Ms. Zhou Yongping Tortured by the First Division of Changchun Public Security Bureau

My name is Ms. Zhou Yongping and I live in Nong’an County, Jilin Province. Since I persisted in practising Falun Dafa and following the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance," I was brutally persecuted by police from the First Division of Changchun Public Security Bureau. They tortured me by making me sit on a Tiger Bench¹, making me wear only underwear while staying outside, and beating my head as if it were a punching bag.

On February 2nd, 2002, when I went to my son’s work unit, I was secretly followed by bad people from that unit. They monitored me on the bus all the way to Changchun City. I did not know they were following me.

When I got off the bus in Changchun, I was arrested by the police from the First Division of Changchun Public Security Bureau. They took me to a room on the fourth floor of the office building of Changchun Public Security Bureau. They handcuffed me to a chair. I was searched, and all my personal belongings were confiscated. They then took me to another room with a chair in the centre that was made of thumb-sized iron rods. They put me on the iron chair and tied my hands to the armrests. Then, they placed an iron rod horizontally in front of my rib cage and locked both sides of the rod to the chair.

Around 5 p.m. 10 people entered the room. The whole room was filled with an atmosphere of terror. One of them, acting like a senior official, said, "Her case is complicated. Don’t hurry." After that person left, about six to seven people remained in the room. They began to torture me so that I would "confess." One of the officers said, "Do you know what this place is? This is the First Division of the Changchun Public Security Bureau. All of us here were selected from the Criminal Corps and the Public Security Sub-Bureau. Do you know what this iron chair is? It is a Tiger Bench. Do you know what kind of people sit on it? They are criminals on death row and leaders of Falun Gong cultivators, like Yang Guang, Yang Feng, and others. You could face the same consequences as they."

At that moment, a policeman holding an object I couldn’t identify came up behing me. He used that object to punch the acupuncture point between the thumb and the index finger of my left hand. A purple swelling the size of a ping pong ball appeared on the back of my left hand. Then they handcuffed me behind my back, lifted my hands (while handcuffed) over my head to the front, pressed my upper body toward my legs, and cruelly pressed my head until my face touched my thighs. Two policemen fiercely struck my back with their fists, while my chest and abdomen were pressed against the iron rod. All this caused me excruciating pain. Every second I felt out of breath.

I became unconscious. They pulled my hands back over my head and returned me to an upright position. They said, "We will do it every five minutes. We are divided into groups and each group has two people who take turns every two hours. You will see how many times you can bend during the night." hey again pressed my body down and I lost consciousness. They sprayed me with cold water to awaken me and then used electric batons to shock my neck, face, and mouth. They poured cold water on me and then shocked me with the electric batons. My head became crooked from the shocks. A policeman cruelly gripped my hair so that my head could not move. Once the batons’ power was used up, they would quickly recharge them and continue torturing me.

Later on, another two policemen came and beat my head with their hands. One person stood in front to hit my face and the other one stood in back to beat the rear of my head. They beat me as if they were using my head as a punching bag. They tortured me almost until dawn, when they were so tired that they fell asleep.

The next day around 4:00 p.m., another group of people came. They covered my eyes with a blindfold and took me from the fourth floor. They put me into a vehicle which was equipped inside with a Tiger Bench. They drove for 30-40 minutes to an unknown location. (Later, I learned that it was Jingyuetan in Changchun City.) Before the blindfold was taken off, I was tied to a Tiger Bench in a room. Around 10 people surrounded me. Everyone looked wicked. One of them had a full beard and wore a yellow coat. He said, "If you do not obey us, we will torture you to death. No one knows where this place is and you were secretly arrested. There is a big pit behind this house. After your death, we will bury you in the pit and no one will know about it."

They allowed me to wear only underwear. They tied me to the iron chair and covered my eyes with a blindfold. They put me outside still tied to the iron chair to freeze me. It felt like the coldest day in winter. I was chilled and shivered the whole night. The chair shook as well.

When dawn broke, they moved me to a cold room and started to interrogate and torture me. They did not allow me to put clothes on until the third night. In the afternoon on February 5, they sent me to the Changchun Third Detention Centre. I was numb by that time. Moreover, after being tortured, I was in a very poor state. I shivered and could not stand. The officials from the detention centre examined me and found that I was severely tortured. They refused to accept me. One of the police who sent me to there said, "Don’t worry. She practises Falun Gong. If there is a problem, I will take responsibility." The police then wrote a note to the detention centre.

The Third Detention Centre accepted me reluctantly. A prison guard saw that my whole body shivered. He asked me if I was a Falun Gong practitioner. When I replied that I was, he also asked me if I was tortured with the Tiger Bench. I replied, "Yes." He angrily said, "This group of police is too evil. How can they torture Falun Gong practitioners so horribly?"

The three days and nights of cruel torture seriously devastated my body and mind. I lay on the bed in the detention centre for over a month. I shivered all the time. My feet were so cold that they swelled and were so painful that I could not stand. I could not see things clearly. I threw up frequently and had difficulty breathing. After being illegally detained in the Third Detention Centre for two months, I was sentenced to two years in prisons and sent to the Heizuizi Forced Labour Camp in Changchun, Jilin Province.

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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/6/3/129503.html