3074 Deaths Confirmed During the Past Eight Years of Persecution

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Jiang Zemin's regime have persecuted Falun Gong for eight years, ever since July 20th, 1999. During this period, the genocidal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners has never let up. Huge numbers of Falun Gong practitioners who have persevered in their belief have been fired from their jobs, deprived of an education, compelled to leave their homes, and had their families torn apart. According to incomplete statistics, at least 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been sentenced to prison, more than 100,000 practitioners sentenced to forced labour, and several thousand practitioners sent to psychiatric hospitals where they were injected with nerve-damaging drugs. Numerous practitioners have been and are still being tortured physically and mentally in brainwashing centres all over the country.

In the past eight years, frequent incidents of torture-induced disabilities and deaths of Falun Gong practitioners have happened in China. Despite the CCP's strict information blockade, the deaths of 3,074 Falun Gong practitioners as a result of persecution have been confirmed. Among these victims, 54.2% were female, and an average of 32 practitioners died every month. The deaths were distributed in 31 provinces, cities and autonomous districts.

These innocent Falun Gong practitioners came from all walks of life. Their ages range from 8 months to over 70 years. They died as a result of the inhuman and genocidal persecution of both the body and mind. The Communist regime has resorted to the most wicked and barbaric methods in the history of mankind to abuse Falun Gong practitioners. They use over 40 different torture methods, including long-term sleep deprivation, electric shocks with multiple high-voltage batons to the mouth, chest, underarms, breasts, and genital area, basement detention, water dungeon, handcuffing behind the back, hanging up by handcuffed hands behind the back, the Tiger Bench¹, Stretching Bed, sexual assaults, whipping with leather belts and copper wire, beating with metal bars, spiked rods and bamboo sticks, punitive force-feeding, force-feeding with hot pepper water, concentrated salt water and human faeces through industrial plastic tubes, and injections with and forced ingestion of nerve-damaging drugs.

These deaths are only the tip of the iceberg. A great number of Falun Gong practitioners went missing after the CCP agents seized them unlawfully. It is suspected that they were secretly detained in the CCP's concentration camps, or had their organs removed while they were still alive, with their organs sold in the CCP's booming organ transplant industry. Their remains were cremated to destroy evidence, but the CCP tightly covers up these crimes.

A great number of Falun Gong practitioners who have died as a result of the persecution have left behind their children and elderly parents who, a lot of times, died soon afterwards from suffering such severe grief and hardship. Their young children not only lost their parents, but even suffered mistreatment from people in society whom the CCP had deceived about Falun Gong. Due to the extreme anxiety and grief brought about by these conditions, some children suffered a mental collapse, some developed serious illnesses, and some even died prematurely.

The Communist regime has expended huge amounts of state finances during the past eight years to maintain the persecution that consists of only lies and violence. As early as five years ago, a high-ranking officer of the Justice Department of Liaoning Province once said in a conference at the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp of Liaoning Province, "The financial resources used to deal with Falun Gong have exceeded the outlay for a war." Instead of putting such a great amount of national resources toward raising people's morals and fostering economic development, the Communist regime invested the money to hire people to monitor, detain, and torture cultivators of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance." This resulted in an immediate decline in society's morality and also was the cause of frequent natural and man-made catastrophes.

These crimes against humanity are still happening. As the 2008 Olympics draw near, the CCP is carrying out another round of special persecution, using the Olympics as a convenient excuse. As early as 2005, the CCP's Deputy Minister of the Public Security Liu Jing received an order to eliminate Falun Gong before the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He issued an order to all the police departments nationwide to intensify the persecution of Falun Gong. In March 2007, Minister of Public Security Zhou Yongkang issued an order to start a new, nationwide round of brutal persecution of Falun Gong. Since then, there have been massive arrests of many practitioners in many areas in China. Incidents of Falun Gong practitioners being disabled or dying as a result of the persecution continue to occur in China.

