Ms. Li Shunying Tortured in the Xinli Street Police Station in Heilongjiang Province

Name: Li Shunying
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: April 21st, 2010
Most Recent Place of Detention: Xinli Street Police Station in Qiqihar City
City: Qiqihar
Province: Heilongjiang
Persecution Suffered: Electric shock, sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, forced injections/drug administration, beatings, being hung up, imprisonment, solitary confinement, torture, sexual assault, force-feedings, extortion, fired from workplace, physical restraint, detention in mental hospital, home ransacked, interrogation, detention, denial of toilet use

Ms. Li Shunying from Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province, was arrested by officers from the Xinli Street Police Station in Qiqihar City on April 21st, 2010, and severely tortured. The following is her account of the persecution that she suffered:

Before I started to practise Falun Gong, I had serious heart disease, rheumatism, a duodenal ulcer, and other illnesses, and I couldn't look after myself even though I was not yet 40 years old. I went to all the big hospitals and tried a variety of treatments, but they did not help. Falun Gong helped me to regain good physical health and spiritual well being, but the years of persecution have brought tremendous pain to me and my family.

Detained and Tortured in the Xinli Street Police Station

On April 21st, 2010, the police came to a paper mill residential area looking to arrest another Falun Gong practitioner, whom they could not find. Then they came to my workplace and said that they wanted me to go with them to verify a couple of things. Once we were in the car, they handcuffed me and took me to the Xinli Street Police Station.

Several groups of officers interrogated me. When one 50-year-old man was asking me questions, I said, "What you are doing is illegal." He got angry and ordered the officers to handcuff me again. In the afternoon, they tied my arms behind my back with thick ropes and then hung me from a bar on the second floor balcony, leaving me suspended in the air. My shoulders were instantly dislocated, I lost bladder control, my heart seized, and I felt sharp pain in my back. I was in extreme pain.

Around 8 p.m., director Han ordered his officers to take me to my home so that they could ransack it. Since I was so muddle-headed from the torture, I couldn't give them clear directions to my home, so when we returned to the police station, the director said with a hostile look, "She fooled us. Make her suffer."

About 10:00 p.m., they forced me to lie on the ground face down and put a heavy brace on my head. Then they handcuffed my hands and feet, put a two-metre wooden bar though the circle formed by my hands and feet, lifted it up and swung me. My hair was soaked in sweat immediately, and I felt dizzy. Then they put me down on a sofa, lifted my arms to the sides forming a straight line, and handcuffed each one to a rail. The brace was so heavy that I had to hang down my head. My arms hurt terribly. They did not take off the handcuffs until the next morning, and I could no longer move my arms.

At around 8 p.m. the next evening, Han brought a flat wooden stick about one and a half feet long and beat me all over until he got tired. I was swollen and bruised all over, my lips were skinned, and my gums bled. Then he pulled my hair, saying, "Will you talk now?" I said, "What do you want me to say? You're the one committing crimes!" I explained to him the facts about Falun Gong and asked him to stop torturing me. He said that he didn't believe it and threatened me, saying, "I will beat you so that you are disabled." He lifted my arms to the sides, handcuffed each one to the rail, and ordered a young officer to watch me and not allow me to shut my eyes. I was hungry, dizzy, and in pain from the torture, and couldn't keep my eyes open. The officer kept spraying water into my eyes. He also kicked and pushed me.

On the afternoon of April 22nd, they took me to the Qiqihar Detention Centre. A staff member there asked me, "What happened? Are you sick?" I pointed to Han and said, "He beat me, and now I am dizzy and have heart pain." The detention centre officials wouldn't accept me and asked for a medical report, so Han took me to a hospital and bribed the doctor to get a false medical report. He then took me back to the detention centre and got me admitted. During that time, the officers from the Xinli Street Police Station found out my home address and ransacked my home. Since they could not find any evidence to incriminate me, they claimed that they found a small piece of paper with some bad remarks about the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on it. They also took my family members to the police station and interrogated them about the details of my Falun Gong practice so that they could use this information to frame me.

While in the detention centre, I couldn't look after myself and lay in bed for 20 days. I was dizzy and nauseated. I vomited; had heart pain, abdominal pain, and back pain; and couldn't lift my arms or eat as a result of the torture. The detention centre did not want to be held responsible for my poor condition, so they told the Xinli Street Police Station to take me to a doctor again.

