Recalling the Persecution of Ms. Liu Guangfeng

Not long ago I learned from an Internet report that Ms. Liu Guangfeng, a Falun Gong practitioner from Guangshui City, Hubei Province, was arrested when she was travelling by train. I have since learned that she was persecuted and killed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on April 4th, 2009. I am so sorry to lose such a good fellow practitioner.

Ms. Liu, born in 1957, was employed a food manufacturer in Guangshui City. She and her husband have a daughter. She started practising Falun Gong in 1997 and improved physically and mentally. After Jiang Zemin's [former leader of China and instigator of the persecution] regime started persecuting Falun Gong in 1999, she went to Beijing to appeal several times. In the second half of 2000 she was arrested by the local 610 Office¹, and was sentenced to one year of forced labour. On a cold and stormy winter day she was taken to the Shayang Forced Labour Camp in Hubei Province and subjected to brainwashing.

In April 2004, Ms. Liu was held in the so-called strict discipline team, where she and other firm Falun Gong practitioners were subjected to all kinds of torture. They were forbidden from speaking to each other and were forced to do military training, including singing CCP songs, long range running, and shouting CCP slogans. They were not allowed to use the toilet without permission from the prison guards and were forced to watch videos defaming Falun Gong. The physical torture included standing and crouching for long periods of time, cruel beatings, shocking with electric batons, and having their faces slapped. Some inmates who were drug addicts were under orders by prison guards to closely monitor the practitioners and constantly abuse them. Even though they were forced to do heavy labour, the practitioners were not allowed to sleep.

Ms. Liu was later transferred to the Ninth Group for strict discipline. Besides the torture mentioned above, she was subjected to continuous brainwashing. The prison guards, who were specially designated to torture Falun Gong practitioners, tortured and shocked them with electric batons any time they felt like it.

None of Ms. Liu's family ever went to see her because she was not allowed to have contact with them. As a result, she led a very hard life as she had no change of clothes for when the seasons turned and she had no money to buy food. Yet she remained firm in her belief in Falun Gong. In August, despite the fact that she had been forbidden to sleep for 96 hours, the prison guards forced her to stand in the sun for a long time. They also dragged her into a secret cell, where a young prison guard, Hu, shocked her with an electric baton so brutally that her skin was burned and blistered. Although she was already in bad shape after so much suffering, the guards still forced her to do military training and field work without allowing her to sleep or rest. She was forced to cover up the horrific blisters caused by the electric batons that burned her and was confined to a small cell for a long time. She became emaciated from all that torture.

She should have been released in November 2001, but the authorities extended her term for six months because she refused to give up Falun Gong. During her extended term in the labour camp she was tortured further and her leg became crippled. She was not released until one year after her term had expired.

The details of the torture Ms. Liu suffered are not yet known to us, but we know that she never gave in to the torment. She was later sentenced to two years of forced labour, again in Shayang Forced Labour Camp.

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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/4/8/198590.html