Ms. Dong Cuifang (also referred to as Dong Cui) was from Gaocheng City, Hebei Province. She was a post-graduate in medicine and worked as a doctor at Shunyi District Hospital for Women and Children in Beijing. In 2001 Ms. Dong and her fiancé, Mr. Shen Wenjie (29 years old, from Xingtang, Hebei Province, a university graduate and an outstanding pilot from the Beijing Capital Airport), were arrested while handing out leaflets exposing the persecution . They were detained at the Shunyi Detention Centre in Beijing. In 2002, Shunyi District Court sentenced them to five years of imprisonment each. On March 11th, 2003, Ms. Dong Cui was transferred to Daxing Women's Prison in Beijing. Eight days later (March 19th), she died at the age of 29 as a result of torture.
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| Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Dong Cuifang |
Several People Tortured Her for Refusing to Renounce Falun Dafa
On the morning of March 11th, 2003, Ms. Dong was transferred to the Third Ward at the Beijing Women's Prison. The following day Ward Head Tian Fengqing assigned guard Xi Xuehui to be responsible for "transforming1" her. Her assistants and inmate helpers in this effort included Li Xiaobing, Zhang Zeqiong, Zhu Baolian, and Li Fengqin. They took turns attacking Ms. Dong day and night. They also forced her to sit cross-legged in the double lotus position and tied up her hands and legs. They used a torture method called "breaking the eagle" to deprive her of sleep.
Since she wasn't allowed to use the toilet, Ms. Dong was forced to go on a hunger strike. However, she was described as "wanting to harm herself" or being "suicidal." By making Ms. Dong sit cross-legged in the double lotus position, Li Xiaobing and Jin Hongwei, under the direction of the Head of the Ward Tian Fengqing, were of the opinion that no bones would be broken or muscles torn. There would be no surface wounds, which was in line with the "no corporal punishment" rule. If there was something wrong, then it would the responsibility of the practitioner. It would be considered the result of her "harming herself". Ms. Dong Cui was tortured in the counselling room like this for seven days.
The Prison Guards Incited Collaborators to Torture Ms. Dong to Death
On March 17th, 2003, Ms. Dong was forced to plead guilty and write a so-called guarantee statement2. On the following morning she told Li Xiaobing that she still firmly believed in Teacher. In the evening Li Xiaobing reported it to prison guard Tian Fengqing that Ms. Dong still resolutely believed in Falun Dafa. Li Xiaomei suggested that they increase the pressure and punish her the following day in an attempt to force her to truly give up Falun Gong. Tian Fengqing agreed with Li Xiaomei's suggestion.
The next morning Tian Fengqing assigned the task of punishing Ms. Dong to prison guard Xi Xuehui and arranged to use the shower room as the torture chamber. At about noon Xi Xuehui and Dong Xiaoqing (prison guard from the Third Ward) led Li Xiaobing, Li Xiaomei, Jin Hongwei, Zhu Shuxian, and Liu Shuxia to bring Ms. Dong to the shower room next to the boiler room.
The shower room was far away from the cell, and there was a pathway separating it from the cell. This was the place Tian Fengqing often used to beat and torture practitioners. From the beginning to the end of the torture, prison guard Dong Xiaoqing was standing guard some 30 metres away from the gate of the shower room, and Xi Xuehui was outside. From time to time she went in to have a look and then quickly left.
After Ms. Dong was taken to the shower room, the five thugs kicked her shins in turn. This was another torture method invented by Li Xiaomei, Li Xiaobing and Jin Hongwei. They thought that the shin bone is very strong and wouldn't break even if kicked very hard. They wouldn't damage her brain or heart, so there was no danger to her life. This was because their aim in torturing Ms. Dong was not to cripple her or beat her to death, but to cause her so much pain that she would give up her belief. One of the thugs recalled later that after a while, they began to beat her in a frenzy.
The five of them began to kick whichever part of her body they could. When Li Xiaomei and Jin Hongwei came out to report to guard Xi Xuehui, Xi Xuehui told them not to go too far. Li Xiaomei said, "Don't worry!" These former practitioners had been turned into sociopaths by the women's prison. When Ms. Dong put her hands on her stomach and said she had a stomachache, the collaborators3 ignored her and accused her of lying. They continued to kick her when she curled up on the floor without any response. At the time Ms. Dong didn't have the strength to even make a sound.
