Dafa Practitioner Ms. Tian Fang Persecuted in Hohhot Prison, Inner Mongolia

Ms. Tian Fang, a Dafa practitioner from Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia, was arrested in 2004 and sentenced to a four-year prison term. In Hohhot Prison, she was brutally persecuted by guards and inmates. They ripped off her clothes and forced her to stand naked in cold weather. They slapped her in the face and also used cigarettes to burn her face, electric batons to shock her, and toilet brushes to scrub her mouth. Following are more details of the persecution she endured:

Ms. Tian Fang, 36 years old, lives in the Kerqin District in Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia. Both her parents and siblings practise Falun Gong. Over the last eight years, the whole family has been persecuted and separated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Their experiences have been recorded on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website many times.

During this time, Ms. Tian was sent to a brainwashing centre once and detained four times. In 2000, she was sent to forced labour camp twice. Because she failed the physical examination, she was conditionally released. The police also harassed her parents-in-law at their residence many times. Due to the influence of Jiang's regime's slanderous propaganda, they dared not let Ms. Tian come into their home, so she had to stay with her parents all the time.

On February 24th, 2004, Ms. Tian Fang went to Hohhot Women's Prison to visit her sister, Ms. Tian Miao. On the way back, while she was dispelling the state propaganda attacking the practice and talking about the persecution that her family had endured, she was reported, arrested, and detained in Hexi Detention Centre in Tongliao City. On February 18th, more than 20 people broke into and ransacked her home. Among these people were the police department head, the police station director, residential committee head Shao Jun, and 610 Office¹ policeman Wang Bo.

During the seven months that she was held in Hexi Detention Centre, Ms. Tian went on a hunger strike several times to protest. The guards, doctors, and inmates brutally force-fed her. They used metal pry bars to open her mouth, tearing her flesh and knocking out one of her teeth. By then, Ms. Tian was already emaciated. Seven months later, Ms. Tian was sentenced to four years, and detained in Hohhot Prison.

In Hohhot Women's Prison, Ms. Tian was brutally tortured. Sometimes the guards tortured her themselves, and sometimes they enticed inmates to torture her, promising to reduce their terms of detention. Cao Guixiang, an inmate facing the death penalty, was very active in torturing Ms. Tian. One time when Ms. Tian was doing the Falun Gong exercises in the cell, Cao took a brush and beat Ms. Tian hard on her legs and knees, causing severe swelling. Zhao Qing, another inmate detained for fraud, incited everyone in the cell to beat and kick Ms. Tian. As a result, Ms. Tian was bruised all over her face and body. In mid-October, several inmates tortured Ms. Tian by tying her arms and legs together. They dumped her on the floor and tried to stuff her under the bed. Because the bed was not high enough, the inmates kicked her, just like kicking a ball, injuring her back, hand, and hip. They then carried out the bed and did not allow Ms. Tian to sleep. They gagged her with dirty toilet rags and squeezed her nose. The pain was so severe that she could not eat or sleep.

The guards treated Ms. Tian even worse. Because she did not yield to their pressure to renounce Falun Gong, they often handcuffed her to the bed, from 5 to 10 o'clock. In this position, Ms. Tian was not allowed to stand or squat. The guards also told her to keep quiet. If she made any sound, almost everyone in the cell would beat her. In late November 2004, when Ms. Tian refused to wear the prison uniform, the guards ordered the inmates to force her to wear it. Ms. Tian refused again. The guards said, "If you do not wear the prison uniform, you can't wear anything!" The inmates ripped off Ms. Tian's clothes and ordered her to stand in the freezing wind. Ms. Tian was shivering because of the cold. The inmates also made fun of her. Later, female guard Guo Liqing came out. She pretended to be considerate, asking Ms. Tian to wear clothes. Ms. Tian said she had not broken any law and she would not wear the prison uniform. Guo let her wear her own clothes and then sent her to a "transformation²" centre inside the prison. There were many guards there. Some beat Ms. Tian, and some pretended to be nice. Seeing that Ms. Tian did not yield, guard Liu Gang used a bamboo brush to brutally beat the arches of her feet. A guard surnamed Zhang used cigarettes to burn Ms. Tian's face and laughed loudly. When she again refused to wear the prison uniform, the guards handcuffed her high on the bunk bed so that her feet did not reach the floor. It was very painful. When Ms. Tian went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution, the male and female guards beat her.

In late June 2005, some officials came to visit the prison. Ms. Tian called out, "Falun Dafa is good!" As a result, guards and inmates kept her in the toilet. The guards instructed several inmates to torture Ms. Tian. They handcuffed her, stuffed towels in her mouth and taped her mouth shut. They also took turns watching her and not allowing her to sleep. Another time, when some visitors came to tour the prison, Ms. Tian called out in front of them, "Falun Dafa is good!" The inmates who were assigned to watch her--Cao Guixiang and Wang Jinyan-- dragged Ms. Tian to the toilet. They then brutally beat her and kicked her. Cao Guixiang said furiously, "I cannot handle you anymore!" She then struck Ms. Tian in the face about a hundred times. Ms. Tian's mouth had a wide tear because of the beating. They then used the toilet brush to scrub Ms. Tian's mouth. They forced her to stay in the small toilet for four or five days. It was mid-summer and they did not allow her to wash her face or clean herself. From time to time, they dragged her out of the toilet and swore at her. Another time, they forced Ms. Tian to stand in the big toilet and would not let her move for two days and two nights. Her feet became extremely swollen, making it impossible for her to wear shoes. She could barely walk and had to move forward inch by inch.

After torturing her for four to five months, the guards again put Ms. Tian in the "transformation" centre. Guards Zhang Liwei and Zhao Xiaopeng shocked her mouth with electric batons. Each shock left a black scar around her mouth. They also used collaborators--those who had been "transformed"--to take turns trying to "transform" Ms. Tian.

Below is a list of those who participated in the persecution of Ms. Tian:

Zhou Jianhua, Prison Head, male

Guards: Xiao Mei, Zhang Yanlei, Zhang Yujuan, Wang Yanwen, Shi Caifeng, Guo Liqing, Mao Min, Zhao Jianzhen (male), Zhao Pengcheng (male), Tai Weiwei, Xiao Jie (male), Liu Gang (male), Zhang Weili (male), Kang Weijin (male)

Inmates: Cao Guixiang (death penalty with delayed execution), Zhao Qi (charged with fraud), Wang Jinyan, Yang Xiaomei (drug dealer), Xie Suqing (death penalty with delayed execution), Liu Ping, Li Yamei, Gao Xiuyun (charged with homicide).

Note

1. "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.

2. "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")

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/11/9/166234.html