' arms to their thighs. Some practitioners' thighs swelled, turned red and ulcerated. When they were sent to the hospital, the doctor said he had never seen such conditions before.

The guards at the Dispatch Division turned people into soulless robots. After a period of "group drill" they would separate the sick practitioners from the healthy ones into different groups, detain them in different places and continue to persecute them.

Cheng Zhuanyu was devastated when she learned that the fellow practitioner with whom she went to Beijing was tortured to death. She nearly suffered a nervous breakdown.

Ms. Cheng was later sent to Xinan Labour Camp in Beijing. Wang Zhaofeng, head of Division 7, often ridiculed Cheng Zhuanyu and made fun of her poor peasant background. She quoted Cheng Zhuanyu's conversation during a phone call to her husband in front of others and made fun of the practitioner. Wang coerced Cheng Zhuanyu to "reform¹". Cheng Zhuanyu became delirious and had a blank look in her eyes.

Note

1. "Reform or Transform" Implementation of brainwashing and torture in order to force a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong. (Variations: "reform", "transform", "reformed", "reforming", "transformed", "transforming", and "transformation")

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/6/26/131414.html