The Inhuman Persecution Endured by Practitioner Ms. Liu Jinying from Laishui County, Hebei Province

Falun Dafa practitioner Ms. Liu Jinying is 42 years old. Before the persecution began in 1999, she had held several posts in Laishui County, Hebei Province, including director of the Propaganda Department and Organisation Department of the Youth League of Laishui County, associate town director, and associate director of the County Bureau for Letters and Calls. During the last five years and three months, Ms. Liu has been held in custody in Laishui, and spent time in Laishui Detention Centre, the Women's Prison of Shijiazhuang City, and Taihang Prison. The following is an account of the inhuman persecution she suffered in detention.

The county officials beat and shocked her

On July 21st, 1999, Sun Guijie, the associate director of the county Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Committee, and Li Zengquan, the general secretary of the county CCP Committee, instigated the police to deceive Ms. Liu into appearing at the county police department, where they detained her for 17 days. On October 1st, they took her to the basement of the county police department and chained her to a metal chair. On the scene were Sun Guijie and officials from the Court of Baoding City. When Sun instructed police officers to beat Liu Jinying, they unlocked her chains and started slapping her face. The next day, Han Yasheng, the director of the county CCP Committee, ordered the police to shock Ms. Liu with electrical batons. Then a policeman hit her on the back with a rubber baton. Tan (last name), the director of the CCP Committee of the county police department, dragged her up, stood her up straight, and started slapping Ms. Liu's face. He repeatedly slapped her face so hard that her face was full of tears and her hair was a mess. He didn't stop beating her until he decided to turn up her eyelid to check if her pupils were dilated.

Unjustly sentenced

On December 27th, 2000, the county government ordered Ms. Liu and 27 other Falun Gong practitioners to be paraded through the streets with big signs hanging around their necks announcing their names and their "crime:" "interfering with law enforcement by participating in an illegal organisation." All the major county officials were on the scene. The police kicked all the practitioners to the ground and trussed them up tightly. They also put a loop of rope around Ms. Liu's neck to keep her from shouting out. That day they sentenced her to five years in prison. In January 2001 when Sun Guijie went to the detention centre, Ms. Liu questioned him to find out why they didn't give her a judgement statement and told him she would appeal. Sun told her that appealing was useless. On February 23rd, 2001, the judgement finally arrived, but it was backdated February 21st, 2001.

Forced-feeding

To protest the persecution, Ms. Liu went on hunger strikes many times. The guards tortured her with all means available.

They took her to a hospital and force-fed her flour soup. They injected soup into her mouth while pinching her nose to stop her from breathing. When she couldn't hold her breath any more, she swallowed. The third time, they used a bamboo stick to pry open her teeth. After they failed to pry open her teeth, they inserted a rubber tube into her nose. The first time, they inserted the tube into her trachea. The force-feeding lasted over a month.

In the workshop, they ordered the detainees to force feed Ms. Liu. After finishing the feeding, they took her to the workshop and tied her on a bed board with a belt. It was summertime, and she couldn't even turn over. When it was time for her to do forced labour, a few detainees dragged Liu Jinying down the stairs and carried her to the workshop. To keep her from shouting out, they gagged her. Later, they complained that she was too heavy to carry, so they just dragged her by her hands. Her feet and knees were scraped bloody and her pants and shoes were totally worn-out. Ms. Liu cleaned those worn-out clothes and put them aside. The inmates stole those clothes because they were afraid she would use them as evidence.

In 2001, when the detainees started to force feed her, they used rubber tubes and there would be two guards monitoring the process. Until 2003, this was done totally by the detainees. The detainees first dipped the tube in gasoline and then inserted it into her nose to torture her. They would first push the tube in and out many times in her nasal cavity before inserting it all the way down. Sometimes they pulled it out and restarted all over again. Sometimes they taped the tube to her face. Later, they force-fed her salt water or detergent water. While they force-fed her, Ms. Liu kept vomiting. Afterwards, she had to pour her vomit out herself. She had no strength to lift the basin, so she had to push it while crawling along on the floor. She had to take four breaks before she could creep from her bed to the toilet. She crawled over and crawled back.

