The Persecution of Ms. Sun Meifen in Renqiu City, Hebei Province

Ms. Sun Meifen, a practitioner in Renqiu City, Hebei Province, benefited both physically and mentally after she started to practise Falun Gong. She has been persecuted many times because of her perseverance in Falun Gong practice. She was imprisoned many times. After being cruelly treated in the Gaoyang County Detention Centre for several months, she was sentenced to forced labour for three years and taken to the Baoding City Forced Labour Camp. At about midnight on July 29th, 2008, just before the Beijing Olympics, a dozen people led by Liu Jianhui and Liang Jinrong from the local Pubic Security Bureau came in three vehicles and took her away. She suffered inhuman persecution until her life was draining away.

The following is recorded from her narrative:

I'm a villager in Xiguxian Village, Chu'an Town, Renqiu City. I started to practise Falun Gong in 1998 and I benefited both physically and mentally. On July 18th, 1999, I heard that Falun Gong was going to be banned, so I decided to go to Beijing to appeal, to speak out on behalf of Falun Gong as is my legal right, and to explain that Falun Gong were blameless. Several fellow practitioners and I went to Beijing. We did not know where the appeals office was, so we asked around. A little while later, a bus came and took us to a very large stadium where many practitioners were already gathered. The next day, we were taken to a big yard in Baoding City.

Those of us from Renqiu City were taken by bus to the Renqiu City Public Security Bureau. Staff in the Public Security Bureau told us, "From now on, you are not allowed to practise Falun Gong." We all said, "It is such a great practice. Why stop us from practising it? If we are not allowed to practise Falun Gong, none of us are going to go home." Some of us were taken away by force, and some of us were lifted up, thrown into a car, and taken away to our respective local police stations. Han Yulai, the head of Chu'an Town Police Station, and others dragged me into a car and took me home.

The next day, six or seven people led by Han Yulai came to my home. They asked whether I would continue the practice. I said, "It's such a great practice. Why should I stop?" They forcibly took me to the Chu'an Town Police Station again. They confiscated a big recorder, a small recorder, tape cassettes, and a sitting mat from my home. Just then, about 25 of my relatives arrived. Some of them cried while others tried to convince me [to stop practising]. My husband slapped my face in front of so many of those people. My father squatted in the yard, holding his head and acting distressed. My mother tried to persuade me, "Just say that you will no longer practise, but practise at home in secret. Who would know?" I said, "None of you needs to say anymore. I will practice it for sure!" My uncle bought lunch for everyone from the police station. The next day, Communist Party Staff sent me to a detention centre. They did not release me until I protested by going on a hunger strike.

In August 2001, another practitioner and I distributed Falun Gong leaflets exposing the persecution in an area near Gaoyang County. We were reported on and taken to the Gaoyang County Detention Centre. Everyday, there were screams from people being beaten. The food was bad, too. Breakfast was corn, a scoop of rice soup, and two pieces of stinky salted radishes. Lunch was bread and a scoop of winter melon soup. Supper was still corn and a scoop of winter melon soup. Not a single drop of oil was found in the food. When I was initially locked up, I only had a bowl movement once in a week. I was not served enough food to feel even half full. I had no choice but eat some pickles with cold water. Furthermore, I was forced to work like a slave all day.

It was very cold in the winter when the land was frozen and snow-covered. I had only one layer of thin clothing and a small, thin quilt to cover myself at night. I had no money with me and I was really suffering from cold and hunger. Once every few days, I had to take a cold water shower in the yard. My husband was locked in a cell several cells away from me. Our two young children were left at home with nobody to take care of them.

The second day after I was locked in the detention centre, officials from Political and Protection Division brought me to trial. They forced me to tell them where I got the leaflets, but I refused to tell them. They then beat my legs with a wooden stick as thick as the handle of a spade. At that time, I had only one thought in my mind: "Falun Gong is protecting me and nothing bad will happen to me." I did not feel any pain although my legs swelled from being beaten, and I stood still without moving a bit. The people who beat me were so shocked that they did not dare to beat me any longer.

