Ms. Huang Sulan, 63, Repeatedly Tortured and Harassed

Name: Huang Sulan
Gender: Female
Age: 63
Address: Dashiba, Jiangbei District, Chongqing Municipality
Occupation: Former employee of 57 Factory, Oil Drilling Company
Date of Most Recent Arrest: 2002
Most Recent Place of Detention: Chongqing Woman's Forced Labour Camp
City: Chongqing
Persecution Suffered: Sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, forced injections/drug administration, beatings, hung up, imprisonment, solitary confinement, torture, sexual assault, force-feedings, physical restraint, home ransacked, denial of restroom use.

Ms. Huang Sulan was arrested, sentenced to forced labour, and her home ransacked for practising Falun Gong. During her time at the forced labour camp, she was handcuffed and hung up, handcuffed to a heavy board, force fed, beaten, not allowed to go to the toilet, and deprived of sleep until she was to close to death. At present she is still under tight surveillance by the local authorities.

Ms. Huang began to practise Falun Gong in March 1996. She went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in January 2001 and was arrested and detained in the Jiang District Detention Centre for a month. At the time it was a biting cold, and the head of the cell forcibly undressed her and poured cold water on her for more than ten minutes. She was shivering with cold.

In the evening on May 13th, 2000, Ms. Huang was arrested while visiting fellow practitioners and taken to Jiangbei District Detention Centre. She still did the five Falun Gong exercises. The guards forced the head of the cell, Liu Caifeng, to drag her into the toilet and beat her brutally. Then they poured water all over her, stripped her naked, and dragged her into the cell.

On June 12th, 2000, Ms. Huang was sentenced to one year of forced labour and detained at the Chongqing Woman's Detention Centre, where she was brutally tortured. Her detention was extended for eight more months because she would not give up her belief.

In the forced labour camp, the guards made her do hard labour. She had to carry baskets of coal weighing more than 50 kilos each or rolls of mats. She was often handcuffed and hung up for long periods of time, and sometimes she was handcuffed to a large board. She was handcuffed and shackled with her limbs stretched out and a chain around her waist to keep her from moving. Ordinary inmates could not bear such torture for more than a few hours.

Ms. Huang was regularly beaten. The evildoers used their hands, legs, and knees to press her lower abdomen. On top of that, she was often not allowed to use the toilet for long periods of time. As a result of all this, she could not lie on her back and suffered from constipation. She was in extreme pain.

She went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution and was barbarically forced fed. In the evening the guards purposely did not remove the tube. Since the tube was inserted through nose and down her throat, she had difficulty swallowing. When the tube was inserted, the guards made the inmates force it in and repeat the insertion several times. This made her bleed and also seriously harmed her respiratory and digestive systems. She was handcuffed and hung up on a window frame. Only when she developed a severe hernia did the prison doctor occasionally allow her to sleep in a bed. Even at that time she was still handcuffed to the bed. Ms. Huang was skin and bones as a result of the torture. She suffered from stomach atrophy, her hair turned white, and she was unable to speak.

One day she was too weak to call out her number, so she was locked up in a dark small cell. The guards and several inmates tied her up and sealed her mouth and nose with tape. Layer upon layer of tape almost suffocated her. Later she was repeatedly beaten, and over two days and nights the guards did not give her anything to eat or drink or let her to go to the toilet or to bed. Ms. Huang was on the verge of death. The forced labour camp did not want to be held responsible for her condition, so the officials sent her home for medical treatment. Her relatives all cried when they saw what terrible shape she was in.

Ms. Huang was released in February 2002, after her term had been extended for eight months. She was sentenced to one more year of forced labour less than a month after her release. Chongqing Woman's Forced Labour Camp refused to take her when the doctor could not draw any blood from her during the required physical. The officials had no choice but to inform Ms. Huang's daughter to take her home for medical treatment.

Detained again, she became mentally disordered

On returning home Ms. Huang did the exercises again and her health began to recover. Only a month and a day after her release, she was spotted by officer Gui Li not far from her home. The officer called her to the police car and escorted her to the Chongqing Woman's Forced Labour Camp. The guards made her sit on a small stool every day, and she was again reduced to skin and bones. Near death, she was taken to a hospital for emergency treatment, but the doctor there was unable to draw blood. They tied her up and gave her intravenous fluids. She was once again in a life-threatening situation and once again was sent home. She was mentally disordered on returning home and would stay awake all night. It was difficult for her to recover from such traumatic physical and mental injuries.

She is still under surveillance and her family has been implicated

She is still being persecuted. Ms. Huang worked at 57 Factory for ten years but did not receive a penny of salary. Owing to the policy of implication, her daughter was laid off and her son was taken to Dashiba Police Station, where he was threatened and brainwashed. As a result, he developed some unrighteous thoughts about Falun Gong. The officers threatened him with sacking him and pressed him to sign the Guarantee Statement to renounce practising Falun Gong on his mother's behalf. The officers also incited Ms. Huang's relatives to keep watch on her and make phone calls every day to force her to do cleaning jobs for the neighbourhood committee and order her to write "thought reports" in an effort to pressure her further.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/4/20/221844.html