On February 25th, 2008, police from Jinzhou City and from a local 610 Office1 arrested more than 20 Falun Gong practitioners, including Ms. Liu Fengmei and Mr. Wang Guiling. The following article relates details of the persecution of these two practitioners.
1. The Persecution of Liu Fengmei
Ms. Liu Fengmei, 43, was a worker at the Nuerhe Textile Factory in Jinzhou City. She was arrested on February 25, 2008, along with several other practitioners.
Ms. Liu had suffered from poor health since childhood. She began to practise Falun Gong in November 1995 and followed the principles of Truth, Compassion and Tolerance. Soon, all her physical illnesses disappeared. In 1998, for the first time in her life, she set a perfect work attendance record. The company awarded her an outstanding honour in recognition of her good work.
After July 1999, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution of Falun Gong, Ms. Liu went to Beijing four times to appeal for justice. She tried to tell the government that Falun Gong had done nothing wrong. But the police arrested her repeatedly. Ms. Liu was sentenced to two and a half years of forced labour in October 1999. In November, she was sent to the notorious Masanjia Forced Labour Camp.
Because Liu Fengmei refused to compromise her principles, the guards and criminal inmates assaulted her repeatedly. She was shocked with electric batons, forced to squat, and made to stand and sit in the snow while being shocked with electric batons. She went on a hunger strike to protest the abuse. The hunger strike lasted more than 20 days. One day, as the guards beat her in a small room, people outside could hear her cries of pain. Fellow practitioners urged the captors to stop beating her, threatening that otherwise, they would hold a hunger strike. Later on, labour camp head Su Jing dragged Liu Fengmei out of the room.
The harsh tortures severely damaged Ms. Liu's health. Her systolic blood pressure was only 20 and she couldn't even get into the bed. She also suffered from brutal forced-feeding sessions, forced infusions and other repeated physical violence. Later Liu Fengmei was transferred to the Intensive Forced Labour Team for further persecution.
In mid-June 2000, the officials listed Liu Fengmei as a key subject for persecution after her refusal to give up her faith. The labour camp was assigned a high "reform2" quota, so they went after Liu Fengmei again. She and some other practitioners became targets of this intensified round of persecution.
One day the guards forced the practitioners to stand up for 18 hours and also shocked them with electric batons for a long time. The skin on Liu Fengmei's neck was burned so severely it became dark. Blisters appeared on her neck and hands. The next day the shocking continued with two batons, after first stripping off her shirt and tying her legs together. After the prolonged electric shocks, Ms. Liu's neck was burned completely black, and more blisters covered her neck and hands. The blisters remained for many days. Following the electric shock torture, Ms. Liu was locked in a solitary confinement cell for several days. When she finally got out of there, she was extremely weak. Her poor health prevented her from completing the assigned workload, and for that the guards often yelled at her. Because her family was poor, she spent little money and never bought any food.
Those who tortured Ms. Liu include team leaders Zhang Xiurong, Wang Haimin, Zhou Qian; division leader Wang Yanping, and political head Gu Quanyi. Labor camp directors Zhou Qin and Su Jing encouraged these people to persecute practitioners.
In April 2001, guards sent Liu Fengmei and more than 20 other practitioners to a small room. They were forced to sit on a small stool for nine days, from 6:00 a.m. to midnight. They had to listen to articles that slandered Falun Gong. The long-term sitting on a small stool/bench injured many practitioners. Their buttocks bled, and bloody scabs stuck to their clothing. It was very painful.
After that, Liu Fengmei was forced to squat for five days while facing a wall, again from 6:00 a.m. to midnight. This was followed by two days' forced standing. Liu Fengmei still refused to compromise and would not renounce Falun Gong. To punish her, female guards Wang Yanping and Zhou Qian whipped her with steel wires and shocked her torso and the soles of her feet. The long-term abuse severely damaged Ms. Liu's physical and mental health. To protest, Liu Fengmei started another hunger strike. As a result, the police force-fed her through a nasal tube. They did not stop, even though her nose bled profusely. At this point, Liu Fengmei had reached the limit of her endurance. On September 10th, 2001 at noon, she jumped out of a third-floor window. (Editor's comment: this act violates Falun Gong's principles). She sustained a broken vertebra from the fall. Her family carried her home after surgery. To this day she has a steel plate in her lower back.
