Ms. Huang Songdong from Pingxiang City, Jiangxi Province Arrested and Her Family Blackmailed

Ms. Huang Songdong, over 60, is from Pingxiang City, Jiangxi Province. She was sent to Nanchang Women's Forced Labour Camp for talking to people about Falun Gong. On March 5th, 2010, Ms. Huang was arrested, and she was only released after her son was blackmailed for 20,000 yuan¹.

On the morning of March 5th, 2010, while Ms. Huang Songdong was talking to people about Falun Gong and distributing Falun Gong leaflets exposing the persecution in Mashan Town, Pingxiang City, she was arrested by town officials and sent to the Xiangdong District Police Department. She was sent to the municipal detention centre at about 5 p.m.

Ms. Huang was subjected to one and a half years of forced labour on March 11th, and was sent to Nanchang Forced Labour Camp. However, she was rejected for health reasons.

Her family members went to the labour camp to pick her up on the next day. That was when she learned that her son had been blackmailed for 20,000 yuan as a condition of her release. When she arrived at home, she found out that police had used her key to enter her apartment while no one at home and took away her computer and mobile phone.

Ms. Huang had high blood pressure, Meniere's disease and other ailments before practising Falun Gong. She had spent a great deal of money to look for a cure but failed. In May 1995, she started to practise Falun Gong and soon all the symptoms were gone. She has enjoyed good health from then until she suffered terrible abuse while in police custody.

Ms. Huang went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong on April 22nd, 2000. She was arrested and handcuffed with both hands behind her back. After being sent back, she was subjected to forced labour. All together, she has been subjected to forced labour five times. In Nanchang Forced Labour Camp, she suffered all kinds of torture both physically and mentally, and her life has been in danger several times. She was hung up many times and beaten by the inmates assigned to her by the guards. She has been on hunger strike many times and was subjected to force-feeding. She was handcuffed in a position where she was only able to sit for a total of 18 days.

Once in 2006, guards Lu Xiuying, Hong Chuanghua, and Zhou Shuhua, despite warnings from the doctors not to do so, tied her hands and feet to the bed and force-fed her. Ms. Huang started to vomit blood at around 3 a.m. Only then was she untied from the bed and sent to the hospital. Later, they demanded that she pay all the medical costs and other miscellaneous fees, including a "transportation fee" of 20 yuan, as well as the cost of the meals the two guards had in the hospital.

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/2010/4/1/220803.html