Thirteen Falun Gong Practitioners' Deaths from the Persecution in China Confirmed in 2007

As of July 2007, it has been confirmed that thirteen Falun Gong practitioners have died as a result of the persecution in China this year. Nine of these practitioners died between January and the end of June and four practitioners died in July 2007. Nine of the victims were female, accounting for 69.2%. The youngest was Ms. Jiang Pai from Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province who was only 30 years old when she died on June 28th, 2007.

The thirteen deaths as a result of torture occurred in the following eight provinces and cities: three in Liaoning Province and Jilin Province, two in Heilongjiang Province, one in Hubei Province, Shandong Province, Hunan Province, Gansu Province and Beijing.

Falun Gong Practitioner Mr. Sha Naiyu from the Jilin Petroleum Field Died Only Two Days After Being Taken into Custody

Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Sha Naiyu, in his forties, was an employee of the Honggang Oil Collecting Plant at the Jilin Petroleum Field. When he rode his motorcycle in July 2007 to distribute leaflets exposing the persecution, someone reported his licence plate number. Police officers from the Liangjia Town Station arrested him at his workplace on July 12th, 2007 and took him to the Da'an City Police Department on July 13th, 2007. His family went to visit him on July 14th, 2007, but they found out that he had been tortured to death.

It was reported that the Da'an City Political and Judiciary Committee Secretary Liu Yunhua (female), Da'an City Police Department Deputy Director Chu Guojun (male, in charge of persecution within the city) personally ordered others to brutally torture Mr. Sha Naiyu. At around 6 p.m. on July 14th, 2007, Mr. Sha Naiyu was found dead on the ground outside the police department building. The police put on a show of taking him to the hospital, but the doctors discovered that his internal organs were smashed, and there was a large amount of blood inside his abdominal cavity. Nothing could be seen but the extravasated blood. The doctors said he had died prior to arrival.

The police made the same false claim that they have used for the past eight years in other instances, which was that Mr. Sha had jumped from the third floor while being interrogated, but the local people did not believe that. They instead believe it was not possible for him to look like that if he had jumped from that height, and that the police must have thrown the corpse out the window to create such a false scene. The police said several days earlier when harassing Falun Gong practitioners at home, "There is an order from above to kill a number of practitioners before the Olympics."

The police have treated practitioners extremely cruelly. They lock detained practitioners into a metal chair or the tiger bench so that they cannot move at all. Practitioner Ms. Geng Jiqiu from Da'an City was locked in a metal chair for three consecutive days and nights in 2003. A group of police officers then beat her and sexually assault her, causing Ms. Geng to suffer a mental collapse and have heart problems. She then became disabled.

Ms. Jiang Pai Died at the Age of 30 within Two Months of Detention

Ms. Jiang Pai, 30, single, was a staff member of the Daqing City Main Petroleum Industry. She died on June 28th, 2007 at the age of 30 as a result of torture during detention by the agents from Daqing City Police Department, the National Security Department and Procuratorate. She died with 5-kilogramme shackles still on her ankles. Her elderly mother was filled with grief. She cried, "They lied to me, so I encouraged my child to go back to work, but now she is dead. How can I go on living?"

Jiang Pai

Ms. Jiang Pai was forced to leave her job at age 23 in October 2000 because she refused to quit practising Falun Gong. The police persecuted her without letting up. They have arrested her several times and have harassed her family members many times.

Daqing Secret Service Bureau police officials arrested her on August 29th, 2003. They attempted to lure her into being a spy and to utilise her special computer expertise to work for the Secret Service Bureau. She sternly refused and held a protest hunger strike. She was sent to a hospital when she was in critical condition and later released on medical parole.

She was arrested again at home three years later, on August 29th, 2006, but was released after one week on a hunger strike.

Recently, Jiang Pai's former workplace authorities lied to her family members, "It's alright now. Let her come back to work." Her family members believed it and were very happy because she had lost her job seven years ago. Around 9:00 a.m. on April 26th, 2007, as soon as Jiang Pai arrived at the workplace entrance, agents from the Daqing Public Security Bureau, Wolitun District Police Department arrested her and took her to the Daqing Detention Centre. She again went on a protest hunger strike and was force-fed. Ms. Jiang vomited, coughed blood and fainted during the brutal force-feeding. She lost a lot of weight and was too weak to walk. She was sent to the hospital and received emergency treatment for more than 10 days.