In 2001, when they force fed Ms. Liu in the Second Team, Han (last name) from the Second Team and Wang (last name) from the Third Team and Zhang (last name) from the Fifth Team took turns practising inserting the tube. When torturing other practitioners, they learned to master this "technique." They could finish inserting the tube and force-feed in about ten minutes, which is even faster than eating a meal. They took longer only to torture the practitioners on purpose.

At one point, they claimed that Ms. Liu had "inflammation," so they pounded an enhanced Chinese Goldthread (a Chinese herb that tastes extremely bitter) tablet and put the powder into her mouth. Even so, she still refused to eat or drink. The next day, they started to force-feed her pure Chinese Goldthread powder. That taste was beyond description. On the third day, she couldn't stand it any longer but there wasn't any drinkable water since the water in the water pot had the bitter powder in it. She tried to get some water from the tap to rinse her mouth, but they didn't allow her to touch that water. Then she crept to the toilet and held the dirty water with her hands to rinse her mouth.

Inhuman torture

In 2001, the guards took Ms. Liu to the hospital to conduct a "health exam." They lifted her clothing to do an electrocardiogram and purposely exposed her breasts; they dragged her out with only her underwear on, dragging her along the floor.

Liu Jinying menstruated only once when she was held in the confinement room. In February 2002, Ma (last name), the team head, said she would perform an exam to find out why she was not menstruating. Ma put on plastic gloves and put one of her hands into Ms. Liu's vagina. With one hand inside, she used the other to push on Ms. Liu's abdomen. Afterwards, Ms. Liu had a great deal of pain in her abdomen and her back. She had an abnormal discharge and then started bleeding. They said that she finally was menstruating, but that was not true. Indeed, Ma had injured her uterus. They started bringing medicine for Ms. Liu to wash with and humiliated her. From then on, Ms. Liu would have a "menstrual period" about every 20 days. That was because they gave her excess hormones and caused the false menstrual periods. Then they claimed she had pelvic inflammatory disease and gave her a transfusion. They injected her with ten bottles of penicillin and half a pound of salt water. In fact, it appeared that they were using her as a human guinea pig to see how much a person could suffer.

The guards frequently put Ms. Liu in a confinement room. Once, she managed to open the handcuffs and started doing the exercises. When the guards came back, they handcuffed her so tightly that both her arms couldn't bend. She writhed on the floor but couldn't otherwise move. Later, the guards hung her up in the air. That was in the middle of summer, and there were lots and lots of mosquitoes flying inside. They splashed a lot of dirty water through the little opening of the door to attract more mosquitoes to come in. But they were surprised to find out that the mosquitoes didn't bite Ms. Liu at all.

In 2003, Liu Jinying was hardly able to walk. When it was time for work, other detainees would lift her onto a little pull cart and run very fast to the workshop, where they would dump her to the ground like dumping some trash. The damp floor was full of bits of wood and glass. The whole place was very gloomy. After she was dumped there, Ms. Liu would lie there for a long time before she had any strength to move. After a long while, she would turn over and creep to the base of a wall.

In winter, Liu Jinying often carried a small bag of dry sand. She would sit on that bag after walking a small distance and then walk another small distance again. In the summertime, she still wore her padded jacket and the same clothes as she did in winter. All those in the prison at that time believed that Ms. Liu was mentally disordered. She was very dirty, even her hair. They put a lot of engine oil and dirt on her padded jacket and her short dressing gown. She looked like an oily bag. In nine months, she didn't take a shower or wash her clothes because she was too weak to dry her clothes. People kept swearing at her because she smelled bad.

To push her to insanity, the guards and those who were monitoring and torturing her tried to confuse her mentality. For example, when it was Wednesday, they would tell her it was Monday. They always told her the wrong date.

