Elementary School Teacher Ms. Hu Lianhua Dies in Detention, Just One Month after Being Arrested

Name: Hu Lianhua
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Hanjiangjun Village, Xiaoying Township, Yanshan County of Hebei Province
Occupation: Elementary school teacher at Hanjiangjun Elementary School in Xiaoying Township, Yanshan County, Hebei Province
Date of Death: Probably October 2nd or 3rd, 2010 (Family notified of her death on October 4th, 2010)
Date of Most Recent Arrest: September 2nd, 2010
Most Recent Place of Detention: Qingyun County Police Department in Shandong Province
City: Qingyun
Province: Shandong
Persecution Suffered: Sleep deprivation, brainwashing, beatings, imprisonment, torture, fired from workplace, physical restraint, home ransacked, interrogation, detention

Elementary school teacher Ms. Hu Lianhua refused to give up practising Falun Gong and was arrested and tortured many times by government agencies. Ms. Hu died in detention on October 2nd, just a month after she was arrested again.

Hu Lianhua went to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong in Beijing in 2000 and was fired by the Department of Education in Yanshan after she returned home. She was given no pension. She became homeless in order to avoid further persecution, and was arrested four times in the following nine years. On August 28th, 2008, Ms. Hu was arrested while she was giving out Falun Gong leaflets exposing the persecution in Xiaoying. On that afternoon, around twenty officers from the Domestic Division of the Police Department and the district police station went to Ms. Hu's apartment and ransacked it. They confiscated her computer, printer, and some Falun Gong books; they also arrested her daughter and son. Ms. Hu was not released until she was in critical condition.

After Ms. Hu came home, she continued to practise Falun Gong and regained her health. She was arrested again on September 2nd, by the Qingyun County Police Department in Shandong Province. They also communicated with the Yanshan Police Department and ransacked her home in Yanshan. Her husband, Han Zongdai, was also arrested. It was reported that approximately ten Falun Gong practitioners from Qingyun County in Shandong Province were arrested with Ms. Hu. On October 4th, Ms. Hu's family was notified of her death.

The following is Ms. Hu's account from February 2004 about the torment her family has endured under the persecution of Falun Gong:

I am a Falun Gong practitioner from Hanjiangjun Village in Xiaoying Township, Yanshan County, Hebei Province. My husband, my daughter, and I started to practise Falun Gong around 1997. My husband, Han Zongdai, is a veteran and was infected with Hepatitis C while he was in the military. I was also infected with the disease after I married him. Our health was poor, and we always had to take medication for our livers. Our two children were not healthy either. Shortly after my husband and I started to practise Falun Gong, we stopped needing medication. Our daughter saw this and wanted to practise, too. The same miracle happened to our daughter. She did not need to take medication or have any other medical treatment. Our morals were elevated, our family lived in peace, family grudges were resolved, and we lived in happiness; those are the benefits from Falun Gong!

Falun Gong has been persecuted since July 20th, 1999. We have endured pressure from various sources including family and friends. The brutal persecution continued to escalate, and many Falun Gong practitioners were brutally tortured--some were even beaten to death. In this critical environment, in order to let ordinary people understand the truth about Falun Gong, my daughter went to give out Falun Gong flyers and was arrested. At the time, my daughter was only 16 years old. She was tied up to a radiator at the Haixing County Police Department in Hebei Province. Her mouth was bleeding from being beaten. She was taken by the Yanshan County Police Department the next day and detained for two weeks. The day after my daughter was arrested, personnel from the county police department, town police station, and village security chairman looked for me at my school to arrest me. I knew their intention, so I slipped away after they took me away. After that, the town police department came to my home often to harass us.

Earlier in 2001, several officers headed by Wang Jianjun from the town police station arrested me without showing any identification. They took me to the town government hall and tried to force me to give up practising Falun Gong. They locked me up in a freezing garage and confiscated my Falun Gong books. Song Yuetan from the town police station asked whether my husband practised Falun Gong or not, and threatened to arrest him, too, if I did not tell. My daughter was arrested again and taken to the town government hall, too. Her mouth was bleeding from being beaten by station chief Zhang Zhongxun. She was later locked in the freezing cold garage. We went on a hunger strike in protest and were released ten days later.

After being suspended from work for a few months, I went back to work after the school principal interceded for me with the education department. I was arrested in my class by Song Yuetan in July 2001. I was released after four days on a hunger strike. I was suspended from work again, and two months' worth of my salary was withheld. In August 2001, the town police station arrested my daughter again and took her to brainwashing centre. In that horrible place, she often heard the chilling sound of Falun Gong practitioners being cursed at and beaten. Her young heart was shaken, and she stopped practising. She soon needed to take medications again and was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism last year.

In September 2001, I was arrested by Wang Jianjun and others from the police station on my way to visit relatives. Afterwards, they often came to my house to harass me. My husband and I became homeless [in order to avoid further persecution]. During the 16th Party Congress, the county police department used the excuse of checking for compliance with the "single child policy," when their true intention was to look for homeless Falun Gong practitioners. They searched household by household and found our rented place. I do not know what kind of cruel torture my husband endured while in the police department. He was later sentenced to prison.

Town policemen arrested me from my relative's home and took me to the station. I had many cuts on my hands from the handcuffs. A person from the town government (probably village chief Zhao) acted like a gangster. He was shouting, "Come in here and beat her!" All of a sudden, over ten people rushed in. Zhao took off a shoe and started hitting me with it. On my way to the brainwashing centre, I exposed their evil crime and told them they were not worth being called government officials. Police chief Hou cursed all the way.

At the brainwashing centre, Yang Lingjun from the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) cursed often and hit anyone as he pleased. My nose and mouth were often bleeding from the beatings. The county 610 Office head, Ma Ruicai, ordered Li Tianjun and Yang Lingjun from the police department and security guards to beat me and insult me. They then wanted to send me to Tangshan Forced Labour Camp, but I was diagnosed with hypertension and heart disease, and the labour camp refused to accept me because I was unable to stand. The officers who took me there tried every way possible to get me into the forced labour camp, but the labour camp still refused take me. The officers started to yell and threatened to dump me on the side of the road on our way back.

By that time, I had already been tortured badly, but they still detained me for another 20 or so days. The police forced every related person in the town and village--and my family--to sign guarantee statements to renounce practising Falun Gong before releasing me.

The town 610 Office chief, Zhang Zhiqiang, fooled one of my family members by telling them that there would be no arrest, and told me not to go anywhere. He threatened my family to force them to monitor me. My family members were so scared that they followed me everywhere, so lost my personal freedom. Two months later, Zhang Zhiqiang told me to bring 1,000 yuan¹ and go to brainwashing centre. I refused to go, and they would not leave me alone. I had a seizure, and they were going to take me away with them anyway. They put me down after my son got very angry. They often came to my house and harassed me. I was unable to live in peace.

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/2010/10/8/230700.html