Professor Heiner Bielefeldt, Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Religion or Belief, specifically addressed the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China and condemned the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) stigmatisation of Falun Gong as a "cult" at the United Nations headquarters in New York on October 21st. While discussing the CCP's persecution of religious and spiritual belief, Professor Bielefeldt put special emphasis on the abuse of women, saying, "Whatever the justification, all practices that are contrary to women's rights should be condemned and combated."
The CCP uses extremely cruel means to persecute female Falun Gong practitioners. Some examples of the CCP's crimes against female Falun Gong practitioners are listed here:
1. Threats and Verbal Abuse
It is a common practice for CCP officials to verbally abuse practitioners. Almost all female practitioners have experienced to some extent verbal abuse from the CCP agents.
At 10 a.m. on November 19th, 2009, six or seven police officers from the Wohongqiao Police Station in Jianshan District, Shuangyashan City, Heilongjiang Province arrested six practitioners. Policemen Zhang Engze and Xiao Yong dragged and pushed a young girl and lifted her into a police car. Zhang hit her with his fists and said: "I will introduce a thug boyfriend to you. I will throw you into a male cell of thugs." He then took away her glasses.
Qinglongshan Brainwashing Centre, located in Jiansanjiang, Heilongjiang Province, specialised in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Sheng Shusen, 57, who served as its director, was very corrupt and unethical. He pinched female practitioners' faces and thighs and engaged in other improper behaviour. He threatened practitioners with pornographic language, such as, "If you don't give up your belief, I will strip you naked and find some old unmarried men to rape you."
2. Disfigurement
CCP agents have also disfigured female practitioners.
Gao Rongrong, a former employee of the Finance Department of Luxun Institute of Fine Arts, was taken to the Longshan Forced Labour Camp in July 2003. Deputy leader of the labour camp's second division Tao Yubao and team leader Jiang Zhaohua shocked Ms. Gao with electric batons for more than six consecutive hours starting from 3 p.m. on May 7th, 2004. Her face was disfigured with blisters, with the burned skin, pus, and blood being stuck together. Her face became so swollen that her eyes could not open, and even her best friends couldn't recognise her.
In her personal account of this experience, Ms. Gao said: "The guards, including Tang Yubao, shocked my face, ears, neck, my back and ankles repeatedly with high voltage electric batons until 9 p.m. They repeatedly shocked the same parts of my body for extended periods of time. My whole body twitched. During the six or seven hours of the torture, I was in fierce pain. When electric batons fell on the bruises, the suffering I experienced was even more intense. The handcuffs and the air vents to which the handcuffs were attached to were shaking violently. I still have the bruises on my wrists caused by the handcuffs.
"My flesh and skin were burned and became swollen and blistered. The blisters on my neck were as big as a thumb. My face became twice as big due to the swelling, and my eyes looked like a thin thread. Yellowish fluid kept coming out from my face. My hair was stuck to my face and ears. The blisters on my neck were as big as a thumb. Within two months my arms became numb and my eyes were dry as a result of this torture. My eyebrow hairs fell out whenever I touched them. Layers of skin were shed around my ears and mouth. Guard Zeng Xiaoping came to me with a mirror and let me see my destroyed face. She said I should feel responsible for my disfigurement."
A photo of Ms. Gao's disfigurement released 10 days after the torture sent shocks throughout the world. Many people couldn't believe such a heinous crime could happen in China, a country with such a long history of civilisation. The CCP didn't respond to the photo and condemnations from the international community, but its continued silence indicates that it admits to the existence of the persecution and intends to continue persecuting Falun Gong practitioners.
3. Damaging of Breasts
CCP agents have also damaged female Falun Gong practitioners' breasts.
In August 2000, Liu Zhenfu, mayor of Laishui Town in Laishui County, Hebei Province, brutally tortured Falun Gong practitioner Chen Chenglan who had gone to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. He knocked her down, violently stomped on her breasts with his feet while yelling: "Will you dare to continue practising Falun Gong? Will you dare to go to Beijing again?" Her mouth and nose bled from the abuse and she fainted. Her breasts also became swollen and bruised.
