The Torture Experienced by Practitioner Ms. Zhang Sufang from Henan Province

My name is Zhang Sufang. My home is located in Huaiyang County in Henan Province. I began practising Falun Dafa on January 3rd, 1999. Prior to my practice of Falun Dafa, I suffered from gynaecological diseases, chronic colitis, lung tuberculosis and other illnesses. After I started to practise Falun Dafa, all of the diseases disappeared and my family also became much more harmonious.

After July 20th, 1999, the persecution blotted out the sky and covered the earth. I went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing three separate times. The third time was on December 31st, 2000. At about noon, I unfurled a banner that said "Falun Dafa is Good" by the flagpole of Tiananmen Square. I called out from the bottom of my heart, "Falun Dafa is good!" "Return the good name of my Teacher!" I was immediately taken to the Police Department of Tiananmen Square and later to the Chaoyang District Detention Centre, where I suffered from all types of torture.

When I was brought to the court, I refused to announce my name. The police officer pulled my clothes up and poured the dirty water from a spittoon on me from my neck down. For practising the Falun Dafa exercises, I was forced to stand against the wall for one day. When I protested the detention through a hunger strike, I was forced to sit in a corner for two days and forbidden to go to the toilet. When they asked me whether I wanted food, I refused to reply. The guards ordered four criminals to beat me and to rip off my clothes. Only my underclothes were left on. Then they punched and kicked me while wearing their leather shoes for more than three hours. My whole body was black and blue. I was spitting up blood, and I fell on the ground.

Subsequently, I was taken into another room where I was force-fed. My hands were wrapped at my back. In the same room, there were more than twenty practitioners and their hands were wrapped up in different ways: some had their hands wrapped at the front, some had their hands wrapped at the back, some had their hands wrapped in an archer's position, and some, with all their clothes removed, were made to lie on the floor facing up and fixed into a position with their arms and legs fully stretched out. They had their hands, legs, and mouths all taped up with wide adhesive tape. We were left in the cold for one day and one night (at a temperature below zero degrees centigrade). Afterwards, they took off my clothes and dragged me to the second floor where I was force-fed with pepper water.

There I saw two practitioners. One of them, because he refused to give his name, was tortured for three days. On the first day, he was dragged outside, his jacket was ripped off, and his hands were handcuffed behind his back onto an iron chair. He was forced to stand in the snow with bare feet. Then the guards punched and kicked his face. On the second day, they used the same methods to torture him again. In addition, they poured cold water into his clothes from his neck down. On the third day, they used the same torture method, but this time poured boiling water into his clothes from the neck down. Another practitioner was violently kicked in the crotch with leather shoes.

Later the guards dragged me to the Xiaohongmen Police Station, where they constantly prohibited me from sleeping. Afterwards, the Deputy Commissar of the Police Department of Huaiyang County, Ren Wei (male), forcibly took me to the Beijing Office of Zhoukou District, where I was held for five days.

When Ren Wei (male) forcibly took me back, he called my husband to deliver 10,000 yuan¹ and threatened him that he would otherwise put me into a detention centre. In the past several years, the State Security Division of Huaiyang County and the People's Livelihood Office have repeatedly gone to my home to extort 10,000 yuan from my elderly husband and often harassed, threatened, and made trouble for him. Since I had been held for an extended period of time, my husband was sick due to anger and fear, but he had no one to take care of him. He passed away on May 18th, 2005.

On January 5th, 2001, a group of people, including Chen Jiachang (male) put me into the Detention Centre of Huaiyang County where I was held for about ten months. During this period of time, the torture methods that were used on me and my fellow practitioners was enough to make anyone boil with anger. One morning in May, at 4:00 a.m., when I was Sending Forth Righteous Thoughts, guard Wu Jinzhong (male) saw me. He reported me to the Chief of the Division, Wang Peidong (male). The two of them opened the door of the cell. Wang Peidong (male) immediately started to repeatedly hit my face, and then dragged me outside of the cell. He asked me, "Are you still going to practise?" I replied, "Yes." Wang then slapped my face, saying, "If you practise again, I will make you wear the large leg irons and have two people hold your arms and force you to run with the leg irons on."

Since I refused to say that I would not practise anymore, they made me run with the leg irons. When the flesh of my ankles was torn and bloody due to the grinding of the leg irons, it started to stick to the legs of my trousers. Division Chief Shi Zhongjie (male) then pointed a flat stick with two rows of nails on it at me and said, "As long as you say one word that you will not practise, we will stop immediately and your leg irons will be taken off. Otherwise, you will die right here." My heart was firm, thinking, "I am not afraid of death." Later I was again forced to run with the leg irons on, until breakfast time, before they finally took me into the cell. Two people in the cell were having breakfast. Upon seeing my bloody legs, they vomited due to the shock. I was forced to wear the leg irons for nine days before the guards took them off.

One day in August, I was sending righteous thoughts with other practitioners. The Deputy Chief of the Detention Centre, Zheng Xianjun (male), saw us and dragged all of us outside and forced us to wear leg irons. The eight of us were locked together to form a circle. We were locked up like this when we ate, slept or even when we went to use the bathroom, for about 20 days. When the leg irons were taken off, Zheng Xianjun asked us one by one, "Are you still going to practise?" I refused to say no. Zheng then refused to take the leg irons off of me. The leg irons were not taken off until I passed out after going on a hunger strike. During this torture, the guards were still asking me, "Are you going to practise?" They claimed that the idea of my going on a hunger strike was the idea of practitioner Mr. Su Yujin. With me watching, they tied Mr. Su Yujin to a tree. Guard Wu Jinzhong (male) was the first to beat Mr. Su Yujin. After he stopped, Zheng Xianjun then slapped Mr. Su Yujin's face more than 100 times. Mr. Su Yujin passed out from the beatings.

I was on the hunger strike for 29 days. The prison physician Zhang Duoshu (male) force-fed me three times. The first force-feeding was carried out three days after I started the hunger strike. Zhang Duoshu pulled my hair to press on my face. During the second force-feeding, he pulled my hair and hit me with half a bowl of water in his hand. The third force-feeding happened on the fourteenth day after I started the hunger strike. On the fifteenth day of my hunger strike, a group of people including Zhang Duoshu carried me outside and tied me onto a long chair, facing up. They carried a bowl of cold water, in which they put in a small bag of soybean powder, and then tried to force-feed me. Zhang Duoshu stepped onto my hands while wearing leather shoes when he force-fed me. I passed out on the twenty-ninth day of the hunger strike. Between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., they told me to go home. Seven to eight people from the People's Livelihood Office, the Police Station, and the State Security Division carried me home. At that time, the me who used to weigh 187 pounds only weighed about 77 pounds. I had to rest for over 20 days before I could get up from my bed.

Note

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

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/10/13/140040.html