The Persecution of Qi Lizhen at Jiamusi Forced Labour Camp

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Qi Lizhen was employed by the Qiulin Company in Fujin City after she graduated with a degree in a technical field. She resides in Elongshan, Fujin City. Before practising Falun Gong, Ms. Qi was in poor health and suffered from mastopathy, a disease of the mammary glands. Soon after she started practicing Falun Gong, at the end of July, 1996, she became healthy.

Ms. Qi is a very kind lady, yet she was fired from her job after being sentenced to a forced labour camp because she practised Falun Gong. After Ms. Qi appealed for justice for Falun Gong outside the Beijing Appeals Office, she was arrested and sentenced to a one-year term at Jiamusi Forced Labour Camp. Because she also lost her job, Ms. Qi had no source of income.

When Qi Lizhen appealed for Falun Gong for the second time, she was reported to the local officials by Li Shijie, a policeman from the local Railway Police Bureau. Officials from the Jiamusi Public Security Bureau ransacked her home and tried to arrest her. She escaped and became homeless. Her husband was forced to divorce her. In August, 2004, Ms. Qi was detained for a month in the Jiamusi Detention Centre. After that she was sentenced to a three-year term at the Harbin Drug Treatment Centre and forced to do hard labour.

Qi Lizhen Recounts her Suffering in the Jiamusi Forced Labour Camp

"After July 20th, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) initiated the persecution of Falun Gong. At the time, I did not understand the extent of the persecution. I thought that China's leaders simply did not know anything about Falun Gong and that I should help them understand the practice. Therefore, I wrote a letter describing the changes I experienced once I practised Falun Gong. At the end of December, 1999, I took a train to Beijing. It was great to meet a fellow practitioner on the train.

"Two days later, we, including some more practitioners, went to Tiananmen Square to tell people about Falun Gong. I went to the Beijing Appeals Office with three fellow practitioners. As soon as we stated our purpose, a few plain-clothes police showed up and asked, 'Who practises Falun Gong?' Four of us calmly stepped out of the crowd. Those police said, 'Let's go into this room.' There already were around eighteen practitioners in the room. We handed to the officials our appeal letters, but they didn't even look at them. They just asked us where we were from and how many times we had come here.

"At the time, we believed that they would carefully analyze the situation and rationally report the true picture of Falun Gong to their leaders. However, within a few minutes, people from my city who worked in the Beijing office took us to their office. The second day, three men and a woman from the Fujin City Public Security Bureau, with Sun Weiyang in charge, and a staff member from my company arrived. It was only six or seven days before the Chinese New Year. They rudely searched our bodies and confiscated all our money and belongings.

"Nine of us were arrested. After we returned home, all of us were fired from our jobs without any explanation.

"After I was detained for over 40 days, I was taken to Jiamusi Forced Labour Camp on March 8th, 2000. I was held in the Intense Treatment section and forced to walk for the entire day except during meal times. Many practitioners' legs and feet were swollen as a result of this abuse. The food was unfit for humans. We had to eat with our hands. We were provided a little cabbage with worms on it. Therefore, over two hundred practitioners went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. We demanded that they stop slandering Falun Gong, and that they release all practitioners unconditionally. The hunger strike lasted from March 25th to the end of July.

"One day, a group of male policemen arrived with clubs in their hands. They accompanied the prison doctor. They put bags of salt into water and stirred the concoction with the clubs. After that, they came into the cells. The prison doctor held nasal feeding tubes in his hands. Waiving a club in the air, a director with the surname of Xu said, 'Stand on the other side if you want to eat. Stand on this side if you don't.' Some people were terrified and walked to the other side. Most of us stood there without moving. The policemen started to grab each practitioner that refused to eat, pushed them to the ground and inserted the nasal tube and fed them with the salt water. Within a short time some had diarrhea and soiled themselves.

"A practitioner who had been transferred from the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp, Ms. Meng Qingmin, was tied to a chair with her hands held behind her back. They opened her mouth with a stick and broke her teeth. She fainted. The guards carried her to a car. At the time, another car had arrived and the guard was worried about his actions. He dropped Ms. Meng to the ground. Another guard dragged her into the car. It was rumoured that it took two hours before she came around.

"Xu picked up a container full of vomit and poured it over the body of a practitioner. That practitioner had a baby who still needed breast feeding at the time. She quickly lost over 20 pounds due to the torture. Xu then stood in front of me and yelled, 'Force-feed her if she doesn't eat.'

"A guard grabbed me and threw me onto a bed. I did not feel anything when being force-fed. However, my mind was very clear. I heard the guard say, 'get up!' I then was lifted up and then thrown to the ground. I was shivering and felt numb.

"Each time when we were force-fed, the sky turned dark. The dogs were barking eerily and all of us felt an oppressive atmosphere.

"We were on the hunger strike for over four months. During that time, some practitioners were brutally beaten, some were shocked with electric batons, some were tied to an iron bed, some were hung up, some were force-fed, some received forced injections with unknown drugs and we were subjected to many other torture methods.

"Now, the Jiamusi Xigemu Forced Labour camp no longer exists. The spirit of Falun Gong could not be suppressed."

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/4/29/222473.html