Ms. Mu Yuru from Qinhuangdao Subjected to Brutal Torture

Name: Mu Yuru
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province
Occupation: Not known
Date of Most Recent Arrest: April 5th, 2000
Most recent place of detention: Kaiping Forced Labour Camp
City: Tangshan
Province: Hebei

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Mu Yuru is a resident of Qinhuangdao City in Hebei Province. During the past ten years of persecution by the Chinese Communist Party, Ms. Mu has been detained in detention centres and labour camps, and subjected to brutal torture including, but not limited to, being brutally beaten, shocked with electric batons, put on the tiger bench¹, handcuffed with her arms behind her back, locked up in small cells and suspended in the air by her cuffed hands.

On the evening of July 20th, 1999, a group of police officers broke into Ms. Mu's residence and arrested her and the other practitioners who were with her. The police took them to the Beigang Township Police Station and detained them until the next morning. From that day on, agents from Qinhuangdao City 610 Office², the district government, township government, and officers from the Beigang Township Police Station went to Ms. Mu's residence every day to harass her. She was subsequently detained at different detention centres and forced labour camps, repeatedly.

The following is Ms. Mu's description of the persecution she has experienced:

1. Detained, monitored and harassed around the clock

In mid-September 1999, I was detained with no explanation, and I was not released until after twenty days in the detention centre.

On October 19th, 1999, I went to Beijing to appeal for justice. At the appeals office, as soon as I mentioned the words "Falun Gong," I was taken back to my home town. I was then detained for a month in a local detention centre.

After I was released from the detention centre, the head of the police station ordered me to carry a pager because he wanted to page me several times a day. If I did not return his call right away, he said he would have police officers come to my residence to harass me. One day I went to see my mother. As soon as I got there, the police vehicle arrived as well, and they forced me to return home. It didn't matter what we said, they would not listen. Even my right to visit my mother was denied.

Beigang Town Police Station sent four persons to monitor me around the clock. They did not let me leave my residence at all. It was not until after the New Year that the four persons who had been monitoring me finally left.

2. Detained at Qinhuangdao City No. 1 Detention Centre

On January 11th, 2000, the Beigang Town Police Station transferred me to Qinhuangdao No. 1 Detention Centre. They said that they would detain me for 15 days, but on the fifteenth day, they still did not release me.

Criminals Liu Yan and Lin Xia hit me and the other practitioners on our faces and heads with their leather shoes. They also kicked us, pulled our hair and dragged us by the hair for over an hour. They also threw our blankets into the wet washroom.

It was almost like a daily routine that two criminals would beat practitioners at noon. The guards also participated in the beatings. A guard nick-named "Black Old Li" rolled up a book and slapped a practitioner's face with it, causing the practitioner's mouth to bleed.

Afterward, they transferred practitioner Xie Jingzhen and me to cell #22. Guard Chen ordered inmate Zhang Yanfeng to go outside. After she returned, she dragged us from the bed to the washroom. She held us to the floor, turned on the tap, making the water run onto the floor, and then hit us with a broom. While beating and cursing, she even broke a new broom. She then hit us on our heads with a large hard-plastic basin, then slapped our faces. She continued until she was exhausted.

We were forced to sit in the icy water to be soaked for more than three hours, and were then tortured with the method called "back cuffing." Our hands and arms were cuffed behind us for days and nights. At the same time, we had to stand facing the wall and were sometimes forced to wear a helmet. The guards shocked us with electric batons. A few minutes later our arms would be numb and could not move. They hurt so much that it felt like the joints were dislocated. The cuffs cut into our flesh, and the arms were very swollen, and lost sensation.

3. Detained at Funing Detention Centre

Two policemen from Funing transferred me to the Funing Detention Centre and separated me from the other practitioners. It was winter time, but I was by myself in a cold cell. There was no quilt, only a bed with a hard wooden board. One guard told me that the higher authorities would not allow them to give me a quilt. With only one sweater, I was shaking from the cold. I was detained there for a week.

4. Detained at Tangshan City Kaiping Forced Labour Camp--Subjected to Forced Labour, Brutal Beatings, Being Hung Up and Electric Shocks

On April 5th, 2000, I wass transferred to Kaiping Forced Labour Camp in Tangshan City and subjected to three years of forced labour.

On January 16th, 2001, when we were resting at noon, camp head Xu Deshan, and deputy head Ran Daguo brought some male guards to Kaiping Forced Labour Camp. That same day, they also transferred some male guards from Hehuakeng Forced Labour Camp to Kaiping to participate in torturing practitioners.

Xu Deshan and his gang carried in some large cases full of handcuffs. They dragged practitioners outside their cells. Some pulled practitioners' hair and dragged them to the track field, and some dragged practitioners out by pulling their feet. Several guards pulled my hair, and dragged from the cell to the track field. When we got there, the guards kicked me to the ground. They then hung me up from a basketball hoop with my toes barely touching the ground. They cuffed my hands so tightly that within a few minutes, my hands turned blue and were swollen. It was extremely painful. After over four hours, they let me down.

That same day, practitioners were hung everywhere in the labour camp, on every tree, the basketball hoops, even the flag pole. Several practitioners were even cuffed together on one tree. More than a hundred practitioners were tortured that day.

On January 19th, 2001, we were forced to do the morning training by walking in military steps. Because practitioner Hao Jianling wanted to talk to the head guard, she was hung up upside down from a tall tree. Her feet were in the air, head facing down and her hands were tied behind her back.

Practitioner Fu Weiping was locked in the same cell with me. After she said something to show her sympathy for Hao Jianling, the guards tied her up from a badminton pole with her hands behind her.

Zhang Yuqing, Li Wei, Dang Lihua, Cai Shumei and Kang Shuxiang were all detained in the same cell with me, and were all brutally beaten. I was hung from another iron stand by Fu Weiping. Guard Wang Xueli yelled, "Grab an electric baton." He then shocked Fu Wieping with it while the other guards were shocking the other practitioners. At that moment, the miserable groans of practitioners suffering from the brutal tortures were heard everywhere around the track field. Ms. Fu was shocked for over half an hour, and then the guards dragged her back to the cell. They then hit her to make her kneel on the floor, and continued shocking her on her head and neck.

That same day, Li Wei and Dang Lihua were also brutally tortured. Three guards shocked Li Wei at the same time. After I returned to the cell, I saw that both Li Wei and Fu Weiping's faces were swollen and full of blisters. Their mouths were also swollen and their faces had been burned by the electric shocks, and their eyes were only as wide as a seam since they were very swollen.

5. Persecution in a "Small Cell" at Kaiping Forced Labour Camp, Tangshan City

In April 2001, after being brutally tortured for some time, I had high blood pressure, which reached 180 to 190. Nonetheless the guards still forced me to walk in military steps. One day, guards Wang Jianzhong, Wei Qun and Qin Xiaoyan dragged, pulled, and carried me into the police vehicle, and took me to a hospital. In the hospital, a dark spot was found on my lung. After hearing the diagnosis, the guards dared not to get close to me, as they were afraid that I was contagious. Therefore, they transferred me from No. 2 Division to a small cell in No. 3 Division.

Inside that small cell, Fu Weiping was already shocked to disability and could not walk. She was no longer able to take care of herself. The guard forced the two of us to stay on one bed. She could not walk as a result of the torture, and I suffered from tuberculosis, heart problems, and high blood pressure. Nobody cared about us. They had locked up Fu Weiping in a small cell because they didn't want people to know that she had been tortured to the point of disability.

I was tortured so severely by guards at the forced labour camp that I fainted twice.

¹

1. "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.

2. "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/2009/8/16/206583.html