Ms. Weishan Liu, A Teacher in Xiangfan City, Hubei Province, Was Tortured Until She Became Paralysed and Mentally Disabled

Name: Weishan Liu
Gender: Female
Age: 51
Address: Hanjiang Machinery Factory
Occupation: Teacher
Date of Most Recent Arrest: Oct 13th, 2002
Most recent place of detention: Wuhan City Women's Prison
City: Xiangfan City
Province: Hebei Province
Persecution Suffered: Imprisonment, physical torture, force feeding, sleep deprivation, forced injections/drug administration,
Key Persecutors: Zhiyong Fan, Li Feng

Ms. Liu Weishan, 51, in Xiangfan City, Hubei Province, was severely persecuted and is now paralysed and bedridden. Her muscles have deteriorated, with her lower legs having lost all their muscles, causing her legs to be "z" shaped and distorted. She is mentally disabled and can only occasionally speak a few simple sentences, such as telling the caretaker "I want to go home."

Ms. Liu was a teacher at the Hanjiang Machinery Factory (now the Aerospace Safety Equipment Company). She diligently worked there for many years, and was well respected by the teachers and students alike. She was well known for being very nice, and was once elected a model worker in the city.

Despite being such a good person and teacher, she was arrested seven times because she persisted in practising Falun Gong. She originally was imprisoned for four years. Unwilling to falsely admit to any crimes, she was tortured until she "confessed", and then she was taken to Wuhan Woman's Prison. When she went on a hunger strike, she was injected with unknown substances and became mentally disabled the next day.

Years ago, Ms. Liu had poor health and was often ill. She felt that life was truly hard and she could not find a way out. One day, she found a copy of the Falun Gong book, Zhuan Falun by accident, which answered all of her questions about life. Zhuan Falun gave her new hope. After beginning to cultivate, she became vigourous and healthy. She experienced the wonders of Falun Gong and wanted to share them with others and help them.

After July 20th, 1999, she found that people all around her were being deceived by the overwhelming lies in the media. She told people not to believe the lies.

On September 14th, 2002, Ms. Liu was arrested by the police for the seventh time when she was distributing leaflets exposing the persecution and telling people the facts about Falun Gong, and was taken to the First Detention Centre in Xiangfan City. After many useless appeals, she began a hunger strike. The police then force-fed her, which is a treacherous torture in China. A few strong inmates held her head, hands and feet down, and forced a tube into her stomach through her nose. The police directed the inmates to pinch her, pull her hair, slap her, and strip her. They did this twice a day for 30 days, until finally her health took a turn for the worse.

During her detention, the party director, Hu Daixin, of the Hanjiang Machinery Factory told the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) personnel: "Don't you let her go home this time. I will pay you as much as you need (to keep her here)."

On October 13th, 2002, the already feeble Ms. Liu was secretly sentenced to four years in prison, and taken to the Wuhan Women's Prison on October 14th.

In the Wuhan Women's Prison, they persecuted practitioners with very mean measures by coercing the inmates to torture them. In Ward II, police officer Li Feng put the unyielding practitioners into solitary confinement cells, cuffed their hands behind their backs, and left them alone for days allowing them no sleep or food. All the while, the officer pretended that he was unaware of anything.

Practitioners went on hunger strikes to protest their treatment. The police poured the leftovers from the inmates meals into a bucket and used the old, rotten food and soup to force feed the practitioners. Under such pressure, many practitioners suffered mental disorders or even death. One Ph. D. from Beijing University suffered a mental collapse. She ended up sweeping the floors in prison continuously.

To force Ms. Liu to give up cultivation, they injected unknown substances into her and also force-fed unknown drugs into her causing damage to her oesophagus. Only a few months after being taken to the Wuhan Women's prison, Ms. Liu was rendered mentally disabled. Her menstruation stopped, her arms and legs trembled, her muscles atrophied, and she became unable to take care of herself. The prison refused to release her. Instead, they frequently took her to the medical centre to have IV injections. Her life was in great danger.

To avoid being blamed in case she died, the prison secretly moved the critically ill Ms. Liu to the Aerospace 364 Hospital in Xiangfan City on the night of January 31st, 2006. They left her name blank in the hospital registration, and had two people guarding her around the clock. According to people who visited her at the time, Ms. Liu was as thin as a skeleton. Her whole body was cramping and deformed, and her eyes were dull.

When people went to visit her after February 11th, 2006, they found that posted on the door of the room was a sign that read: "critically ill, no visitation". People trying to visit her were stopped and questioned. Local practitioners managed to see her and brought an MP3 player for her to listen to Falun Gong music. She felt a bit better afterward, but the head nurse stopped it and took away the MP3 player.

Why did they treat Ms. Liu so harshly? It was said that the party director of the hospital was the former 610 Office director Fan Zhiyong of the Hanjian Machinery Factory, culpable for persecuting Ms. Liu.

Now Ms. Liu is paralysed and bed-ridden. Her muscles have deteriorated and she is mentally confused. She only occasionally murmurs a few words. The 610 Office notified her family members to take her home. The family members pointed out that the once healthy Ms. Liu had been tortured until she became paralysed and mentally disabled, and they refused to take her home.

Ms. Liu, a perfectly healthy school teacher, was first held in prison for three years for no apparent reason. Then, because she refused to admit any guilt, she was tortured by the prison police until she had a mental collapse, and her life was endangered by the First Detention Centre in Xianfan City and Wuhan Women's Prison.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2009/12/9/214083.html