On the morning of May 12th, three policemen came and put me in a car. Instead of taking me to a doctor, they took me to the Harbin Rehabilitation Centre. There, the staff did a physical exam and refused to accept me. They then took me back to the Xinli Street Police Station at around 8 p.m. On the way there, I had acute heart pain and kept throwing up. Sun Yan, the head of the police station, called my family and told them that I would be released if they paid 10,000 yuan¹. My family said that they didn't have that much money, so Sun told them that they had to pay no less than 3,000 yuan. My family borrowed 3,000 yuan and took me home at around 10 p.m. The police said to my family, "She has to serve her sentence when she recovers."

Previous Experiences of Torture

On February 20th, 2003, I was arrested by officers from the Wenhua Street Police Station and sentenced to one year of forced labour. In Shuanghe Forced Labour Camp, I was tortured with a variety of methods, including being bound to an iron chair. I was also force-fed by the guards when I wasn't able to eat for a couple of days; my nose and throat bled due to the rough insertion of the feeding tube. More than 30 hours of torture resulted in the recurrence of heart disease, abdominal problems, and headaches.

On February 16th, 2004, labour camp officials there decided to "transform" [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] all of the Falun Gong practitioners by using torture. On the morning of February 17th, Wang Yufeng and several other guards stormed in and started to hit us. When an elderly practitioner said, "Don't hit us, let's talk instead," Wang hit her and threatened her with torture. As I pulled Wang back, saying, "Don't hit us, we're good people," he turned around and repeatedly slapped me in the face. Then he and another guard held my arms and dragged me to the fourth floor, where torture was carried out. A guard covered my eyes with a black cloth. They hung me up from a metal bar, with my hands tied together very tightly. When I was let down after about half an hour, I fainted.

When I was trembling afterward, they said that it was because I hadn't eaten and proceeded to force-feed me. They inserted the feeding tube twice, puncturing my oesophagus, and I vomited a puddle of blood. Then they ordered me to write a guarantee statement to renounce practising Falun Gong, which I refused to do. At 3:00 a.m, they handcuffed me to an iron chair, and I started to vomit blood again. In the morning, they moved me to another room and forced me to sit on an iron chair again. When a new guard came to replace the previous one, he again ordered me to write the guarantee statement, but I still refused. He then pulled my arms back and hung me up with my head facing downwards. He continued to threaten me: "If you don't write it, I'll strip your clothes off and throw you outside until you're frozen half to death. When you're revived, then I'll do it again."

Under this severe torture, I eventually wrote the statement to give up cultivation against my will. After that, I had a terrible headache, my eyes hurt, and there was even blood in my tears. My term was extended by an extra month, and I was released on March 20th, 2004. Afterwards, I suffered from headaches and memory loss.

When I returned home from work on April 4th, 2006, I found policemen in the process of ransacking my home. They took away my Falun Gong books; 20,000 yuan belonging to my husband; and my child's computer. They carried me to the car and took me to the Xinli Street Police Station. When I did not answer their questions, such as where the Falun Gong books came from, they dragged me to a dirty, dark room and forced me to sit on an iron chair. One policeman threatened that they would torture me to death, as they had another practitioner. They covered my head, and someone pulled my arms while someone else pulled my legs. Then they hit my head with a stick, and I lost consciousness.

Eventually they took me to the city detention centre and subsequently transferred me to the forced labour camp, where I was tortured again. The guards did not let me sleep for eight days and had me sit on an iron chair for ten days. They forced me to do hard labour even though I was very weak. Sometimes I passed out due to the torture, and then they took hold of my hands to make me write the guarantee statements while I was unconscious. They also extended my term.

Individuals involved in the persecution of Ms. Li:

Sun Yan, director of Xinli Street Police Station: 86-13836206565 (Mobile)
Li Jiaming, Qiqihar City 610 Office chair: 86-452-2791608/2791613 (Office)
Deng Li, Qiqihar City CCP Political and Judiciary Committee secretary: 86-15245831111 (Mobile), 86-452-2791601/2796688 (Office)

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/2010/6/9/225045.html