After Ms. Liu started a hunger strike, her jaw seemed disjointed. She couldn't pronounce words properly. Then they applied very strong medicine and hormones to torture her further, which caused all her teeth to become loose and she couldn't even chew her green bean soup. She didn't have the strength even to hold her cup. She experienced many problems caused by excess hormones. In the winter, they often poured water in her shoes. As a result, her feet were often wet and cold.

The male and female guards who were mainly responsible for torturing Liu Jinying in Shijiazhang Prison included Li Xianglan, Feng Kezhuang, Wang Fengmei, Ma Xinrong, Ma Jianghong, Li Huiping, and Zhang Lixin.

The ones who tortured Ms. Liu in Taihang Prison included Ge Shuguang and Zhu Xiaohong. Ge Shuguang didn't dare tell Ms. Liu her real name. She claimed her last name was Lu. To cover up her criminal deeds, Zhu Xiaohong handcuffed Ms. Liu and took her to the Sixth Hospital of Baoding City twice in 2004 and 2005 to get her diagnosed as having a "mental illness."

The guards encourage detainees to monitor and torture Ms. Liu

By the spring of 2002, Ms. Liu could hardly walk and she felt cold all the time as a result of the physical abuse she had endured. She had to wear a warm jacket even in the summer. She could only walk by supporting herself against the walls. She always carried a plastic bag of sand as her seat, so she could sit down when she couldn't move. Rainy days were the worst time for her, because she would have no place to sit or lie down, and her padded jacket would be wet. One rainy day when it was time to go to work, the detainees lifted her out and threw her into a water pit to shock her. Her clothes were all wet. Because she couldn't move herself, Liu Jinying took off her padded jacket and threw it to the base of a wall to keep it from becoming very wet. Later, gusty winds blew dust into her eyes and mouth. When work time was over, she still couldn't walk, so they dragged her back, tearing her clothes. One day at noon, Ms. Liu took off her padded jacket to dry it in the sun. The detainees put a cat on it and let the cat eat and urinate on it.

Sometimes the detainees put engine oil into her bowl of food. When the food was egg drop soup, there would be flies, mosquitoes, and dust in it. In winter, Ms. Liu wanted to drink something warm. When she used her mug for some warm drink, they would fill her mug so it was so heavy that she couldn't hold it up. Sometimes they added a drug to it so that Ms. Liu couldn't drink it. Or, they let her drink a lot and locked her inside a yard where there was no restroom. Sometimes they would add some Kaisailu, used to treat constipation, so once she drank it, she would have diarrhoea. When they saw her gaining some weight, they would use this method to give her diarrhoea. When they saw she was getting skinnier, they would feed her hormones, so her hands would swell immediately.

Once when Ms. Liu was sitting in meditation, the detainees monitoring her tied a rope to one of her legs. Whenever she moved a little bit, they would kick her. So one of her legs would be tied up and the rope would dig into her skin.

When Ms. Liu was transferred to the Third Team of Shijiazhuang Prison, she started practising the Falun Gong exercises once she got there. The guards instigated six people to torture her. Six of them rushed up to her, lifted her up, and threw her to the ground until her legs no longer stayed in the double-crossed position. Then they lifted her again and threw her to her bed. Her head smacked onto the ladder between her upper and lower beds. When Ms. Liu became exhausted and tried to lie down, they rushed up to her and pulled her, dragging her by her hair and pulling out handfuls. Her hair very easily came out because of the drugs they were giving her. Later they started squeezing her neck. They squeezed it so tightly that the left side of her neck was bloody. They also beat her to the ground and stomped her head with their feet while wearing shoes. When Ms. Liu shouted out, they poked her face with a broom handle, causing her face to bleed.

