Three Practitioners from Shanxi, Jilin and Hebei Provinces Passed Away During the Persecution

1. Falun Dafa Practitioner Ms. Gao Yimin from Baoji City, Shanxi Province

Ms. Gao Yimin, 63, was from Baoji City, Shanxi Province. She began Dafa cultivation in 1997 and benefited both physically and mentally. Ms. Gao persisted in cultivation despite the persecution. The police arrested her in 2001 for her belief, and later sentenced her to three years of forced labour. She suffered inhuman torture in Shanxi Women's Forced Labour Camp. Between April and July of 2002, camp officials escalated the persecution of Dafa practitioners. The practitioners were deprived of sleep, forced to wear “strait jackets"¹ and were made to face a wall and stand straight for long hours. Gao Yimin was put into a strait jacket for many days, a cruel torture. When she was released, she was in such poor condition that she was unable to tie her trouser belt and was unable to tend to her daily needs. She died on February 22nd, 2007.

2. Ms. Sun Xiaoqiu from Changchun City, Jilin Province

Practitioner Ms. Sun Xiaoqiu, around 50, was a maths teacher at the Changchun City Children's Normal School. She started to cultivate Dafa in 1995. After Jiang Zemin's regime and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution of Dafa, Ms. Sun had been to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa and was later sentenced one year of forced labour, to be served in the Changchun City Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Camp from May 2003 to May 2004. Because she kept persisting in Dafa cultivation and refusing to be brainwashed, Sun Xiaoqiu's prison term was extended by 40 days. She was finally released through her daughter's efforts.

Ms. Sun went back to work teaching at her school. However, agents from the Quilinlu Police Station often went to her workplace to harass her. Agents from the Changchun City “610 Office"² arrested Ms. Sun on the morning of January 6th, 2005 and sent her to Xinglongshan Brainwashing Centre in Changchun City. Just before the Chinese New Year of 2005, officials from the Chaoyang District's Politics and Law Committee, Yongchang Residential Office and from the Changchun 610 Office went to Ms. Sun's workplace to harass her and intimidate her into giving up Falun Dafa, saying that if she would not do so, her daughter would be forbidden to participate in the graduate students' admission test.

Sun Xiaoqiu decided to leave home to avoid the relentless persecution. The school officials later fired her. We heard that in March 2007 Ms. Sun had died. Those who know her circumstances, please provide more details about Sun Xiaoqiu and help to expose the evildoers responsible for her death.

Quilinlu Police Station, Chaoyang District, Changchun, Tel: 86-431-5643756

3. Ms. Xu Wanhua from Sanhe City, Hebei Province

Ms. Xu Wanhua, 52, was a carpet factory employee in Sanhe City, Hebei Province. She started to practise Dafa in 1997 and had since recovered from high blood pressure and heart blood vessel illnesses and arthritis.

She participated in the April 25th, 1999 ³ peaceful appeal at the State Council Appeals Office near Zhongnanhai to explain the facts about Falun Dafa to the government when the CCP started to persecute Falun Gong. On July 20th, 1999 she once again went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa. On July 21st, 1999 Ms. Xu went to the Sanhe City government officials to appeal for Dafa. It was very hot that day, over 40 0C (104 0F). She told the officials about her own Dafa cultivation experiences, how she became free of illnesses after practising Dafa and to tell them, “The CCP's persecution of Falun Gong is wrong!” When people from her workplace tried to take Ms. Xu away, four young men were unable to carry her away. She persisted in explaining the facts to the government officials.

Xu Wanhua went to the Beijing Appeals Bureau in 2000 to petition for Dafa again. Beijing Qianmen Police Station agents arrested her and later sent her to the Sanhe Detention Centre. Because she insisted on practising exercises and reciting verses from Dafa books in the detention centre, the police beat her with leather belts and rubber sticks, and shocked her with electric batons. Xu Wanhua started a protest hunger strike and suffered from brutal force-feeding. She endured severe physical and mental pressure from the persecution, and passed away in August 2006.

Note

1. Strait Jackets: Made of fine canvas, they are put on the victim from the front and tightened from behind the back. The sleeves are about 10 inches longer than the victim's arms, with straps on them. The perpetrators force determined Dafa practitioners to wear the strait jackets, and then pull their arms to their backs, cross and tie their arms behind their backs. Then they pull their arms up over their shoulders to the front of their chest, tie up the practitioners' legs and hang them up in the air from the windows. At the same time, they gag practitioners' mouths with cloth, put earphones in their ears and continuously play messages that slander Dafa. According to an eyewitness account, people who suffer this torture quickly sustain broken arms, torn tendons, and broken shoulders, wrists and elbows. Those who endure this torture for a long time sustain fractured spines, and they die in agonising pain. See http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/11/1/41857.html.

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. "April 25": This refers to the "sensitive" anniversary of April 25, 1999, on which date ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners peacefully gathered outside the Zhongnanhai compound (China’s central government building) and successfully appealed for the release of forty-five practitioners who had been illegally arrested in Tianjin City.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/4/6/152200.html