The CCP officials in Dawangzhuang Township, Yinan County, Shandong Province, humiliated Falun Gong practitioners. For example:
When Du Yonglan went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong, she was arrested, taken to the office of the township Party Committee and severely beaten. Township officials tried to force her to take off all her clothes to humiliate her. Wang Xianyong thought she was disrobing too slowly, so he stripped off her overcoat, sweater and underwear. Wang Xianyong and Li Yongbao pulled on each of her arms ,while Bo Cunqi clinched tightly one of her breasts with one hand and shocked her with an electric baton with the other hand. She was in extreme pain and collapsed to the ground.
Wang Xianyong, Li Yongbao, and Bo Cunqi also tortured Ms. Qin Hongqin as follows:
They handcuffed Ms. Qin's arms behind her back and forced her to sit on the ground with legs stretched straight. Then they kicked her bottom and thighs with leather shoes. Li stood on her legs and kicked her legs downwards. Ms. Qin was forced to lay on her side and was in severe pain. Wang continued to beat her while saying, "Tonight we will pull out your tendons and peel your skin."
They beat her until she couldn't move, before taking off her handcuffs and pulling her up. Wang then stood behind Ms. Qin with his hands clutching her breasts. Later, Wang stripped her upper body again. Li and Bo held each of her arms while Wang bashed her breasts so that they swung. This torture continued for some time, and then Wang pushed her onto the sofa and burned her nipples with cigarettes while the other two agents held her arms. Then Wang stripped Ms. Qin's lower body, so that she became completely naked, and inserted an electric baton into her vagina.
4. Sexual Abuse
In many cases, the CCP agents have ruthlessly applied torture to many parts of practitioners' bodies at the same time, including genital organs. Ms. Qin's experience above was one such example.
In addition, many practitioners have also been raped.
Yang Xiulian, 63, and her daughter Wei Caixia were detained at the Hantai District Detention Centre in 2002. Ma Pingan, leader of the National Security Division at the Hantai District Public Security Bureau in Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province, and policeman Men Quanxiu instigated drug addict Zhang Li to torture Ms. Yang. Zhang forcibly pinned down her head and injured her neck. Two inmates held her arms and legs while two others brushed her vagina with tooth brushes. Other inmates then lined up to pinch her breasts, which continued until her breasts bled heavily.
Policewomen Cheng Yu, Huang Hanhua, and Zhang Xiaoyan instigated inmates Gao Lin, Wu Najun, and Ying Yurong to engage in torturing Ms. Yang Mei on November 9th, 2008, while she was detained at the Hubei Women's Forced Labour Camp. They tied her arms to the window frame and hung her up for two days and one night. They then stripped her naked and pricked her body with needles. They hit her face, head, and eyes with hot water bottles, pulled out her hair, brushed her private parts with tooth brushes and inserted brushes into her vagina. They also kicked her in the genital area with hard leather shoes.
In Inner Mongolia First Women's Prison, CCP guards inserted a broom handle into Ms. Wang Xia's vagina.
Guards at Dalian Forced Labour Camp in Liaoning Province stripped practitioners naked, locked their arms and legs in a spread position and then inserted peppers, broom handles, and brushes into their vaginas. This torture was extremely painful and resulted in heavy bleeding.
In Masanjia Forced Labour Camp, Ms. Xin Suhua, from Benxi, Liaoning Province, lost consciousness several times after the guards repeatedly stomped her private parts.
The guards at Masanjia Forced Labour Camp also inserted electric batons into practitioners' vaginas and shocked them, and stripped female practitioners who didn't give up their belief and put them into male cells.
On May 14th, 2001, a policeman from Beijing beat a practitioner and raped her. The same year, policemen gang-raped several practitioners in Xingtai, Hebei Province.
On May 13th, 2003, a policeman from Chongqing raped Ms. Wei Xingyan, a post-graduate fellow at Chongqing University, in public.