Her family members went to Daqing City Police Department several times to demand her release, but deputy head Zhang Yiqing showed no concern for her life and sent her back to the detention centre. He even stated, "Anyone can be released on medical parole, except Jiang Pai." He attempted to sentence her to a labour camp.

On June 26th, Jiang Pai's family members learned that she was at the Daqing Petroleum Hospital for emergency treatment. Her elderly parents went to visit her at night and saw her handcuffed and shackled to her bed. Her legs were covered with bruises and swollen. She was in a coma and was given oxygen.

On June 27th, Jiang Pai had been in a coma for 48 hours, despite the treatment. Her family members went to demand the Police Department and City Procuratorate to release their daughter, but were refused. The officials stated that they would follow "legal procedures."

Jiang Pai passed away at about 1:00 a.m. on June 28th, 2007. She was brutally tortured during two months of detention and died, with 5-kilogramme shackles still on her ankles.

According to incomplete statistics, Ms. Jiang Pai was at least the 60th Falun Gong practitioner to die from persecution in Daqing City. Prior to her death, Falun Gong practitioner Zhou Shuhai was tortured to death by the Daqing City Prison authorities on May 31st, 2007 at the age of 35.

Mr. Kong Xiangzhu from Heilongjiang Province Dies as a Result of Torture at Mudangjiang Prison

Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Kong Xiangzhu was 39 years old. He lived in the Jianshan District, Shuangyashan City in Heilongjiang Province. Mudanjiang City Prison administration officials used their influence to delay the release of Mr. Kong Xiangzhu and tortured him. On April 18th, 2007, when he was beyond help and dying, they released Mr. Kong. He died two months later.

The deceased Mr. Kong Xiangzhu

Mr. Kong Xiangzhu grew up in a very poor family and used to be very weak before he started practising Falun Gong. He could not work and was bedridden, but became healthy and strong after starting to practice Falun Gong at age 28 and was able to take care of his parents.

On the evening of May 1st, 2002, police officers arrested him, claiming he had been involved in tapping into the local cable TV system to broadcast the truth about the persecution. When his family heard that he had been taken to the emergency room, they rushed to the hospital to see him. They found his whole body was covered with bruises, and his back had been burned by electric baton shocks. The flesh around his neck had separated from his bones.

Mr. Kong Xiangzhu had been imprisoned and tortured in the Tenth Ward of the Mudanjiang City Prison. In June 2006, he was diagnosed with severe tuberculosis and had once fallen unconscious. By July 2006, after being treated outside the prison, he was still in critical condition. He could not move his lower body or take care of himself and was sometimes mentally confused. His family demanded his release many times due to his critical condition. The prison authorities deceived his family, promising to have him bailed out on medical parole, but they did not process the paperwork for several months. Agents from the Yonghong Police Station refused to accept his files, claiming that Mr. Kong Xiangzhu's residential registration was not in their files. Mr. Kong therefore did not get treatment at this critical time.

After ten months of unrelenting effort, and paying a fine of 5,000 yuan², Mr. Kong's family secured his release. Mr. Kong was skeleton-like and unconscious. He died after two miserable months, on the evening of June 23rd, 2007.

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For eight years, atrocities of unparallelled savagery like these have been occurring one after another, and have enraged heaven and earth.

Punishment will be meted out, targeting this unprecedented persecution.

For eight years, facing the Communist regime's ruthless killing, Falun Gong practitioners have persevered with truth and justice and explaining the facts to people, not asking for anything in return, but only hoping people can righteously position their conscience at the critical historic moment, see through the evil CCP's nature, stop supporting it and stop following it to do bad deeds so as to have a good future. Therefore, stopping the persecution of the cultivators of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" is stopping the CCP's persecution of all lives.

Note

1. "Tiger Bench": Prisoners are forced to sit on a small iron bench that is approximately 20 cm (6 inches) tall with their knees tied together. With their hands tied behind their backs or sometimes placed on their knees, they are forced to sit straight up and look straight ahead without movement for long periods of time.

2. "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://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/8/6/160253.html