A Young Woman Endures Severe Torture to Protect Her Fellow Practitioners from Persecution

My name is Li Cong. I live in Xinjian Village, Biangang County, Dehui District, Changchun City, Jilin Province. My father and I have been practising Falun Dafa since 1997. After we started practising Dafa, my father, who had a bad temper before, became softer and kinder. My family also became harmonious.

However, the cruel persecution started in July 1999. My mother was deceived by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda. Because of her worries for the safety of my father and me, she did not want us to practise anymore. Thus, there was a lot of tension in my family since the persecution began.

1. My father relentlessly persecuted and forced to leave home for safety

Since July 1999, policemen often came to our home to harass us. Later they arrested my father and took him to Dehui Detention Centre. They intended to send him to a labour camp. He started a hunger strike that lasted for 50 days, to protest the unlawful detention. He was in a critical condition. The police station and the detention centre shifted responsibilities onto each other. At last, they said to us in front of my father who was in the hospital, "Give us 3000 yuan¹, or we won’t free him!" My family members and relatives tried to argue with them, "He is almost dead. If he really dies, that is because you persecuted him. We will ask you to make compensations." Later, my father was taken home.

My father gradually recovered at home. But the police station, Public Security Bureau and the 610 Office² officials did not stop harassing us. They planned to arrest my father again. My grandma, who was over 80, said to the policemen in a shaking voice, "Don’t take my son away. He is a good person! He did not do anything wrong!"

But the policemen did not stop their threats and harassment. My father was forced to leave home and he started to work in another city. I also left home and started to work in other city. My grandma, my mum and my brother were very sad and worried. My grandma died of sickness on April 30, 2003. I was not with her when she died.

2. Arrested and taken to the Public Security Bureau of Dehui City, suffered torture and beatings

In autumn of 2002, I worked at Jingzi Clothing Factory in Changchun City. As my father was forced to leave home, I asked for leave to go home to help my family with the autumn harvest. After the harvest was finished, when I was on my way to the factory, I visited my aunt who lives in Dehui City. Soon after I entered her home, some people knocked at the door harshly. When my aunt opened the door, six or seven policemen rushed in and asked me to open my suitcase. I refused (in it was a Dafa book and some Dafa materials exposing the persecution). Then they dragged me into a car.

"We got a big one. We will get tens of thousands in reward money," they said in the car. They took me to the Public Security Bureau in Dehui City. They asked me what the password of my suitcase lock was. I did not answer. They broke the lock and opened my suitcase. The materials were taken out. It seemed like they had found some "evidence." Four or five men asked me where the materials came from. One man started to slap me because I did not tell. My face swelled.

They stopped the beating and tried to coerce me to speak. I did not say anything. Another man came and punched me and kicked me. I fell down to the ground. Four or five persons attacked me at once. They stomped on my face and hands, and beat me. I rolled on the ground, writhing in pain. They stopped when they felt tired. By then my face and eyes were swollen. I was in pain all over my body. But I did not betray my fellow practitioners because I understood that if I told the authorities their names, the practitioners would be arrested and persecuted, maybe even to death (at that time hundreds of deaths had already been confirmed).

Following that, a policeman from Hongqi Police Station, who looked to be in his 30s, took me to a room. He slapped me and continued to ask me where the materials came from. I had not done anything against my conscience, so I looked steadily at the policeman. He tried to avoid my eyes and asked me, "Why are you looking at me?" I did not say anything. He continued to beat me until his phone rang. It was a call from his family member. He talked on the phone in a soft voice. I thought, "If I were your family member or your sister, would you still beat me like this?" When he finished the call, he came to ask me again. I did not answer. He did not beat me any more and sent me back to the Public Security Bureau.

In the Bureau they asked me to sign the documents to be detained for 15 days. I did not sign because I had not done anything against the law. The policemen said, "We will detain you even if you don’t sign."

They then sent me to the Dehui City Detention Centre. After the interrogations, I could hardly hear anything clearly. My face was disfigured. My eyes were so swollen I could only see things through a small gap. There were wounds all over my body.

