Four Years Later, Ms. Cui Wenxia Still Struggling to Recover from Nightmarish Experience in Jiamusi Forced Labour Camp

Ms. Cui Wenxia, a chemistry teacher at the Baoquanling Sugar Factory Middle School, was arrested in May 2005 and tortured at a local detention centre. She was later sentenced to the Jiamusi City Forced Labour Camp and tortured there, too. She has not fully recovered from her nightmarish experience at the labour camp, even after being released.

Ms. Cui Wenxia, in her late forties, was arrested and had her home ransacked by officers from the Baoquanling Police Department because she had distributed materials exposing the persecution of Falun Gong in May 2005. After being transferred to a local detention centre, she was brutally tortured and beaten while being hung up by handcuffs. She was forced to share her cell with a convicted murderer who suffered from a severe mental disorder. The cell that she was locked in was very dark and had one tiny window in it, severely limiting what she could see outside.

Ms. Cui was later sentenced to forced labour at the Jiamusi City Forced Labour Camp. In July or August of 2005, her whole body was racked with excruciating pain. After tolerating the pain for several months, Ms. Cui contacted the labour camp doctor, Dr. Liu, on numerous occasions and told him about her worsening condition. In an effort to diagnose her problem, he repeatedly told Ms. Cui to refrain from eating breakfast so that he could conduct accurate laboratory tests on her. But Hong Wei, the head guard of the No. 7 Section, No. 5 Ward, would not give Ms. Cui permission to take the prescribed tests, nor would he allow her to be treated at a hospital.

Later, Ms. Cui became so emaciated that she could not speak and threw up everything she ate or drank, including water. Hong accused her of pretending to be sick and repeatedly told her that he would force-feed her if she did not start eating. He even arranged to have inmate, Xie Yujie monitor her and another practitioner, Ms. Lu Demei, who was also severely tortured. Inmates who witnessed Ms. Cui's symptoms realized that she was truly sick and that she wasn't pretending at all.

Finally, on November 2nd, 2005, Ms. Cui was taken to a local hospital. The doctor who examined her said that she had heart, liver, and other organ failures and that she was in critical condition and needed to be treated at the local hospital immediately. But the guards hid this vital information from Ms. Cui. That night, Dr. Liu checked her blood pressure and found that it was close to zero. He immediately rushed her to a nearby hospital.

After Ms. Cui's husband was notified about his wife's condition, he went straight to the hospital. According to the law, she should have been released immediately and allowed to be treated at home. Hong not only rejected the idea of releasing Ms. Cui, but also tried to extort money from her husband. He told Ms. Cui's husband that if he did not pay the money he requested, his wife would not be released. Without any other means of securing his wife's release, Ms. Cui's husband was forced to come up with approximately 20,000-30,000 yuan¹. Only then was Ms. Cui released.

While resting at home, Ms. Cui continued to practise the five Falun Gong exercises. But, going through the experience of being detained at the police department, detention centre, forced labour camp, and witnessing all kinds of torture and abuse, left very deep, emotional scars. Whenever she hears someone talk in a loud voice, she trembles in fear. To date, she has not yet fully recovered from being brutally persecuted.

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/2009/7/9/204226.html