53-Year-Old Ms. Pu Yingshu Brutally Tortured in Heilongjiang Province Women's Prison

Practitioner Ms. Pu Yingshu from Daqing City maintains her belief in Falun Gong even though she has been detained in Heilongjiang Province Women's Prison since May 2005, constantly tortured both physically and mentally by the prison guards.

Ms. Pu, 53 years old, was an employee of the Equipment Station at Daqing Petroleum and Construction Company. After she started practising Falun Gong in June 1995, her health and mental state improved dramatically. Her medical conditions were resolved without medical intervention, including her stubborn skin pruritus (itching) of over 10 years, neurasthenia, rheumatism, gastric disease, etc. She has not had any conflicts with others over personal interests, and her co-workers and neighbours all deem her to be a nice person.

Arrested and Detained Several Times for Maintaining Her Belief

In 1999, the Chinese Communist Party started publicly persecuting Falun Gong. To speak out for Falun Gong, Pu Yingshu went to Beijing on October 17th, 1999. She was detained for nearly half a year, during which time she was beaten and cursed by Guo Chunguang, chief of the Daqing City Saqu Detention Centre, for striving for the right to publicly do the Falun Gong exercises. She went on hunger strikes to protest the maltreatment but was brutally force-fed.

On June 18th, 2000, she participated in a large scale activity appealing for Falun Dafa in Daqing City. She was arrested by the police and sentenced to forced labour. In Shuanghe Forced Labour Camp, she kept up her belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance." She was handcuffed to the metal frame of an upper bunk bed so that the tips of her toes barely touched the floor. She was deprived of sleep for 18 days and the metal frame became bent from her weight after hanging there for so long.

In October of 2001, Ms. Pu went to Beijing again to appeal for Falun Gong. She was reported to the police by her family members who did not understand her. The police waited for her in Beijing and caught her at the Beijing Train terminal, where she unfolded a banner in public and shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" The police took her to a detention centre. She went on a hunger strike to protest the illegal detention and was inhumanly force-fed by the detention centre guards. Her nose bled from the insertion of the force-feeding tube and her clothes were covered in blood and water. Her body twitched in involuntary spasms after the force-feeding.

In just a month she was tortured to the verge of death, yet the authorities still refused to release her and transferred her to Saqu Detention Centre for further persecution. During the transfer, she fainted and vomited white foam. They feared her possible death and notified the Public Security Bureau, the local police station, and her family, but still refused to release her. They later sent her to Daqing City 4th Hospital, where she escaped police custody with righteous thoughts. Just a few minutes after she got home, the police telephoned her with the intent to come and arrest her at her home. This forced her to become homeless to avoid arrest.

On January 15th, 2002, Pu Yingshu went to visit a fellow practitioner, where she encountered policemen from Daqing City, Yixi Public Security Bureau's Wolitun Police Branch, ransacking the fellow practitioner's home. She was arrested again. Since she refused to cooperate with the police, they pressed their fingers hard on her temples, causing her to faint. Later she was taken to the Daqing City Detention Centre.

In the detention centre, she went on a hunger strike to protest and refused to be photographed. The detention centre police chief, Bai Yunshan, slapped her face, causing her nose to bleed. In May 2002, she was transferred to Heilongjiang Province Women's Prison in Harbin City.

Almost Paralysed from Torture in Prison

In May, 2002, a female guard named Deng from Heilongjiang Province Women's Prison in Harbin City tied Pu Yingshu's hands behind her back and hung her and another practitioner together with nylon ropes for 14 hours, their toes barely touching the ground. Female guards Cui Hongmei and Wu Dadui forced Ms. Pu to stay in the same position, either squatting down or standing, without food for six days. When a fellow practitioner was being tortured, Pu Yingshu stepped up and tried to persuade them to stop. Chief Zhang Xiuli ordered Zhao Yanhua, Song Libo, Wang Fengchun, and Zhang Mingmei to tie her to the bed frame and force her to stand up straight for five days without sleeping. She was not able to take care of herself, not able to unbuckle her pants to use the toilet, and not able to climb up on her bed. This ordeal caused her to display symptoms of paralysis.

In March 2003, Pu Yingshu and other practitioners protested the persecution and refused to do the manual labour. They were tied with their hands and feet spread out for 23 days and not able to eat. This caused them to lose feeling in their arms.

In September, 2003, the prison guards forced practitioners to go through inhuman military training for 11 days. Over 40 female guards and inmates held police batons, electric batons, handcuffs, clubs, bamboo sticks, small plastic tubes, and half full water bottles, and surrounded practitioners in a circle. The practitioners were forced to run inside the circle. Those that ran slowly were beaten more. Those practitioners who could not run were tortured even more inhumanly: they were handcuffed and hung on the window frame, shocked, slapped on the face, and kicked. Pu Yingshu's leg was still paralysed from a previous torture, yet she, too, was hung and almost all of her weight fell on her cuffed wrists, causing the cuffs to cut into her flesh. After several days of hanging there handcuffed, she developed a large open wound on her wrist. Female guard Wang Liang ordered inmates to stomp on her toes with hard soled shoes, causing four of her toenails to fall off. It was extremely painful and difficult for her to walk.

In November 2004, her family was allowed to visit her and saw her still in handcuffs with her face swollen. In 2005, she did not cooperate and refused to wear the prison uniform. Thus her family was not allowed to visit her several times. The guards lied to her family and made them blame her.

After several years of imprisonment and torture, Ms. Pu Yingshu is seriously injured both mentally and physically. Her blood pressure is over 220, half of her body is numb and difficult for her to control, some of her teeth have fallen out, her front teeth now point outward, and her face is swollen.

Her husband does not know the truth about Falun Gong and does not understand her. When she went to Beijing, her husband reported her to the police thinking the police would bring her home. However, the police sent her to the detention centre. Her husband is one of many cases where the practitioner's family does things against the practitioner and life takes a turn for the worse. Her husband's factory has shown no profit for two years in a row and is in a lot of debt. The people who loaned money to him are looking everywhere for him, so he has had to go into hiding. He now has many illnesses. Once he was beaten by a gang of people for no reason and had to seek medical attention at the hospital.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/4/26/153526.html