Additional Information on the Death of Practitioner Ms. Xiao Shufen from Heilongjiang Province

Ms. Xiao Shufen, 66, is a practitioner in Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province. She was detained in the Heilongjiang Women's Prison in Harbin for years and died from the persecution on June 8th, 2006.

1. Suffering persecution for speaking to people about the facts of Falun Dafa

Since July 20th, 1999 when Jiang Zemin's regime and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Gong, Xiao Shufen had been to Beijing to appeal for Dafa many times. She often spoke to people about the facts of Falun Dafa and therefore was arrested six times.

On Chinese New Year of 2001, Xiao Shufen visited her son's home. In order to help local people to know the truth of Falun Gong, she wrote the words "Falun Dafa is good" on some small flags and gave them to local practitioners for distribution. When a couple of older practitioners were sticking the flags along the road, they were arrested, which caused Xiao Shufen to be arrested too. Xiao Shufen used to be tall and heavy. When she was released from the detention centre, she was much thinner.

At the end of 2002, when Xiao Shufen was posting a sticker reading "Falun Dafa is good" at the No.2 People's Hospital of Mudanjiang City, she was reported to the police and arrested. In the Mudanjiang Police Department, she suffered brutal torture for seven days and seven nights. She was tied to the tiger bench¹. The guards dumped hot chilli oil into her mouth and covered her head with a plastic bag, which almost choked her to death. They pulled her teeth and squeezed her fingernails with pliers. For seven days and seven nights, she was not allowed to sleep and was constantly tortured. She was tortured to the edge of the death. At that time, there was another fellow practitioner, Li Hongmin, who suffered similar torture and subsequently died from it.

Xiao Shufen, Xu Fuzhi and several other practitioners were secretly sentenced to heavy prison terms and were sent to Heilongjiang Women's Prison in Harbin City in June 2003. The long-term persecution and torture caused Xiao Shufen to suffer multiple physical symptoms. She was then rejected by the prison and sent back to Mudanjiang City. Although she was qualified to be bailed out for medical treatment, Li Changqing, and others in the 610 Office², refused to release her. They conspired with the head of the detention centre, Yu Chenglong, and put Xiao Shufen and other practitioners in severe conditions in a detention centre for several months. Later they changed Xiao Shufen's age to below 60 and sent her to Harbin Women's Prison again.

2. Suffering persecution and death in the prison

In Harbin Women's Prison, criminals were used to monitor and control Dafa practitioners. Practitioners were not allowed to talk to each other and were followed even when going to the toilet. Sometimes drugs were mixed into the rice. Practitioners would feel very dry in the mouth and feel numb after eating such rice.

In July 2005, Harbin Women's Prison trained more than 70 people to work on so-called "transformation³". They set up the goal to "transform everyone and with no exception." The division head Liu Zhiqiang said, "transform by any means."

In the prison ward for sick people, the third floor was specially used for brainwashing. The prison guards covered all the windows and doors with newspaper and no one was allowed to enter. In each room, there was one "collaborator⁴" and four or five prisoners who were arranged to brainwash the practitioner. They forced the practitioner to watch pornographic videos and beat the practitioner if they refused to watch. The practitioner was not allowed to sleep. Some prisoners wrote so-called "transformation" papers and forced the practitioner to fingerprint them. Some even beat the practitioners until they lost consciousness and put their fingerprint on the pre-written papers. They would get a reward if they brainwashed a practitioner.

On February 19th, 2005, over 60-year-old Ms. Xiao Shufen, who had the symptom of high blood pressure and was detained on the fourth floor for sick people, was forcefully sent to the third floor. The Zhang Xiaoying ordered the prisoners to cover her with a cotton bed cover and drag her to the third floor. They hurt her lower back on the stairs. They tried to force her to curse Dafa. After she refused, they even choked her.

When the guard Zhang Xiaoying beat Wang Aifang, Xiao Shufen said, "No beating! It is against law." They tied her up and she was tied to a bed for nearly 20 days. The guards inserted a tube through her nose and force-fed her.

The prison authorities used all kinds of cruel methods to brainwash practitioners. When the first stage of brainwashing just ended and the practitioners were still recovering from their wounds, the second stage of the brainwashing started. Since the end of March 2006, the evil head of the prison Liu Zhiqiang dispatched about 80 hatchet men - almost all of them "criminal prisoners" that he trained to torture practitioners in attempts to "transform" them.

On May 28th, 2006, Xiao Shufen's children visited their mother in the prison. They never expected to receive the bad news on June 8th that her mother was dead.

Xiao Shufen's body was cremated recently. Her ashes were taken to Mudanjiang City and stored in No. 1005, the 7th row, No.3 Memory Hall, Mudanjiang Funeral Parlour.

Phone number of Harbin Women's Prison:86-451-86639059, 86-451-86639069

Note

1. "Tiger Bench": Prisoners are forced to sit on a small iron bench that is approximately 20 cm (6 inches) tall with their knees tied together. With their hands tied behind their backs or sometimes placed on their knees, they are forced to sit straight up and look straight ahead without movement for long periods of time.

2. "The 610 office" is 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.

3. "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")

4. "Collaborators": Former practitioners who have turned against Falun Gong under brainwashing and torture. They are then made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/6/22/131053.html