There were eight detainees in each of eight groups. Two of them went to work, one was the head of the group, and the rest of the five took turns torturing Liu Jinying. Whenever Ms. Liu started practising, somebody would sit on her, step on her and kick her. Later, when they felt tired from beating her so hard, they started adding poison to her food. When Ms. Liu ate such food, she would feel her stomach burning and soon got diarrhoea. Some days she would have diarrhoea eight times. When she was using the toilet, two detainees would guard her, one on each side.

In 2003, when Liu Jinying was in the Third Team, the poison they put in her food caused her whole body to turn to black. Her arms and legs were so cold that she was still shaking even if she wore two padded jackets and covered herself with the heaviest quilt.

In October of 2003, on the day she was transferred to Taihang Prison, Ms. Liu was put into a confinement room. The detainees beat her there as well. Sometimes they smashed her head against the wall while holding her hair. She became dizzy and vomited. Sometimes, they beat her chest. Later, the detainees pulled her nipples until they bled. After two days when scabs formed, they started pulling her nipples again and they bled again. They also kicked her legs, which caused her legs to swell so much that she couldn't wear her underpants. Then they feared that her legs would become disabled and started rubbing her legs with medicine. When the swelling disappeared, three layers of skin peeled off. They started trampling her left foot. They forced her take off her shoes and trampled her big toe. Her big toe became so swollen that in only a few days, the nail of her big toe peeled off. Then they started trampling her right foot. The nails of her big toe and second toe of her right foot also peeled off. Then they started forcing Ms. Liu to stand on a small bench near the base of the wall with her head bent down, both arms up, and one leg lifted (the so-called "flying" position). If she stopped, they would beat her buttocks with belts or slap her face with slippers 50 times, even 100 times.

In Taihang Prison, those who were monitoring Ms. Liu beat her with furniture legs so badly that the wooden legs broke piece by piece. They handcuffed her on her bed in such a way that she couldn't sit down nor stand up. In the very beginning, when she first got there, they handcuffed her for 18 days. Because both of her hands were handcuffed together, she couldn't turn over. She was not allowed to sleep until about 2:00 a.m.

Those who tortured Liu Jinying in prison were those who were sentenced to life in prison or murderers, or those who were very close to the guards and could get a sentence reduction if they tortured Falun Gong practitioners harder. All those detained in prison wanted to leave there earlier, so they did their best to torture practitioners because that was the best way to reduce their terms. From time to time, some practitioners were tortured to death. In the summer of 2001, Ms. Liu was dying due to the torture. The prison doctor said that she would not survive the year.

Poisoning

Although Ms. Liu's temperature was normal, those monitoring her insisted that she had a high temperature and gave her an injection against her will.

They put poison in her food and drinking water and told her that it was special food for her. A guard quietly asked those monitoring Ms. Liu whether the cart was coming and whether Ms. Liu had eaten. Ms. Liu hadn't eaten but had given the food to another detainee, who became dizzy immediately after eating the food. From then on, Ms. Liu became very careful about her food, but she was not allowed to pick up her meal by herself. From then on, it was very often that she couldn't urinate and a lot of her hair fell out for no known reason and her heart rate became much faster. Ms. Liu claimed she had been poisoned and asked for a legal investigation into her medical treatment. The authorities even agreed. They took her to the Third Provincial Hospital. Before this, the guards had asked Ms. Liu to get a medical exam, but she had refused. When she arrived at the hospital, they kept her in the car for a long time before bringing her in. Once in the hospital, one person told another that she was the one discussed earlier. They were very vague and seemed to be plotting something.

In 2001, when Liu Jinying was washing her hair in the Third Team, she noticed it was very sparse. When she combed her hair, a lot of it fell out, just as if she were going through chemotherapy. From then on, the guards and detainees kept her confused. Gradually, she couldn't get out of bed. She heard some detainees talking, "What a pity. They tried to turn a normal person into a psychotic."

Once during a Mid-autumn Festival, each detainee got a couple of pears. They told Ms. Liu to eat one pear every day. Indeed they had injected an unknown drug into the pears. She didn't eat them. In just a few days, her pears were all rotten from the inside out.

