Ms. Tian Fang and her family of six from Tongliao City in Inner Mongolia have not been united in the past nine years due to the persecution of Falun Gong, which began in 1999. The six practitioners have accumulated a combined total of nearly 30 years of detention or prison time over the past nine years. The once wealthy family has experienced separation, the bankruptcy of their business, and becoming penniless under the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) persecution.
Ms. Tian Fang, 39 years old, has practised Falun Gong since April 1998 and benefited physically and spiritually. Since the onset of the persecution, Ms. Tian has been forced to attend brainwashing sessions and has been detained four times. She has also served a four-year sentence at the Hohhot City Women's Prison.
Her father, Tian Fujin, 55 years old, used to be the deputy director and head of technology at a leather factory in Tongliao City. He has been detained twice and served a five-year sentence at the Wuyuan Forced Labour Camp. Mr. Tian was tortured and forced to attend brainwashing sessions.
Ms. Liu Surong, Tian Fang's mother, has been detained twice, and sentenced to two years of forced labour. Tian Fang's sister, Tian Xing, has been detained twice and sentenced to forced labour twice. Her sister Tian Miao had to attend a brainwashing session once, was detained four times, and sentenced to six years in prison. Tian Miao and Tain Fang are detained at the Hohhot City Women's Prison and being mistreated under the persecution.
Tian Shuangjiang, Ms. Tian Fang's brother, has been detained twice and sentenced to three years of incarceration; he is currently detained at the Tongliao City Prison.
Like thousands of Falun Gong practitioners, Ms. Tian Fang went to Beijing and appealed for Falun Gong. Tongliao City Police officials arrested and detained her on December 29th, 1999, and held her at the Hexi Detention Centre for thirty-five days. Since her release, local police officials have frequently harassed her.
In March 2000, she went to Beijing again and attempted to explain the facts about Falun Gong to the people, but was arrested and detained for three days and fined 1,200 yuan1.
On August 20th, 2000, when she sold small merchandise at a night market, policeman Ri Hetu and other officers deceived her into reporting to the Kequ Police Department. She was then held at the Hexi Detention Centre, where she persisted in her practice of Falun Gong and did not cooperate with the evildoers. Policeman Bao Wuyun placed her in shackles weighing a couple dozen pounds. She was detained for more than twenty days and subsequently sentenced to two years of forced labour at the Tumuji Forced Labour Camp, located in the Zalaite Qi region, but the camp refused to accept her because of her medical condition.
Mr. Tain Jinfu went to Beijing and appealed for Falun Gong on December 23rd, 1999. He was arrested, transferred to the local police station, detained for more than two months, and eventually sentenced to three years of forced labour. In 2000, he was transferred from Tongliao Forced Labour Camp to the Tumuji Forced Labour Camp, and in May 2001 to the Wuyuan Forced Labour Camp. On the day of his arrival at that camp, a big meeting was held to attack Falun Gong. Mr. Tian stood up and told everyone the facts about Falun Gong. Several guards carried him out of the meeting. They shocked him with electric batons until the power died. They then recharged the batteries and shocked him again for more than three hours. His white shirt became red with blood, and so the guards destroyed it to hide the evidence. The guards punched and kicked him in addition to the electrical shocks until Mr. Tian's face became unrecognisable. He was then locked into an isolated small cell.
On March 15th, 2000, police officers Zhao June, Wang Po, and others captured Ms. Tian Fang's sister, Tian Miao, and stole the key to her home. The police acted like gangsters, breaking into her home and ransacking it. They took away Falun Gong materials and stationery. Tian Xiao was taken to the Kequ Police Department and later held at the Hexi Detention Centre for eighty days.
On March 5th, 2002, police again captured Ms. Tian Miao and stole her house key. One month later, Ms. Tian's brother Tain Shuangjiang was arrested because someone reported him while he was visiting a Falun Gong website at a Baokang Internet cafe in Hezuozhong Qi. Officers from Tongliao City Political and Security Division questioned him. He was forbidden to sleep for three days and underwent the rope torture. If he cried out from pain, the guards taped his mouth shut, put him in shackles and beat him brutally. Because he refused to wear the prison uniform at the detention centre, guards punched and kicked him and put him in shackles weighing a couple dozen pounds. Two and a half days later, he was put on the Death Bed. (The Death Bed at the Tongliao Detention Centre is a rectangle metal stand, with only one metal tube placed in the middle. The victim's four limbs are stretched out and fixed to the four corners of the bed. The victim's whole body weight is pressed onto the metal tube. It is extremely painful.) Four days later they removed him from the Death Bed.
Ms. Tian Miao was sentenced to six years in prison. She served her term at Baoanzhao first and then was transferred to the Hohhot City Women's Prison. Because she did not give up Falun Gong, she suffered brutal torture, such as being tied up with rope, heavily shackled, shocked with electric batons, force-fed, and hung up.
