I Suffered Severe Persecution at Jinan Women's Prison

After I decided to become a Falun Gong practitioner and cultivate Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, I was unjustly arrested on October 15th, 2006, and sentenced to twelve years in prison. I was jailed at the Jinan Women's Prison on April 23rd, 2007, and that same night, transferred to the group training team that specialised in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners.

Every day from 6:00 a.m. to midnight, prisoners controlled by the guards bombarded me with brainwashing attempts. Since I refused to accept the so-called "transforming" [forcibly renounce Falun Gong], they tried punishing me by forcing me to stand for long periods, depriving me of sleep, beating me, and cursing me, all to force me to give up being a Falun Gong practitioner. When they saw that I refused to accept their evil theories, they escalated the persecution.

Beatings

One night at midnight in late August 2007, Qiao Ruimei brought five or six persons with him and beat me until I lost feeling in my legs and suffered from incontinence. In early September, I went to the police hospital for treatment. After acupuncture my legs basically recovered, but that was not the end of persecution for me.

Exposure to Extreme Cold

I could only resort to a hunger strike to protest against the persecution. It was winter-time, but they would not allow me to wear warm clothes. They forced me to sit on a balcony, and they opened the window to keep me near-frozen. I was told the temperature was under minus10 degrees.

While I was physically extremely weak, the prison guards, and the prisoners controlled by them, violently abused me. I had to endure not only the pain of the hunger strike, forced-feedings, and the extreme cold, but also their beatings. Very often I ended up in great pain, and could not turn over. They sprayed ice-cold water onto my face. As a result, I was wet all over my body.

The persecutors froze me from 5:30 a.m. Since I was not allowed to wear my cotton-padded clothes, every day I felt ice-cold. I was tortured to such a point that I was more dead than alive. I was almost frozen. When I lay on the bed after midnight, I shook all over from the cold. Before my body got warm, it was time to get up. They continued to freeze me until I was reduced to a skeleton. My heart weakened, and I was extremely weak physically. When they saw that I was barely alive, they had to send me to the hospital, and they promised that they would no longer beat me. They allowed me to eat, and I believed them.

Forced, Extended Standing

When I improved physically a little bit, they started torturing me again. Every day they deprived me of sleep and forced me to stand all day. Since I was still very weak physically, I could hardly stand up for a long time. They used the chairs to surround me, and they specifically used a chair to hold my knees. People sat in the chairs. They took turns torturing me by forcing me to stand.

I drank only water at the time, and didn't eat any rice. Despite drinking water I still could not urinate. I stood for so long that my calves were swollen and bigger than my thighs. The pain was beyond description. I could hardly endure it and finally I wrote the statements to renounce practising Falun Gong against my will. They later relaxed their surveillance of me, and I then saw many unimaginable scenes.

I previously believed that they beat me secretly, and their team leaders were not aware of the beatings. I was under the impression that the team leaders wouldn't allow them to beat us, but one afternoon in the summer of 2008, Liu Renling, who was assigned to the No. 1 Jail, was beaten by the prisoners, and as a result she developed high blood pressure. Several prisoners dragged Liu Renling to the study room of the training group to further persecute her. At that time, team leader Xue Yanqin and the team leader in charge of the training group were both present. A dozen people led by Zhang Shoulan beat Liu Renling until she lost consciousness. They had to rush her to the hospital for emergency rescue.

I was shocked after seeing this. The team leaders were in fact encouraging the prisoners to beat people, and they employed all kinds of means to "transform" these good people who cultivate Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. There were several times when I saw team leader Xue Yanqin instigate a dozen people to beat practitioners and humiliate them by cursing them, while she stood at the door watching. At the training team, they either beat the practitioners or cursed them. They didn't treat the practitioners as human beings at all. Very often, you would see old people around 60 years old with black and blue faces, and some even had bloody noses and swollen faces as a result of beatings.

My conscience told me that I should not do so. On September 7th, 2008, I solemnly declared that I had returned to cultivation.

Being Beaten, Pinched, Kicked and Rubbed with an Irritating Balm

The persecutors subsequently used even more vicious means to persecute me. A dozen people led by Qiu Xiuxin beat me about the face. When I was beaten down to the floor, Zhu Huifen kicked me in the mouth, and stomped on my head. Xie Jianchun took off her shoes and hit me on my face with the sole. Also several times Song Qiai kicked me hard near my heart, which caused me to lose my breath. Duan Hongli suffocated me. Someone pinched me on my legs, and the pain was unbearable. My two legs were pinched all black and blue, and I walked with a limp. My hair was pulled out and scattered all over the floor.

