Su Nan, Former Second Artillery Corps Official, Subjected to Extreme Brutality

Name: Su Nan
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Army official

Date of Most Recent Arrest: February 2008
Most Recent Place of Detention: Masanjia Forced Labour Camp
City: Shenyang
Province: Liaoning
Persecution Suffered: Under surveillance, brainwashing, detention, forced injections, long-term standing, solitary confinement, torture, force-feedings, forced labour, beatings, interrogation

Ms. Su Nan, a former official at the Measuring Station in the SAC (Second Artillery Corps) of the PLA General Armament Department, and her husband Mr. Zheng Xujun, Ph.D., of the Electric Power Science Institute, have been suffering continuous and ruthless persecution because they practise Falun Gong. Ms. Su Nan was sentenced to a three-year prison term. She consequently suffered from skeletal deformation and crooked right hand fingers, causing her to be unable to grip anything with her hands or straighten her fingers. She was incarcerated at the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp in Shenyang for over two and a half years, resulting in her becoming physically very weak. Just before her term ended, it was extended for another ten days.

Three years of imprisonment leads to skeletal deformation

In 1999, Su Nan worked at a Metering Station in the Second Artillery Corps. She was put under house arrest in the warehouse of a guesthouse that was run by the No.1 Troop in Xuanhua, Hebei Province, and the authorities tried to forcibly brainwash her. In 2000, she was forced to return to her hometown to work.

In September 2000, when four Falun Gong practitioners, Su Nan, Zhao Tiefen, Gu Xifang, and Zhang Aimei, were distributing Falun Gong materials in Qinghe, Beijing, they were reported by Wang Yinhua, Yue Changlin, and Li Anna. They were then arrested by police from Qinghe Police Station and sent to the Qinghe Detention Centre. Su Nan protested the detention and asked for an immediate unconditional release. She then went on a hunger strike for 27 days. During this time, she was sent to the Beijing Wenquan Chest Hospital, where she was forced to have an IV. When she returned to the detention centre, Su Nan refused to eat. A policewoman then ordered an inmate to tear off her clothes and pour freezing cold water over her in an attempt to force her to eat.

In 2001, Su Nan was given a three-year prison term by Yang Xiaoming, a judge of the Haidian District Courthouse, and she was sent to Sichuan Women’s Prison. Because Su Nan refused to compromise and would not give up her belief, she was punished by being forced to stand for a long time. In addition, the guards forced other inmates to stand with her, so as to stir up hatred among the prisoners toward Falun Gong.

In 2002, Su Nan and 13 other Falun Gong practitioners were transferred from Sichuan Women’s Prison to West Sichuan Women’s Prison in Yaan, Sichuan. Later, this prison moved to Longquanyi, Sichuan. In West Sichuan Women’s Prison, Su Nan and other practitioners were locked up in confinement for not giving up their belief in Falun Gong. They were also tightly bound with rope. Soaked hemp rope was used to tightly tie up their arms from the wrist to the shoulder, and then twisted behind their backs and lifted to the neck. This severely restricts blood circulation, especially when the ropes dry out and tighten. The practitioner loses consciousness in a short time, and this can lead to death if he or she not released after a couple of hours.

Su Nan was locked in solitary confinement with her hands handcuffed to the metal window railing, which caused her not to be able to squat or sit, so she had to stand day and night. In addition, she was only allowed to use the toilet three times a day, for only 2 to 3 minutes each time. As she had been on a hunger strike in protest of her detention, she was also force-fed.

After 11 days of being handcuffed from behind and hung up from the window, with the front part of the body bent forward and her head dropping, she was unable to rise up, which made her suffer a great deal. On the 15th day, Su Nan weighed only about 75 lbs. She was close to death, but still the guards continued to try to force her to give up Falun Gong. Su Nan felt that she had no other choice but to swallow some metal pieces to protest the extreme violence against her. As a result, authorities from the West Sichuan Women’s Prison sent Su Nan to a local hospital in Yaan for emergency treatment. The operation to remove the metal pieces lasted 9 hours. Nine days later she was returned to the prison and locked up again in solitary confinement, and the guards again tried to forcibly “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] her, but she resisted.

