Ms. Zhong Fangqiong and Others Cruelly Persecuted by Police in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province

Between August and September 2007, more than thirty Falun Gong practitioners in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province were arrested at home or in their work places. More than ten of them (including Ms. Zhong Fangqiong) were in danger of being sentenced at a hearing on September 27th in the Wuhou District Court.

These Falun Gong practitioners all suffered from inhumane persecution after they were arrested. Unfortunately, practitioner Ms. Zhou Huimin died from the persecution on March 13th, 2008 at People's Hospital of Qingyang District, the appointed hospital for Chengdu City Detention Centre. The letter below was transferred from the prison and was written by Ms. Zhong Fangqiong herself in prison.

My name is Zhong Fangqiong. I am a woman of 43 years old. My live in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province. I have been unjustly detained more than 30 times because I refuse to renounce Falun Gong. By April 17th, 2008 I have been detained for a total of 1000 days. There are more than 40 governmental departments participating in persecuting me. My home has been searched without warrants, and my personal properties have been confiscated four times. I myself have been persecuted to the edge of death five times, and right now I am being detained and persecuted at Chengdu City Detention Centre.

Around 4:00 pm. on August 1st, 2008, I was riding my electric bike after leaving Ms. Fu's home. Within three minutes, I was forced off my bike by one car and then surrounded by five or six others. I was arrested. (It was later learned that those who arrested me had been waiting in a tea shop below my apartment since 11:00am that day.) They then ransacked my home and arrested Mrs. Li, who was making flyers in my home. I guessed that later on when Ms. Fu was coming out of her home and starting her car, she was then arrested. Later on, when Wang Pengfei (male, the Head of National Security Division, Wuhou District, Chengdu City Police Department) was beating me up and insulting me, I got the information from his interrogations that in fact, the police had already been monitoring my contacts with other practitioners for more than one month, and they focused on tracking our cars.

On August 3rd, Wang Pengfei secretly took Ms. Liu Jia, Ms. Xu Xiaorong, and Mr. Li and me to the second floor of Yuanyuan Hotel in Jitou Town. After placing us in separate holding areas, they handcuffed me to a chair and directed a very bright bulb into my eyes. Police officers took shifts torturing me in different ways over a 24 hour period, and did not let me sleep. Because I did not cooperate with them, around August 13th, my "case manager," Yuan (first name unknown, a police officer in charge of persecuting Falun Gong, First Division), had already tortured me for ten days. When he didn't get any results, at around 2:00 am that night he used police equipment to stab my lower back and thighs in front of the security guard, each time for about an hour. When I fainted, he would apply a stinging chemical to my upper and lower eyelids, temples, inside my nose and even in my mouth. Every inch of my skin touched by the chemical developed a rash, swelling, and peeling skin. I told Yuan that he couldn't use the stinging chemical to torture me like this since my skin was allergic to it. Yuan answered me, "This is just a political struggle."

After depriving me of sleep for half a month, my feet became swollen from sitting. The skin on the bottom of my feet was peeling. My hands had swollen and started to fester, especially in the wrist area because of the handcuffs. I became humpbacked due to the handcuffs being affixed to the ground, and my lower back was intolerably painful. Under such an incredibly hard situation, on the evening of August 17th, Wang Pengfei rushed in and said viciously, "Today we released Liu Jia and Xu Xiaorong, who were arrested together with you. And right now, only you are kept here. Tonight we will try our best and use all of our saved energy to deal with you." Then he made a phone call to Zeng Tao, the policeman on duty that night, and asked him to bring more food for them to stay up the whole night.

Around 1 am in the middle of that deep night, Wang Pengfei shouted furiously to me, "Zhong Fangqiong, we have received funds amounting to 200,000 yuan¹ to especially deal with you. We have enough time, personnel, and money to deal with you. We'll see how long you can resist."

While he was shouting at me, all of a sudden, he beat me on my face fiercely with his fists, and blood came out of my mouth. Then he beat me fiercely with his fists and with a spindle-shaped rod; and his fists and the rod dropped onto my head and face like a furious storm. He shouted, "If I beat you to death, nothing will happen to me. then we will fill out some random name on the cremation form and cremate you." Then he spoke dirty and disgusting curses to me.

While they were shouting and cursing, they violently beat me up with their fists and the spindle-shaped rod. They wouldn't stop cursing me and beating me up until they were tired. Later on, they paused for a while, and then they began to drink beer and eat before resuming the torture.

I suffered from their furious beatings and insults for a long period. Blood poured from my lips, I saw stars, my head ached, and I felt like fainting. I became humpbacked due to the handcuffs being affixed to the ground, and my lower back was intolerably painful. The extreme pain made me feel that a second was like a whole year.

Wang Pengfei pulled my head very hard to hold my body straight up. Then, suddenly he released his hands, and my head fell down to its previous position. Since I became humpbacked due to the handcuffs being affixed to the ground, how can my head be held up straight?

At the critical moment when my life was at stake, I had only one thought that I would never betray my conscience!

Wang Pengfei kept shouting and beating, after a very long period of time I overheard that Wang Pengfei and Xiao Yuan were discussing that in the following night they would continue to torture me by hanging me up. I had one thought: What they said did not count. Afterwards Wang Pengfei ordered Xiao Yuan: give her some hot menthol medicine (Korean mustard) to eat.

At that time, Xiao Yuan shouted at me, "I just want to take revenge on you, and I haven't found any opportunities to do so until right now." Then, he applied the stinging chemicals to my already-disfigured face, and also on my upper and lower eyelids, temples, inside my nose and even in my mouth. A strong odour overcame me, and fluids from my nose, mouth, and eyes all came pouring out. I was in shock, my entire face in severe, stinging pain, and I fainted immediately.

After a very long time, I felt cold and woke up. I found that there was a lot of bloody paper on the ground, and that I was handcuffed to a chair. I had a lot of tears and green filth mixed by nasal secretions and saliva (the medicine was green). Because the air-conditioner was very cold, goosebumps arose all over my body. When I looked at the mirror in the toilet I saw that my face swelled to such an extent that my eyes could hardly open. There were bloodstains at corners of my mouth. And there was blisters all over the skin that medicine had been applied to. It was terrible, and my face was totally disfigured.

(Editor's note: According to the People's Republic of China Criminal Law, Wang Pengfei, head of National Security Division of Wuhou District Police Department in Chengdu City and Yuan from the first division and other policemen violated Article 43 and 247 of the Criminal Law, and their acts have amounted to the crime of extorting a confession or testimony by torture and intentional injury, and thus should be imprisoned for as long as three years. Last December Zhong Fangqiong wrote a letter to the Wuhou District Procuratorate, but she did not hear from them until recently. Ms. Zhong Fangqiong is going to be put on trial in Wuhou District Court, and the court insisted on a private court session. They did not even inform Ms. Zhong Fangqiong's family members. Wang Pengfei, head of National Security Division of Wuhou District Police Department in Chengdu City, was responsible for the arrests of many practitioners.

Persons and Organizations responsible:
Wang Pengfei, Head of the National Security Division, Wuhou District, Chengdu City Police Department
Tiaosanta Police Station: Yuan Maojie, Wan Li, Jiang Hua, Chen Guang, Liu Xuedong
The "Case Manager" who directly participated and is responsible for the persecutions toward Ms. Zhong: Yao Xialin

Note

1. "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/2008/9/28/186737.html