3. Suffered torture on a tiger bench³

The next morning, five or six policemen took me for interrogation. They put handcuffs on me and put me into a car. They covered my head with a black plastic bag and tied the bag at the back. I could hardly breathe. I struggled and shouted, "I cannot breathe!" They said, "Stop shouting or we will dig a hole in the ground and throw you in it!" Later the bag was not as tight and I was able to breathe a little.

The car stopped. Two policemen carried me out of the car and into a room. There was something soft on the ground (maybe for sound insulation). They took the plastic bag off. The room was not big. There was a sofa in it. A tiger bench was put in the centre. They took the handcuffs off. They took off my coat and my sleeveless sweater, leaving me in just a cotton t-shirt. They put me on the tiger bench. An iron rod was put in front of my stomach. My arms were turned round to my back and they buckled them at the back of the tiger bench. My legs were also tied tightly with a rope then tied on an iron rod under the tiger bench. Then they started to torture me.

First they slapped me. Stars appeared before my eyes and my ears rang. After some time of beating, they stopped and asked me the same questions. I did not answer. They started to say things to deceive me into compliance such as, "Look at you! You are so young and beautiful. Why do you want to suffer like this? Tell us quickly. We will let you go home." I really did not want to be beaten. But I also knew that they were telling lies. They would not free me and they would arrest the other practitioners. When they realised deception would not work, they changed their tactics.

The main interrogators were two policemen from the first section of the Changchun Public Security Bureau. One was tall and in his twenties. The other one was shorter and about 20 years old. They pushed my arms up (which were tied behind me) and then pressed them down. My shoulders were pulled upward along with the arms. My chest was totally pressed on my legs that were tightly tied on the metal rod. Then they pressed me down. The motion was like pumping air into bikes tires. Again and again they pushed me up and pressed me down. My body broke out in a cold sweat. My arms lost feeling. I felt like I was being suffocated every second. The extreme pain almost drove me to a mental breakdown. (There are actually some practitioners who suffered a mental collapse from police torture in Changchun. Zhao Xiaoqin is one of them.)

After pressing me down for a long time, they suddenly dragged my arms backwards. My arms felt like they suffered from electric shocks. They hacked my arms with the side of their hands. With each blow, I felt like my heart was taken out from my body. They did not stop until they felt tired. They sat on the sofa and breathed hard. They asked me if I wanted to tell where the materials were from. I was sweating all over. My arms were in extreme pain. My legs had also lost feeling. My whole body felt like it was broken. Despite all this, I shook my head with determination.

After a short break, the tall policeman dug into the area around my collarbone with his fingers. It felt like my bone was taken out. He tickled me later, which was even more painful. They asked me again. I still did not tell them. They changed their torture method. One man took out a big black plastic bag, which they had prepared before. He covered my head with the bag and held it tightly with one hand, and at the same time, he covered my nose and mouth with another hand. This made me unable to breathe at all. I almost suffocated to death.

I struggled instinctively, and even the metal rod in front of my stomach became deformed. After struggling for a while, they stopped when they saw I was in a dangerous condition. They took the bag off. It took a long time for me to breathe normally. Then they asked me again, "Who gave you those materials?" I still shook my head.

They held my hands down and put the bag back on me to torture me again. I really felt I was dying from the torture. When they noticed that they did not have enough time, they finally stopped (They had to get back to Changchun before it got dark). For me, the six hours of being tortured seemed as long as fifty years.

4. Sent to a forced labour camp

The police officers prepared a statement to charge me and have me sent to a forced labour camp. They tried to get me to sign. I refused. They still gave me a one-year term of forced labour under the accusation of "disturbing social order." During my detention in the labour camp, my grandma passed away.

During the autumn harvest of that year, Dafa practitioner Li Hongzhen from our county was also arrested from his home. He was also given a one-year term of forced labour under the accusation of "disturbing social order." Farmers were busy with the autumn harvest, yet the police took away the main labour force of the practitioners' families. The police disrupted their life and farming. On top of that, the police even accused them of "disturbing social order." What kind of logic is used for such accusations?

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

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. "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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/7/19/133423.html