Ms. Dong suffered even worse torture after that, and there was no sound from her. Li Xiaobing stopped and felt her pulse, and found something had gone wrong. It was about 3:30 p.m. The guards ordered them to pull her up but her head dropped to her chest. She was dragged to the prison house. Upon entering the gate of the building, she suddenly collapsed. Several of the thugs carried her back to the Psychological Consultation Office and put her on a small bed. They tried to give her some water since she'd been asking for water when they were in the shower room, but Ms. Dong suffered from a sudden stomachache after a few sips. The guards called in the ward doctor, Zhang Xiao. When Zhang Xiao tried to take her blood pressure, there was no reading at all. Zhang called an ambulance, which arrived in a few minutes.
Many inmates who worked at the workshops of the women's prison saw Li Xiaobing and others carry a stretcher that was covered with a piece of white cloth toward an ambulance through the windows. After arriving at the prison dispatch hospital, Ms. Dong was declared dead.
Prison Fabricates a Story Claiming that Ms. Dong "Died of Natural Causes"
There was a dispute over the death certificate between the women's prison and the hospital. The prison wanted the hospital to state, "Dong died after rescue efforts failed" on her death certificate, but the hospital refused. After a lot of negotiations, the hospital eventually assisted the women's prison by giving a false testimony. Hospital officials provided a false diagnostic record, fake treatment plans, and a phony autopsy certificate to make Ms. Dong's death look natural.
However, the hospital was unable to conceal the fact that she had cuts and bruises all over her body. The prison authorities prepared three different plans for inspection by the Procuratorate Office. Finally, the plan that they thought would be the safest and most reasonable was selected. The plan was to have prison guard Xi Xuehui and others testify that guards alone did the "transformation" work on Dong Cui. They also claimed that her injures were self-inflicted. A few days later, Tian Fengqing and Xi Xuehui summoned collaborator Li Xiaobing and others who were involved. They were told to create a patient care record for Dong Cui. This record was modified twice before being finalised, and after each modification, the brand new notebook was intentionally made to look worn-out.
The Beijing Women's Prison Authorities Pressed Ms. Dong's Family to Drop Their Legal Action with Both Threats and Financial Inducements
After Ms. Dong died, her mother rushed to Beijing Women's Hospital, where she found her daughter's ghastly remains. The body was covered with cuts and bruises, and her legs were swollen and purple. The parts under the knees were full of gore. On her left shoulder, the bones and muscles had come apart. Ms. Dong's mother asked the Medical Identification Centre in Beijing to do an autopsy. On April 14th, the autopsy report showed that Ms. Dong Cui had been tortured to death.
Faced with the undeniable evidence, the Beijing Women's Prison authorities had to admit that they "had a certain responsibility." They reimbursed all the expenses for Ms. Dong's parents during their stay in Beijing, which included food and accommodation as well as medical fees. (Ms. Dong's father was suffering from diabetes and needed medical treatment.) The prison authorities tried to appease them by making sure they lived comfortably. At the same time the prison authorities sent in four prison guards including He Yu to carry out what they called "ideological work" on Ms. Dong's parents everyday and applied pressure on them as well. During their 50 days' stay in Beijing, they were continuously threatened to withdraw their lawsuit.
Later, the women's prison paid a high price to silence Ms. Dong's parents and force them to agree to the following conditions:
a. Not allowed to accept the "incitations" of local Falun Gong practitioners nor contact any Falun Gong practitioners for any reason.
b. Not to disclose and make public the "special family consolation fee" provided by the department concerned.
c. Not to appeal to any agencies about this case.
Ms. Dong Cuifang's parents had no way to sue the prison under such high pressure and had to accept the terms, so they left Beijing for home.
