Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Ma Cuihong Dies as a Result of Persecution

After suffering from numerous tortures by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Ms. Ma Cuihong became seriously ill. She endured brutal forced feeding by her torturers, who inserted a plastic feeding tube through her nostril into the stomach. Due to the repeated insertion of the feeding tube, her trachea and lung suffered fatal damage. Four years prior to her death, she coughed incessantly, vomited blood, and had severe pain around the chest. She had difficulty sleeping at night. As soon as she lay down, she'd have violent coughing and difficulty breathing. She died in September 2010, as a result of persecution. She was only 47 years old.

Ms. Ma Cuihong was a worker at a textile mill in Jiamusi, Heilongjiang Province. After starting to practise Falun Gong in September 1996, she was strict with herself and followed Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance as her standard in life. Her health thus improved along with her moral standard, and her family lived in harmony.

She was joyfully practising Falun Gong just as the CCP began the cruel persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999. Ma Cuihong went with six other practitioners to Beijing on October 5th, 2000 to appeal to the government. On the train to Beijing, police dragged her off the train and took her to the Shanhaiguan Police Station. On October 11th, her work unit sent people to bring her back and detained her in the Jiamusi Detention Centre. After being detained for over twenty days, she was released only after her family paid an extortion of more than four thousand yuan¹.

On October 8th, 2001, Ma Cuihong and three other Falun Gong practitioners went to Tiananmen Square to display a "Falun Gong is good" banner. They shouted, "Falun Gong is good!" "Falun Gong is righteous" "Restore my Teacher's good name!" Police seized her collar and dragged her to a police vehicle, while a plain-clothes police officer hit another practitioner. Police took them to the Shunyi Detention Centre in Beijing. Ma Cuihong went on a hunger strike to protest. On the fourth day of her hunger strike, the police put handcuffs and foot fetters on her and took her to a hospital to force feed her. They inserted a plastic tube into her nostril and into the stomach to force-feed her. She suffered intolerable pain when they inserted and pulled out the feeding tube repeatedly. She was seriously harmed when they inserted the feeding tube into her lung in error. Even as she was in an extremely weakened condition, police still tried to send her back to the detention centre. But the centre refused to accept her due to her condition. Under the strong urging from her family, they released her. While at home, the police kept her under surveillance and harassed her family so that she and her family were without any peace.

Ma Cuihong was forced to leave home and went to stay with her mother. At about eleven o'clock on April 22nd, 2002, she heard someone knocking on the door. She got up to find that police had surrounded their home. Police smashed through the door and forced their way into the house. Police were in the building and everywhere; there were more than two dozen police vehicles and over seventy police officers, according to eyewitnesses. Police entered her room and forcefully dragged her away from the bed, while she was wearing only underwear. They sent her to a detention centre after midnight and detained her there for 30 days. She was then sent to the Jiamusi Labour Camp.

During the detention in the labour camp, like other Falun Gong practitioners, she was forced to assemble in the drill ground at six in the morning. Prison guards cursed them and Falun Gong. On July 8th, 2002, in order to stop prison guards from slandering Falun Gong, over 50 practitioners refused to do any drills. Regardless of how guards called out orders, they just stood in place. At half past eight, captain He Qiang held an emergency meeting to discuss counter measures. At nine o'clock, the captain led prison guards to beat practitioners. Ma Cuihong was also beaten and locked inside a room.

Towards the end of September 2002, Ma Cuihong refused to co-operate with the labour camp; she refused to do labour and wear the prison uniform. Guards Guo Zhenwei and another guard used their police batons to beat her. Guards increased the broadcasting volume to the maximum to cover up the beating, which lasted more than twenty minutes. Ma Cuihong was beaten to black and blue and couldn't walk. She had to lie in bed for the following two weeks, yet guards claimed she was pretending.

On October 23rd, 2002, the labour camp guards escalated their efforts to persecute steadfast Falun Gong practitioners. Guards forced them to sit on a "small stool" from six in the morning until eleven in the evening, except for when eating meals. Their buttocks were bleeding from sitting. The prison put more than seventy to eighty practitioners in one room of less than 60 square metres and played videos that slandered Falun Gong non-stop at night. Guards also pulled a few practitioners out to torture them in an attempt to force them to give up their faith.

In early November, prison guards called out Ma Cuihong in an attempt to force a conversion. Prison guards handcuffed her in the "forced back-bend" position by her bed. (This is a very painful form of torture, in which one arm is reaching down the back behind the head and the other hand meets it from the lower back. The two hands are cuffed together to cause unbearable pain) She was left handcuffed this way for more than two hours.

In February 2003, prison guards forced practitioners to write statements to renounce practising Falun Gong. On February 25th, guards called Ma Cuihong out and told her to write repentance statements. When she refused, prison guards once again tortured her with the behind the back handcuffing. Guard Hong Wei kicked her handcuffed hands, causing unbearable pain.

Falun Gong practitioners in the camp were fed with coarse wheat buns and drank salty cabbage soup. Most of them suffered from malnutrition and lacked strength. Even so, they were forced to do labour. If they couldn't meet the quota, guards beat them, verbally abused them and forced them to work overtime.

Ma Cuihong's body went through much suffering and broke down from overwork from the repeated deadly tortures. Four years before her death, she coughed incessantly, vomited blood, and had severe chest pain. Before her death, she simply couldn't sleep. She sat day and night, unable to eat, until all of her energy was exhausted.

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://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/11/21/232741.html