At home, with family members' care, Liu Fengmei continued to read Falun Gong books and practised the exercises and gradually recovered. Her family is very poor. While in the labour camp, her old employer went out of business. Most people received a lump sum severance pay but Liu Fengmei received nothing. This matter is still unsettled.
On April 10th, 2002 at 10:00 a.m. Liu went to visit a colleague at her home. Two undercover policemen arrested her there. They took her to the No. 5 Police Team in the Taihe District, confiscated her money, the key to her house and some other belongings. After that, the police went to her house when no one was at home. They opened the door with her key and ransacked her house. They searched chests, luggage bags, blankets, the couch, and grain and rice bags. They completely trashed the house, throwing things on the floor. They left with some Falun Gong books and many other personal belongings, including toy cars, battery chargers, an electric iron and leather handbags.
At 4:00 p.m. The police sent Liu Fengmei to the Jinzhou City First Detention Centre. To protest the arrest, Liu immediately started a hunger strike. On the sixth day, the guards began to force-feed her. The plastic tube insertion proved difficult, but that did not stop the persecutors from trying repeatedly. Her nose bled profusely. Failing to insert the tube, they forced her mouth open and inserted a tube down her throat to her stomach. The liquid they injected spilled out, and the forced-feeding failed. Finally they gave up. On the eighth day, the captors attempted to forcibly infuse her with an unknown substance, but they were unsuccessful. The many attempts left her with several needle punctures. In the evening of the twelfth day Ms. Liu was rushed to the hospital emergency department. The next day, the police had to release her. Having been home for only one day, more than a dozen police officers from the Taihe Police Branch and from the Nuerhe Police Station came to her house. Seeing Liu Fengmei still in bed, they left. Then Liu Fengmei decided to leave home and went into hiding.
Years of persecution bankrupted Ms. Liu's family. Because the family could not afford the heating costs during the winter months, their only child suffered from frost-bite on the hands. Police took their only a valuable possession - a colour TV - during a home search; they even took a toy car.
To take care of their child and husband, Liu Fengmei returned home in 2005. She found a factory janitor's job. The management had only high praise for her for her outstanding work.
Recently, in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, the CCP launched a mass arrest of Falun Gong practitioners. In the morning of February 25th, 2008, while at work sweeping the floor, Liu Fengmei was arrested again, this time by undercover police, and sent to the Jinzhou City Detention Centre. It has been heard that the CCP would sentence her to a prison term. According to an unconfirmed source, Ms. Liu was sent to Dalian. Right now, Liu Fengmei's family members worry about her very much.
2. The Persecution of Wang Guiling
Mr. Wang Guiling, 49, was previously employed by the Beishan Construction Company in Jinzhou City. Jinzhou police officers arrested him on February 25th, 2008, along with some other practitioners. Before that, he was twice sentenced to forced labour for his spiritual belief and incarcerated in the Jinzhou Forced Labour Camp. He suffered all kinds of inhumane treatment.
In the spring of 2000, Wang Guiling once practised the Falun Gong exercises outdoor. For that he was unlawfully detained. He refused to write any repentance statement3 and was sent to forced labour as punishment. On November 1st, 2000, Jinzhou Forced Labour Camp officials established a brainwashing centre, specifically targeting Falun Gong practitioners. The guards forced Wang Guiling and other practitioners to sit on a small stool from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. every day, hands on knees, legs touching each other and backs straight at all times. They were forbidden to move or speak and were simultaneously compelled to listen to broadcasts that slandered Falun Gong. This is a form of psychological as well as physical torture. The guards also assigned criminal inmates to monitor practitioners around the clock. Practitioners were given only three toilet breaks a day. The most steadfast practitioners were forbidden to see their family members who tried to visit.
In early February 2001, Wang Guiling and other practitioners made three demands to the labour camp leader in Team Two: reduce the sitting time, remove the coverings over the window glass to allow sun light in, and to let their families visit them. In the evening of February 10th, 2001, when Wang Guiling and several other practitioners were reciting a Falun Gong article, at the direction of guard Yang Tinglun, four criminal inmates, Ju Yan, Jiang Zhipeng, Hao Chunsheng and Sun Weichen rushed to their room and yelled at the practitioners. Following the criminal inmates, guard Yang Tinglun dashed in and grabbed Wang's collar from behind. Four criminal inmates immediately dragged Wang Guiling out of the room. One of them punched him in his ribs, causing severe pain. He could not speak, had trouble breathing and collapsed in the hallway. Mr. Wang's cries of pain did not stop them. The criminals pulled him into a toilet. Hao Chunsheng threw dozens of punches and kicks at him. The other practitioners tried to stop them, but the criminals blocked the practitioners at the door and knocked down practitioner Shi Zhongyan. Inmate Sun Weichen kicked Shi Zhongyan in his face. Camp political head Feng Zibin was there, watching the whole time.