Every day dragged on like years. After I was severely persecuted, I was not allowed to sleep. Min Huirong, He Fuxiang, Wang Chunyan, Xu Yongqing, Liu Xiuyun, and others took turns keeping me under surveillance.

They deprived me of sleep. Whenever I began to doze off, they applied an irritating balm to my face, and my eyes began burning with pain. He Fuxiang even took a pail of dirty water from the washroom and put it in front of my eyes, saying that if I dozed again, they would push my head into it.

I was kept from sleeping, eating or drinking for four full days. When they saw that I could no longer continue by the afternoon on the fifth day, they wanted to send me to the Police Hospital, but I refused, since I had been there three times before. Without doing anything for me, they had extorted over six thousand yuan¹ from me. Plus the money this time, it totalled over seven thousand yuan. When they saw that I didn't want to go, they forcibly dragged me to the vehicle. At that moment, my back was dragged along the ground and the skin was broken. My left eye was also beaten black and blue. It was Liu Xinying and Ding Meimei who accompanied me. These two also accompanied me the last time. At the hospital, they continued torturing me.

Tortured at the Hospital

I was beaten at the hospital, since the police there didn't care. Starting from 6:00 a.m., I was forced to sit on a small stool. The moment I tried to sit on the bed, I was beaten. Since I was hot and sweaty, the sores on my back from being dragged became ulcerated, and the pus stained my clothes. Liu Xinying tore open my clothes, which was very painful. They used all their strength to slap me on my back to irritate the ulcers. As a result, my clothes were again stuck to the stained blood. They sometimes even kicked me at the same time and viciously said, "I just want you to feel pain, make you suffer so that you cannot die. You cannot live, and your life is worse than death..."

The two of them cursed and beat me, and what they said was really disgusting. After repeatedly opening and pressing my clothing against my bleeding back, they were afraid that I might use this as evidence to present to the prosecutor.

When they tired of beating me, they started to step on my toes. Liu Xinying later stomped on my left toe and it became ulcerated. The flesh began to rot. When Liu Xinying was stomping on my middle toe, she said viciously, "The ten fingers are connected and we have enough means to make you suffer. We will see what you will do..." During a subsequent examination, the doctor said that part of my back was turning green. It took a long time to recover by taking injections. The middle toe recovered six months later, and still has a scar.

Since my left eye was swollen after being beaten by Wang Chunyan, my eyes hurt severely when I opened them, and it felt as if things were scratching my eyes. The moment I closed my eyes, Ding Meimei would pinch my eyelid, which caused pain beyond description. Liu Xinying pulled on my ear, which became swollen and took a while to recover.

I was forced to stay awake every night until 11:00 p.m. before being allowed to sleep. If I fell asleep, they immediately kicked me and woke me up, adding that they were just checking to see whether I had died or not. They took turns beating me for several hours. One morning they beat me from 6:00 a.m. to past 9:00 a.m., when they started to check the room. The doctor saw that my face was swollen after being beaten. My physical condition was very poor and I was reduced to a skeleton. I was later sent back to the women's cell.

Humiliation

It was getting colder and colder, and I was forced to endure not only the pain of being force-fed, but also the pain of severe cold. The team leader and the prisoners refused to give me warm water, using the excuse that I didn't drink water. I could only use the cold water to wash myself. For over a month, there was no warm water, and I couldn't wash my hair. I had no other choice but to use the cold water to wash my hair in the extreme cold winter. I had been on hunger strike for four months, and my physical weakness was severe. My feet became frozen and painful. They were swollen and I couldn't wear shoes. Several times, while being forced to clean the washroom, I almost fainted. I couldn't take a shower for almost four months in the winter.

The persecution I've described was just the tip of the iceberg of what occurred at this prison. I heard that Yao Guihua was pushed down on a stool with four legs overturned. As a result, her back was severely injured, the pain of which was beyond description. They also resorted to the severe means including beatings, forced standing, sleep deprivation, etc., to forcibly "transform" the practitioners. Chen Xiuling's (who was eventually forced by them to write statements to renounce practising Falun Gong) fingers were dislocated, and she still feels pain today. Zhou Shuchun (from No. 2 Division), Shi Ning (from No. 3 Division), Sun Yuehua (from No. 7 Division), Xu Mei (from No. 7 Division), Cui Ling (has returned home), Zhang Wei (from No. 5 Division), Liu Qingmei (from No. 6 Division), Wang Hongyu (from No. 6 Division), Lin Jianping (No. 9 Division), Li Guilan (has returned home), Chen Yuhua (from No. 6 Division), Li Baohuan, and others, have all been severely 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/2010/4/17/221686.html