Since February 2009, in order to catch Falun Gong practitioners who had utilized a small loudspeaker exposing the persecution of Falun Gong, the Heilongjiang Public Security Bureau has ordered the police and special agents from the National Security Department in Jiamusi City to persecute local practitioners and their families on a large scale. As a result, about twenty local practitioners have been arrested and their houses ransacked.
On February 13th, 2009, just as practitioner Ms. Liu Xiufang was leaving her home to go shopping, a plain clothes police officer came up to her and pushed her back into the house, pinning her against the wall. Later, he also arrested Ms. Liu's husband and took him to the Jiamusi City Police Station.
One policeman claimed that he had heard Ms. Liu's husband announce that they had mounted a small speaker onto a grid west of their house. The police interrogated him, trying to force him to admit to doing this. When he denied the charge, they began to brutally beat him. After a long time, he couldn't endure it anymore and admitted to it. However, the police didn't stop their torture, demanding to know whether he was a Falun Gong practitioner or not. When he gave a negative answer, the police ordered him to insult the Teacher of Falun Gong. He refused and was beaten again. Finally, he had to say a few bad words to keep from further beatings. The police held him in the detention centre for three days and then released him.
On the day that Ms. Liu Xiufang and her husband were arrested, their son happened to return home to visit them. The policemen also arrested and detained him at Songling Police Station. He was forced to sit on an iron chair1 for two days before he was released. A visiting neighbour was also detained at Songling Police Station and interrogated for several hours before he was released.
The police also ransacked their home on the day of their arrest and confiscated their bank cards and 900 yuan2 in cash. When Ms. Liu's son was released, he went to Qianjin Police Station to get his parents' money back, but the police wouldn't return it to him at first. They finally relented after many attempts. Since Ms. Liu rented an apartment, the police also extorted 500 yuan in cash from the landlord.
The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) methods used in persecuting Falun Gong were evident in the case of Ms. Liu Xiufang and her family. Her husband, son, neighbours, and landlord were all implicated. The objective of implication is to turn people against Falun Gong and make it so that practitioners have no place to go, thereby forcing them to give up their belief.
The family of Ms. Liu Xiufang is well respected by their neighbours and in their community. Since the persecution started, her family has suffered tremendously. They have been harassed, arrested and detained, sent to forced labour camps, had a lot of money extorted from them, and had their house searched and ransacked.
On July 20th, 1999, Ms. Liu went to Beijing and peacefully appealed on behalf of Falun Gong. As a result, she was detained for fifteen days and forced to pay 300 yuan.
At the beginning of March 2000, Ms. Liu was arrested by officers from Jianshe Police Station. While in the detention centre, she was brutally beaten by a policeman with the last name of Cui. He beat her with a heavy bamboo stick that was more than a meter long and more than 2.5 cm thick. After the first blow, she fell to the ground, but he forced her to stand up again and hit her more than thirty times. The skin from her lower back to her calves turned black and blue all over. Even one year later, she still feels pain in the areas where she was savagely beaten. Later the police shackled her with irons that weighed more than 20 kilograms and tied her up with two other practitioners for four or five days. During the time she was detained, her family members repeatedly requested her release. After they paid 500 yuan in cash, they were allowed to visit her once. After they paid another 1,000 yuan in cash to Yonghong Police Substation and another 600 yuan in cash for her "room and board", she was finally released.
On October 4th, 2000, Ms. Liu went to Beijing again to peacefully appeal for Falun Gong. In Tiananmen Square, she was again arrested and detained in a big iron cage nearby. Later on, she was sent to a newly constructed detention centre in a suburb of Beijing, and then sent to Shijingshan Detention Centre. When she arrived, the guards searched her and forced her to strip. A policeman even slapped her face several times. Later, CCP agents from the Beijing Deputy Office of the Jiamusi City Public Security Bureau picked Ms. Liu up and took 50 yuan in cash from her. A policeman with the last name Tian from the Yonghong Office took custody of Ms. Liu and took her to Yonghong Police Substation. She was detained in a forced labour camp for one year.
In May 2002, Ms. Liu was arrested by two officers from Jiamusi City Police Station at the Qiuling Night Market. After that, they went to the workplace of Ms. Liu's husband, harassed and threatened him, and wanted to arrest him, too. However, his supervisor refused to let them take him away. At the same time, several policemen searched Ms. Liu's home. At the detention centre, Ms. Liu's hands and legs were handcuffed to a bed and she was stretched out like that for a day. Twenty days later, she was taken to a forced labour camp, but as her health seemed so bad, the camp officials refused to take her in.
On December 12th, 2002, Ms. Liu was forcibly taken away from the entrance of Shunhe Restaurant by a group of police officers. She was taken to Yonghong Police Station and handcuffed to a pole inside. A deputy head of the Yonghong Police Substation with the last name of Liu brutally kicked her in the stomach twice. Later on, they handcuffed her to a heating pipe in such a position where she couldn't stand up or squat down. At night, they handcuffed her to a chair and by morning the skin on her wrists was torn and broken. Afterwards, she was detained in a forced labour camp for another two years.
On April 7th, 2005, Ms. Liu went to visit a friend, and she was arrested by two plain clothes policemen from Songjiang Police Station. She was again taken to a forced labour camp for two years.
In the forced labour camp, she suffered brutal persecution. In October 2000, while imprisoned, the guards utilized all kinds of methods to brainwash her. They appointed an inmate to monitor her at all times, and to search her body and her bed at will. Once in the camp, Ms. Liu took a poster off the wall that slandered the Teacher of Falun Gong. As a result, He Qiang, Wang Xiurong and someone with the last name Liu violently slapped her in the face. They also prolonged her term of imprisonment for an additional three months.
On January 2003, at 8 or 9 a.m., claiming that they had to search everybody, guards Liu Yadong and Zhang Xiaodan took all Ms. Liu's clothes off and kept insulting her during the process. For the whole day, they didn't allow her to use the restroom. They handcuffed her hands behind her back, forced her to lie on her back, and tied her to a iron bed in a stretched out position that was excruciatingly painful.
In March 2003, guard Hong Wei handcuffed Ms. Liu behind her back again for very long time. They kept her like this for so long that she couldn't stop shaking. This caused her permanent injury. Wei Hong also instigated the inmates to escalate the abuse of Ms. Liu. Her hands and wrists were handcuffed so tightly that they became seriously swollen. Her blood pressure increased dramatically. Later on, Wei Hong demanded 500 yuan in cash. Ms. Liu had to give him all the money in her bank account, but it only came to 280 yuan. A prison doctor with the last name Liu called Ms. Liu's brother and told him to bring his sister more money. Later on, officers from Yonghong Police Station extorted another 350 yuan from her family.
During the third time she was detained at the forced labour camp, male guard Hong Wei ordered two female guards, Li Xiujin and Zhang Yan, and an inmate to hold Ms. Liu on the ground and force her fingerprint onto a prepared statement.
During the ten years of brutal persecution of Ms. Liu, the officers from Jianshe Police Station have harassed Mrs. Liu's family more than a dozen times. They violently beat on her door, shouted loudly, and even broke it open with iron bars. Her family members couldn't sleep during the night and worried about her very much.
Currently, Ms. Liu is being held in the Jiamusi City Detention Centre. The administration of the detention centre restricts all information about her, and her family is not allowed to visit her.
Note
1. Iron Chair: The "Iron chair" is made of iron pipes. Victims are restrained on the iron chairs with both arms and legs tied for a long period of time, see illustration at http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/1/9/17577.html
2. "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/2009/3/28/197910.html
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