Older Practitioner Ms. Bai Lizhu from Daqing Still Detained in Harbin Women's Drug-Rehabilitation Centre

Name: Ms. Bai Lizhu
Gender: Female
Age: 57
Address: Hongsi Village, Honggang District
Occupation: Retired from the Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce Administration Station of Daqing No. 1 Well Drilling Company
Date of Most Recent Arrest: December, 2009
Most Recent Place of Detention: Harbin City Women's (Drug Rehabilitation) Labour Camp
City: Harbin
Province: Heilongjiang
Persecution Suffered: Sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, force-feedings, extortion, home ransacked, interrogation, detention

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Bai Lizhu, from Daqing, was arrested by the police at the end of 2009. Later, she was detained in Harbin Women's Drug-Rehabilitation Centre (a forced labour camp). Right before the New Year, her family went to the forced labour camp three times and finally got to see her. She came out with somebody holding her up by the arms. Ms. Bai said that she suffered from a stomach disorder. She is still detained in the drug rehabilitation centre.

Ms. Bai is a retired from the Agriculture, Industry, and Commerce Administration Station of Daqing No. 1 Well Drilling Company. She started practising Falun Gong in January 1997. After she started practising, a number of health problems, including kidney inflammation, severe haemorrhoids, and motion sickness all disappeared.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999. That day, Ms. Bai went to the provincial government in Harbin to appeal for the right to practise for Falun Gong. When she returned home, the local police detained her in an apartment for 24 hours and tried to force her to write a guarantee statement, renouncing her practice of Falun Gong.

On October 19th, 1999, she was planning to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. In the waiting area at the train station, the police suspected that she was going to Beijing. They asked for her identification card. Right before the train departed, the police detained her and two other practitioners, and searched their bags. Ms. Bai was then sent to a detention room of the Honggang Police Station, where she was interrogated by Lin Baicheng. She was detained at the Honggang Detention Centre for 15 days.

Ms. Bai went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in May 2000. She was arrested on Tiananmen Square and taken to the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) located in the Taiyangdao Hotel in Beijing. The authorities extorted 10,000 yuan¹ from her.

Ms. Bai was detained at the brainwashing centre run by the Daqing No. 1 Well Drilling Company in July 2000. Ding Cunshi, who was in charge of the persecution of Falun Gong at the brainwashing centre, forced her to watch videos slandering Falun Gong. Those in charge continued to try to force her to write a guarantee statement to give up practising Falun Gong. Ms. Bai went on a hunger strike for seven or eight days to protest her detention. A government official surnamed Chen forced her to work in the fields. When the Daqing secretary of the municipal Communist Youth League went to visit the brainwashing centre, he said to Ms. Bai, "If you don't write the statement, it means you're too comfortable here. We will take away the mattress and you can sleep on the bed boards."

After 13 days of detention, Ms. Bai returned home. Two days later, Lin Baicheng went to her house, arrested her, and detained her in the Daqing Detention Centre overnight. Then she was taken to Shuanghe Forced Labour Camp in Qiqihar for a year and four months. At the labour camp, Ms. Bai was forced to listen to the CCP's lies and slander of Falun Gong. She was deprived of sleep while the authorities tried to force her to renounce her belief. Ms. Bai had to get up very early to work in the field. She only got to rest briefly at lunchtime. They did not let her wear a face mask when spraying toxic insecticides. She vomited due to the smell and could hardly breathe.

Li Jingan, head of the Honggang Police Station, and Lin Baicheng went to Ms. Bai's house one morning in August 2002. She refused to open the door. Just then, her husband returned home from working a night shift. Just as he was about to open the door, the police, who were hiding nearby, rushed up and confronted him. He immediately ran. The police caught up with him, pushed him down, and took his house key. They then dragged Ms. Bai out of the house. The family asked, "What evidence do you have to arrest her?" The police wrote out a warrant then and there. They detained Ms. Bai in the Daqing Detention Centre for one month and at another detention centre for 15 days. She went on a protest hunger strike for 45 days. Her weight dropped from 65kg to 35kg.

She became paralysed due to the abuse in detention. She was then taken to the Sa District Detention Centre. They refused to keep her due to her condition and released her. Nonetheless, the police continued to go to her house to harass her.

For the past several years, Ms. Bai has been taking care of her parents. In October 2009, Yang Xiaodong, a police officer from Honggang, and CCP secretary Wang went to her mother's house in Longnan in the Hulu District to look for her. Her 80-year-old parents were distraught about the ongoing persecution of their daughter.

When she went to her friend Liu Bo's home one afternoon in December 2009, she was arrested by Feng Haibo from the Daqing City Domestic Security Team. She was detained in the Daqing Detention Centre for a month. Even though Ms. Bai suffers from heart disease and has a swollen leg, she was still sent to a forced labour camp for one and a half years before being detained at Harbin Women's Drug-Rehabilitation Centre.

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://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/4/10/221289.html