In the detention centre, people were forced to report their numbers in the morning and evening. They had to work the whole day, wear a uniform, and wear handcuffs when brought to trial. I thought that, since I had not committed any crime, I was therefore not a criminal. So I did not report my number, did not work, did not wear a uniform, and did not wear handcuffs when brought to trial. The head, Jiang, took me into a small room. Directed by Zhao Deyun, head of the detention centre, Jiang kicked me and violently attacked my head using a handcuff. I passed out. They said that I was fine and that I was pretending, so they lifted me up and put me back into the cell. Seeing that my situation was really severe, they then took me to a hospital. The doctor said that I was in severe condition and my brain had already bled. I gripped the laboratory results in my hand, thinking that I would definitely sue them after I was released. They asked me for it back, but I did not give it to them.

This is how I was cruelly persecuted in the Gaoyang County Detention Centre. On February 8th, 2002, I and another practitioner were sentenced to three years forced labour at the Baoding City Forced Labour Camp.

Guards in the Baoding City Forced Labour Camp executed Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) orders and started to try to "transform¹" Falun Gong practitioners using violence. They did not allow us to sleep and shocked us with electric batons. Some practitioners were burned in many places from the shocks. Some were kept from sleeping for several days straight and were forced to hold their heads up and remain still. Moving even a bit would result in a beating or being locked on a Death Bed² or not being allowed to use the toilet. The ways that guards persecuted practitioners were really inhuman. Some practitioners could not stand the cruel torture and gave in against their wills. I felt I had no other recourse and banged my head against the heating pipes. (Note: Falun Gong practitioners should not go to extremes and should not injure themselves). I passed out for one day and one night and my blood was all over the floor. My head was sewn up with six or seven stitches in the hospital. Only then did the guards let me off.

After a time, I realized that I should not stay there any longer. One day while I was working, I developed sickness symptoms. I started a hunger strike again and did not eat for almost one month. They called in a doctor whose family name was Du. Du used a needle (the three-pronged needle used to puncture the insane) to puncture my head, fingers, ears, and Renzhong point. A dozen different people used a mouth-opener to hold my mouth open while pressing on me firmly. I could not inhale or move. They force-fed me with salty water, and I almost died. At that point, with strength seemingly coming from nowhere, I pushed all of them aside. At that time they had to give up.

At the end of 2002, I returned home ahead of time. Our savings had almost completely run out. Several thousand pounds of wheat that was at home when I had left had all been used up. The flour we ate after I came home was all given to us by fellow practitioners. My mother-in-law, who had been taking care of my children and my home,was over ten thousand yuan³ in debt.

One morning in 2003, I found a bag of Falun Gong materials at my door. I took the bag and put it on the kitchen table. At that moment, we were very busy in transporting vegetables since we had to drive off at about 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. to deliver them. One night at about 9:00 p.m., Wang Ganliang, the head of police station, came to my home with a gang of people. My husband and I had already gone to bed. Because our children were still playing outside, we had not locked the door. They came in and searched our home without letting us know. They found the fliers on the kitchen table, so they forcibly took me and my husband to the police station, locked us up, and interrogated us separately. The next day, they took us to the Chu'an Town Public Security Bureau, where I was forced to sit on a Tiger Bench⁴ as they pressed me to tell them where I got the fliers. I told them that I picked the fliers up at my front door. They did not believe me.

I was locked up there for one day and one night without getting a bite of food to eat. One officer was handing me a piece of bread but was stopped by Liang Jinyong. I asked them, "What crime did my husband and I commit? There is still one truck of cabbage at my home (waiting to be delivered)!" They lied to me, "Your husband was already released. You have to go to a detention centre. We will discuss this again after we hunt out the facts." The next day, they again took my husband to a detention centre and locked him in there for one month. I was locked up for four months and was then sent to a forced labour camp, which refused to take me in because my health did not meet the requirements.

At about 11:00 p.m. on July 25th, 2008, Ren Yuefeng, the head of Chu'an Town Police Station, and four or five others harassed us at our home. They also searched our house without finding anything. Ren said, "Be sure not to make trouble for me. Tomorrow, you'll all go to the police station. We need to talk with you about some matters." Me and my husband discussed it and we both thought that we should not cooperate with their orders or commands, so we did not go.

At about midnight on July 29th, Liu Jianhui and Liang Jinyong from the Chu'an Town Public Security Bureau with a dozen people in three cars forcibly took me to the Chu'an Town Public Security Bureau. They forced me to sit on a Tiger Bench for one night. The next day, they took me to the Renqiu Detention Centre.