Her brother Mr. Tian Shuangjiang was sentenced to three years in prison in January 2003.
On February 24th, 2004, Tian Fang was on her way by train to visit her sister Tian Miao. She cleared up misconceptions about Falun Gong with people on the way and spoke of her family's persecution. Someone reported her on the train and she was arrested and held at the Hexi Detention Centre. On February 28th, 2004, a group of people led by Yongqin Police Station head and Residential Committee head Shi Jun, as well as persons from the 610 Office2, broke into Tian Fang's home and ransacked it. During her subsequent seven-month detention, Tian Fang went on a protest hunger strike more than once. She was force-fed. Officials used a metal bar to pry open her mouth, splitting her lips on each side. One tooth was broken. Tian Fang was skin and bones. The detention centre doctor Ma and female guard Wu Boyuan were personally involved in this abuse.
On September 12th, 2004, seven months after her arrest, Tain Fang was sentenced to for four years in prison, to be served at the Hohhot City Women's Prison. The guards and common prisoners subjected her to brutal torture that included making her stand naked in the wintertime, burning her face with cigarettes, electric shocks, brushing her face with a toilet brush, slapping her in the face, punching and kicking her, and putting her in heavy shackles. Sometimes the prison guards would make six or seven prisoners beat her. They poured cold water on her and taped her mouth shut to prevent her from saying, "Falun Gong is good." In the middle of October 2004, a group of prisoners subjected her to a new round of violence. They tied her hands and feet together, threw her on the floor and tried to push her underneath the bed. Failing to do so, they kicked her back and forth, like a ball. Tian Fang's back, hands, and one of her hipbones were broken. They removed the bed board so that she could not sleep. To prevent her from making a sound, they gagged her with a towel that was used to clean the toilet, and pinched her nose. Ms. Tian Fang lost almost all of her ability to eat and sleep following such gross abuse.
More mistreatment followed. Since Tian Fang refused to answer roll call by number, the guards often handcuffed her to the bed from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. so that she could neither squat nor stand up completely. Making any sound would give the inmates an excuse to beat her. At the end of December 2004, she refused to wear the prison uniform. The guards incited criminal prisoners to forcibly put her into the uniform. Failing to do so, they removed all her clothes and made her stand on the floor with the window open, exposing her to freezing cold winds.
To try to make Tian Fang renounce her faith, guard Liu Gang beat the soles of her feet with a bamboo stick and shocked her with an electrical baton. Another guard surnamed Zhang from Baoanzhao burned her face with cigarettes, and grinned fiendishly while conducting this crime. As long as Tian Fang refused to wear the prison uniform, guards would hang her up on the bed rail. She was in great pain. She protested the persecution with hunger strikes. The guards would attack her as a group, and one female guard even forced open her mouth with her fingers.
Toward the end of June 2005, upper-management officials visited the prison. Tian Fang shouted, "Falun Gong is good!" She was locked in the toilet. Guards and prisoners Yuan Tieming, Cao Guixiang and Wang Jinyan handcuffed her and gagged her with a towel and taped her mouth shut. They took turns monitoring her and deprived her of sleep. Another time Tian Fang shouted, "Falun Gong is good!" in front of visitors. Cao Guixiang and Wang Jinyan grabbed her and threw her into the bathroom again and punched and kicked her. Cao Guixiang yelled, "I don't believe that I cannot handle you," and she fiercely slapped the practitioner on her face numerous times. The perpetrators pulled Tian Fang out of the bathroom now and then, and cursed her in front of eight or nine imitates. Another time, Tian Fang had to stand straight in the bathroom for two days. Her feet were swollen; they looked bad and she could not fit them into her shoes. She could only drag her feet slowly, inch by inch.
Following ruthless torture for four or five months, Ms. Tian was locked up in a brainwashing centre. Prison guards Zhang Wei and Zhao Pengchen shocked her in the mouth with electrical prods so that she had dark scars all over her mouth. The guards used collaborators3 to abuse her.
During her last year in prison, Tian Fang had to work fifteen to sixteen hours per day. Her hands were bleeding and had grown thick calluses. She was in such physical agony that she could not turn over during sleep.
In early June 2008, the police again committed wrongdoings against Ms. Tian's family. Ms. Tian Fang, her parents and her brother Mr. Tian Shuangjiang were arrested. Only Guo Siyuan, Tian Xing's son, was left at home and he expected his mother to return. Mr. Tian Shuangjiang was released after one day of detention. Ms. Tian Xing returned home for a short time, then, to avoid the frequent harassment and threats by the local police, Tian Xing left home and went into hiding.
Note
1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.
2. "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.
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.
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/8/27/184837.html
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