It was very hard for Ms. Liu to relieve herself. They asked her whether she wanted some medicine. She refused. One month later, her weight dropped to 39 kilogrammes [approximately 86 pounds] (Ms. Liu was only 21 kilogrammes when she was at her most thin). Even her bones became thinner. It was very hard to find a blood vessel to do an infusion. They stabbed here and there to find a blood vessel. Once they stabbed nine times before getting a vessel. Sometimes when they found a blood vessel, they would keep the needle in it even when they had stopped the infusion in case they wanted to do more later. To torture Ms. Liu further, they also frequently injected fluid outside of the blood vessel so that her hand would swell up.

Ms. Liu stayed in Group Eight for about half a year. She was emaciated when she got there, but in January, she became quite "fat." The head of those monitoring her said they fed her with chicken feed (the chicken feed had hormones added). Her head felt heavy and swollen. In early 2002, she couldn't walk anymore.

Once, when her father visited her, they gave her some drug that caused her pupils to dilate. That day, she couldn't see anything clearly.

The authorities and detainees continuously tried to make Liu Jinying become mentally disordered. From 2002 to the first half of 2003, they forced her to work and dragged her to the workshop. Her pants and underwear became threadbare and her legs and hips were exposed. They purposely showed her exposed body to the male detainees. If she was a little later in leaving for work or she refused to go to work, the guards would tell other detainees to drag her down to the workshop. One time Ms. Liu couldn't walk anymore, not even halfway to where she was going, She lay down and her heart stopped beating. A detainee sat on her and did artificial respiration, almost choking her to death in the process. In the workshop there was only one toilet with only three toilets. During break time, over 200 detainees took turns using the restroom. It was impossible for her to get there, so she tried to use the toilet while others were having lunch, but she was forbidden to do so. After lunch, Ms. Liu couldn't get a chance to use the toilet either. So to avoid trouble, she dared not eat anything for lunch. She dared not to drink water either. Whenever she drank water, she had to use the toilet in about ten minutes.

In the spring of 2003, each detainee got a chicken thigh. Ms. Liu didn't eat hers and gave it to another detainee named Liu Pengying. The meat had been poisoned and the detainee had to be sent to the hospital emergency room and kept overnight.

In Shijiazhuang Prison, when detainees couldn't finish their food, they didn't dare to throw it away directly. They would break their steamed food into small pieces first. Ms. Liu did not dare to eat anything brought to her, so she always went to the trash can and picked up discarded food and ate. The other detainees called her "madwoman." Although the food from the trash can was dirty, there was no poison in it. Whenever she ate the food brought to her, she would feel as if her blood vessels were exploding, her head would feel very heavy, she would lose her vision and have diarrhoea or constipation. So she would rather eat the dirty food instead of the food she was "served."

The second time she was detained in Taihang Prison, the authorities started openly force-feeding her drugs. In the summer, they forced her to sleep in the hallway. Her bed was in a "U" shape, so that the middle part was about 6 inches lower than both sides. She found some paper to fill up the low spot in her bed. The guards would find a gang of detainees to force feed her unknown drugs.

On August 9th, 2005, the day Liu Jinying was released, she was still handcuffed on her bed that morning. They still force-fed her medicine that last evening. When she was released, her left arm couldn't move and right hand couldn't hold anything and she only weighed about 35 kilogrammes, like a 13- or 14-year-old child.

On July 27th, 2006, three policemen went to Ms. Liu's home and searched around. When Ms. Liu's mother asked for their names, they answered that they were ordered to search her home carefully and threatened Ms. Liu's father to watch out for his retirement pension.

Now, Ms. Liu's father-in-law has passed away, her mother-in-law is seriously ill, her parents are very weak, and her husband is still detained in prison and being tortured. Liu Jinying has no job. She and her child are dependent on her parents' retirement pension.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/2/27/149804.html