On February 11th, 2001, Wang Guiling and others wrote a statement describing the whole incident and gave it to the labour camp leadership. They called for punishment of the offenders. At 4:00 p.m. on February 12th, 2001 political commissar Zhang Haiping and more than twenty guards arrived in Mr. Wang's cell. Other guards were assigned to all other cells. They had divided into several groups, three or four in each; each group would grab one practitioner and pin him to the floor. They then handcuffed these practitioners and sent each of them to a separate room. When practitioners asked why they had to wear handcuffs the guards said, "You violated the rules." Following that, two guards and two criminal inmates were assigned to monitor one practitioner. They were handcuffed all the time, during meals, when they slept, and when using the toilet. Guards Yang Tinglun, Zhang Jiabin and Feng Zibin yelled at practitioners, "You are rioters who deserve punishment. We absolutely have no mercy for you!" This torment lasted about two weeks. In the end, the labor camp officials extended the practitioners' sentences by two to five months. In contrast, the criminal inmates who had abused practitioners were rewarded with sentence reductions. During an inmate meeting, political commissar Zhang Haiping and camp head Jin Fuli even claimed, "If Falun Gong praises you, then you did a terrible job. If Falun Gong said you are no good, then you did a wonderful job!"
About August 2001 Wang Guiling was released from the labour camp but was arrested again shortly after.
Between September and December 2002, Jinzhou Forced Labour Camp officials launched an intensive brainwashing activity of the steadfast practitioners. They used violence on anyone who refused to comply with their demands. The police used high voltage electric batons to shock practitioners, deprived them of sleep for days, hit their faces with wooden planks, forced them to sit on a small stool for prolonged periods, and punched and kicked them. After the torture they locked them up in solitary confinement. Sometime, the sleep-deprivation went on for several days in a row. When practitioners closed their eyes, the guards would electrically shock them or slap their faces with a wooden plank.
Mr. Wang Guiling later recalled, "In the morning of December 30th, 2002, two guards and a criminal inmate from Team Two brought me from the Newcomers Team to Team Two. Guard Zhang Tinglun told me: 'Reform is the government's order. I represent the government. You have no choice but to reform according to the order. Then he handcuffed my hands behind my back, put a helmet on me, and squeezed me into a corner with a table. Two guards were assigned to monitor me for a three-hour shift. Then another pair came for the next shift. They brought several electric batons and other types of torture tools. They also played videotapes defaming Falun Gong and forced me to watch. For the next 24 hours I was forced to stand there, with eyes wide open.
"At 9:00 p.m. team leader Li Songtao, guards Yang Tinglun, Zhang Chunfeng, Zhang Jiabin and a criminal inmate surnamed An rushed in to handcuff me from behind. They forced my legs into a double lotus position, and pulled my feet to the extreme position. Then they tied my legs tightly and threw me to the ground. After half an hour they realized that I was not ready to compromise. Frustrated, they stripped off my shirt and socks, and started to shock me with several batons. These batons were brand new and could generate over 10,000 volts of electricity. They chose the most sensitive areas to shock, such as my chest, my back and the bottoms of my feet. The excruciating pain was hard to endure. I struggled with all my strength, even broke a rope twice. The torture was just too painful to describe."
Wang Guiling was released from the camp in 2003. But during the morning of February 25th, 2008, police once again arrested Wang Guiling, using the guise of the Olympics as a reason. Some had observed him being ruthlessly beaten at the hands of undercover police, losing five teeth in the process. During the arrest, the captors wrapped his head with black cloth.
Wang Guilin is now incarcerated at the Jinzhou City No. 2 Detention Centre. His elderly mother worries constantly about her son.
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")
3. Repentance Statement: In this statement the practitioner is forced to admit remorse for practising Falun Gong, promise to give up Falun Gong, and never again associate with other practitioners or go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong.
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/4/9/176101.html
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