In the detention centre, I started a hunger strike to protest for as long as 45 days. During that period, I suffered many inhuman tortures. During the hunger strike, my stomach was in tremendous pain, and there was blood in my urine. I was in so much pain that I sweat constantly. Seeing that I was not going to survive, they took me to a Chinese medicine hospital, but they did not tell me the laboratory results.

The head of detention center told me, "If it were not for the Beijing Olympics, we would not have arrested you. Since you are locked up here, you have to spend money and use your connections to get out." Guard Huang suggested that I go to the head of the detention centre. Later, guard Huang directly told me, "If you want to get out, bring me fifty or sixty thousand "yuan." I will find connections for you." My family did not give them the money, so they were hostile to me. They saw me suffering from pain in the bed, but they ignored me. Furthermore, they told the inmate in my cell who was watching me that it was alright as long as I could breath and would not die. Guard Huang said, "Even if you die without any disease, we can fabricate documents and report to higher authorities that you committed suicide and we will be fine."

I tossed and turned in pain for nine days and nights. My stomach hurt so much that I could not fall asleep. Later, they gave me medicine used to treat insane people, which gave me slight relief. They hid my condition and would not report it to the higher authorities. When they saw that I was really not going to survive, they made me sit on a Tiger Bench and force-fed me. Under the extremely painful and unbearable situation, I gradually started to eat.

Because the facts were not clear and due to lack of evidence, my case was turned down by the Procuratorate. People from the Public Security Bureau then faked evidence and fabricated facts, and handed them in to the Procuratorate.

In the morning on October 22nd, 2008, my case came before the Renqiu City Court. In the courtroom, the judge would not let me speak. Under pressure, the lawyer that my family had hired for me did not argue on my behalf. When I heard the evidence that they had fabricated about me, I immediately passed out and remained unconsciousness for over 20 minutes. The evidence they fabricated was full of loopholes. I had been taken to the Baoding City Forced Labour Camp in 2001 for a term of three years and returned home on November 13th, 2002. However, in the indictment against me, it was said that I distributed fliers in the autumn of 2002. I was still in a forced labour camp at that time, so how could I possibly have distributed fliers then? This time, the court re-opened the case from five years ago, and I was sentenced. According to someone who knows the law, a person cannot be sentenced twice for the same crime. The Renqiu City Court knew the law, but deliberately violated it and also used a perjured witness. Without knowing all of the facts and hearing that I was going to be sentenced for several years, my family handed over ten thousand yuan, but they still did not release me.

About one month after the court session, I thought that I must go home this time. I started a hunger strike again. They used the carrot and stick tactic this time. At one point, they said, "If you keep not eating, your efforts will be in vain even if you die." Another time they said, "You will be released after a few days. If you keep doing this, it is you who will suffer."

I did not care regardless of the tricks they played. I had only my faith at that time. I have freedom of belief. Practising Falun Gong is innocent, and I absolutely would not collaborate with them. I believed that I could definitely break away from the detention centre.

It was this poem that accompanied me through eleven days of a hunger strike. During my hunger strike, the sickness symptoms were especially dramatic. My whole body twitched, and my heart beat and pulse seemed to stop. They started to force-feed me again. I decided to definitely not let them force feed me. As a result, they could not insert the tube, no matter how hard they tried. They tried to insert the tube six times in a row and also directed criminals to pinch my nose and try to force feed me, but they still could not. They again asked a doctor to try to insert the tube four times in a row. They did not succeed then, either. Later they locked me on a Tiger Bench and put me on an IV drip. Two bottles of fluid were dripped into my body in 24 hours. It appeared that they put me on a drip, but, in fact, they were torturing me in a different form. In the end, they had to release me.

Note

1. "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")

2. "Death Bed" torture: A practitioner is tied to a bed with his hands handcuffed above his head to the bed rails, and his legs tied with thin nylon ropes. The rope is then tightly wrapped around the practitioner's body and the bed, from his legs to his chest. The rope is wrapped so tightly that the practitioner has difficulty breathing and eventually loses consciousness.

3. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

4. "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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/2/2/194687.html