In order to force steadfast Falun Gong practitioners into giving up the practice and to “transform” them, guards at West Sichuan Women’s Prison gathered over 20 Falun Gong practitioners, including Su Nan, onto the playground. Each practitioner was forced to run rapidly and they were pushed and dragged by four or five prisoners for three to four hours, until they fell to the ground exhausted. A practitioner by the name of Gao Hongxiang was tortured close to death and had to be sent for emergency treatment.

In September 2003, just before Su Nan was to be released, West Sichuan Women’s Prison threatened her by saying that she would not be sent home after her release, and instead she would be sent to a brainwashing centre.

Su Nan was persecuted so brutally that she lost much of her memory, her body was deformed, her period stopped, her teeth fell out, the fingers on her right hand were permanently bent, and she was unable to grip anything with her hands or straighten her fingers. When it was cold, her hands and feet went pale because of the lack of blood circulation, and she suffered from sharp pain. She was physically very weak. She was persecuted so severely that when she was eventually released and allowed to return home, she was still not able to lift her arms.

Arrested before the Beijing Olympics, subjected to two and a half years of imprisonment

In February 2008, Zhang Shuai, a policeman from the national security team in Changping District, Beijing, together with a local policeman, took Su Nan and her husband Zheng Xujun to a brainwashing centre in Changping.

The forcible transformation failed to make Zheng Xujun and Su Nan give up their belief in Falun Gong. In March 2008, they were sent to the Changping Detention Centre, where Su Nan was sentenced to two and a half years of forced labour and was transferred from the Beijing Forced Labour Deployment Centre to the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp.

In the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp in June 2008, all of the steadfast Falun Gong practitioners were imprisoned in Team One and Team Two after calling out, “Falun Gong is good!” Su Nan, who had just arrived at Masanjia, also stood up and declared, “Falun Gong is good!” As a result, the head of the No. 3 Team transferred her to the No.1 Team for forced labour.

In November and December 2008, in the dirty forced labour area for fluffing cotton filler, detainees were only allowed to use the toilet at a set time. But when drug addict Tang Wei was chosen to be the production team leader, she did not allow any of them to use the toilet before asking her permission one by one. Since it was a line production, anyone who was absent for any period of time would accumulate a huge amount of work, and Tang Wei would abuse or beat anyone at will. Su Nan was kicked in the stomach, and one time also got punched in the nose. Lili, another Falun Gong practitioner from Beijing, was beaten. The guards tried all means and methods to discredit Falun Gong practitioners. No matter where the practitioners went, they would be followed and watched by collaborators.

In November 2008, policeman Zhao Guorong and Li Xiurong took Su Nan to the site office in the forced labour area and locked the door. They demanded that they sign the check-up booklet for their labour performance, but they refused. An irritated guard pushed Su Nan to the ground, and hit her with a rubber stick as thick as a thumb. Su Nan was beaten so hard that her mouth bled, but she called out, “Falun Gong is good! And you can’t beat me or anyone!”

In July 2010, Masanjia Forced Labour Camp officials asked two policemen from Mianyang Science City, Sichuan Province (Su Nan’s hometown) to come to the forced labour camp to question her about whether she would work in Beijing after being released. The policemen demanded that the forced labour camp watch and control Su Nan’s thoughts and actions. They then went to Su Nan’s parents-in-law to harass them.

From 2008 to 2010, Su Nan was forced to do hard labour. Each day she vomited, her bones became crooked and suffered sharp pain, both her hands and feet were colourless, and the ordeal made her feel very weak physically. Su Nan’s two-and-a-half-year term was extended for another ten days before she was finally released..

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/12/19/233847.html