The Death of Ms. Dong Cui Showed That the Crimes Committed by the Beijing Women's Prison and the Prison Administrative Bureau Are Systematic, from Top to Bottom
After Ms. Dong died, the Prison Administrative Bureau didn't publicly deal with the prison guards who committed the crimes in order to protect its own interests. In the women's prison, Warden Zhang Shushun and Deputy Warden Zhou Ying tried to shirk responsibility by saying that they didn't know what happened. Tian Fengqing tried to shift the blame to Xi Xuehui, saying that on that day Xi didn't report what had happened to her in time. She also shifted the responsibility to the collaborators, Li Xiao Bing, Li Xiaomei, and Jin Hongwei.
The direct cause of Ms. Dong's death was the crimes committed by the Beijing Women's Prison and the Prison Administrative Bureau. The root cause is the Chinese Communist Party's directives to carry out the persecution of Falun Gong at any cost.
Beijing Prison Administrative Bureau Deputy Director Gao Jianguo adopted the method of competition among the three prisons under its jurisdiction (Men's Prison, Women's Prison and Underage Reformatory) and set quotas for "transforming" Falun Gong practitioners. They used financial incentives, promotions, and free trips to motivate the prison guards to conduct brainwashing on practitioners. Warden Zhang Shushun and Deputy Warden Zhou Ying applied pressure from the top down. Third Ward head Tian Fengqing shifted the pressure to her deputy, Xi Xuehui, and other prison guards. These prison guards would select inmates to be their assistants and thugs, and used them to control, assault and "transform" practitioners. The prison authorities set up criteria for rewarding the inmates based on how hard they persecuted the practitioners. If they failed to torture the practitioners to the best of their ability, they would be punished by having privileges taken away, having their parole requests denied, and not given visits by their families. Li Xiaobing and Li Xiaomei, two former practitioners, were "transformed" and turned against Dafa. They felt confident that the prison would back them in carrying out the persecution, so they did so without restraint.
After Ms. Dong was tortured to death, the prison authorities allowed Jin Hongwei to return home for a holiday as a "reward." This was the kind of special treatment the prison authorities provided for those inmates who assisted in the persecution. Li Xiaomei and Li Xiaobing both had their prison terms reduced. This incentive and punishment system, driven from the top down by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is a primary cause of the deaths of so many practitioners as a result of persecution.
The prison administrative bureau often held meetings on "transforming" Falun Gong practitioners. By 2002 the Third Ward of the women's prison had compiled a set of methods for torturing practitioners, and these methods were introduced to other parts of the country, as well. The death of Ms. Dong Cui was no accident, but the result of premeditated and deliberate torture. The torture method called "breaking the eagle," a tactic in which several people take turns attacking a victim to wear her out, was a common method the prison used on the practitioners. The prison carefully worked out the methods for disguised corporal punishment. Li Xiaomei once said that beating a person with a leather belt dipped in water would leave marks. She even tested it herself. The torture method "Airplane Flying"4 did not create enough intense pressure, so they eventually chose the method of the "Forced Double Lotus Position." They thought that it was most in line with the propaganda requirement of "forbidding corporal punishment in prison" and not causing visible injuries.
The methods of torture implemented in the Third Ward were used by the consent of the Prison Political Section and the Education Section. The Prison Party Committee praised Tian Fengqing many times for his cunning and boldness in the persecution of practitioners. Between March 11th and 18th, Ms. Dong Cui was already very weak because of the hunger strike and the corporal punishment. On the evening of March 18th, she had some noodles. She was brutally beaten on March 19th.
The World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong has listed the case of Ms. Dong, who died as a result of torture, as a candidate for investigation. It also included Tian Fengqing, Xi Xuehui, and Zhou Ying on the list for investigation.
Note
1. "Reform or Transform" Implementation of brainwashing and torture in order to force a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong. (Variations: "reform", "transform", "reformed", "reforming", "transformed", "transforming", and "transformation")
2. "Guarantee Statement": A statement to declare that one is remorseful for practising Falun Gong and guarantees not to practise Falun Gong again, not to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and never again associate with any Falun Dafa practitioners.
3. "Collaborators": Former practitioners who have turned against Falun Gong under brainwashing and torture. They are then made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners.
4. "Airplane Flying" - Stand with one's back against the wall, one's head dropped forward, and both hands pulled up from behind.
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/5/31/155946.html
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