In 2004, Ms. Zhu Xia, 32, was repeatedly raped by policemen at the brainwashing centre, as a result of which she suffered long-term mental instability.
In 2005, Ms. Huang Xin from Shenyang, who was detained in Liaoning Women's Prison, was stripped naked and put into a male cell, where death-row inmates gang-raped her. Eight other practitioners were subjected to the same experience.
On November 24th, 2005, Ms. Liu Jizhi, 51, and Ms. Han Yuzhi, 42, from Zhuozhou City, Hebei Province, were arrested at home and severely beaten during the interrogation. The next day, policeman He Xuejian, in his 20s, raped both women under the pretence of carrying out orders. The incident shocked the international community. The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Religion, Special Rapporteur on Torture and Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women then made urgent joint inquiries and forced the CCP to admit the facts of the rape incidents. This was a rare case when the CCP admitted to committing offences against Falun Gong practitioners after huge international pressure, as recorded by the United Nations.
This website recently reported that police team leader Wang Weiwei and inmates Wu Yanchun, Li Lingling, and Zong Dongrong abused Ms. Hu Maomao from Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, during her detention at the Hebei Provincial Women's Forced Labour Camp. She was forced to stand for an extended period of time, and was beaten, handcuffed and tortured. They also inserted a broom handle into her vagina and used their fingers to damage her vagina. Her wounds have not recovered three months after the torture, and she is still in severe pain and unable to walk properly as a result.
5. Forced Abortion
CCP agents have also forced Falun Gong practitioners to undergo abortions.
From the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party:
"In the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp in Heilongjiang Province, a woman who was about 7 months pregnant was hung up on a beam. Both of her hands were tied with a coarse rope that was hung over a pulley attached to the beam. The stool that supported her was removed, and she was suspended in the air. The beam was 3 to 4 metres (10 to 12 feet) above the ground. The rope went through the pulley, and one end of the rope was held by the prison guards. When the guards pulled on the rope, she would be suspended in the air; as soon as the police let go of the rope, she would quickly fall to the ground. This pregnant woman suffered painful torture like this until she had a miscarriage. Even crueller was that her husband was forced to watch his wife endure the torture."
In March 2001, Ma Pingan, chief of the Political and Security Section of the Hantai District Public Security Bureau in Hanzhong City, Shaanxi Province, came with other policemen to arrest Ms. Zhang Hanyun. They forced her to have an abortion in a suburban hospital in Hanzhong City, even though she was eight months pregnant and had a permit for birth. Because the unborn baby was too big, they dismembered the body and took it out piece by piece, showing an unheard of level of brutality.
6. Live Organ Harvesting
CCP agents have also harvested organs from living female Falun Gong practitioners.
In 2009, a person involved in the arrest and torture of Falun Gong practitioners (who chose to remain anonymous for security reasons) told the World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong of an incident he had personally witnessed of organ harvesting of a living Falun Gong practitioner.
At 5 p.m. on April 9th, 2002, in an operating room on the 15th floor of the General Hospital of Shenyang Military Region, two military surgeons harvested organs from a female Falun Gong practitioner in her 30s, who was still alive at the time.
The witness' personal account was recorded as follows:
"[Her] heart was carved out first, next were the kidneys. When her cardiac vessels were cut by the scissors, she started twitching. It was extremely horrible. I can imitate her scream for you, although I can't imitate it well. It sounded like something was being ripped apart, and then she continued 'ah.' Since then she always had her mouth wide open, with both her eyes wide open. Ah... I don't want to continue."
Before she was killed, they abused her and raped her several times.
This article was written to expose the CCP's infringement of Falun Gong practitioners' rights, but it highlights only a tiny bit of the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. The number of female Falun Gong practitioners who have been tortured and abused in the 11 years of the persecution just because they practice Falun Gong is unimaginably high.
In his United Nations address, Professor Heiner Bielefeldt said: "Whatever the justification, all practices that are contrary to women's rights should be condemned and combated."
If one clearly understands the nature of the CCP, one will be ashamed of being associated with it. The existence of the CCP is a threat to innocent people.
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/11/9/232220.html
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