Ms. Ni Youmei, 47, from Hubei Province Passes Away After Nine Years of Persecution

Name: Ni Youmei
Gender: Female
Age: 47
Address: Douhudi Town, Gongan County, Hubei Province
Occupation: Unknown

Date of Death: December 29th, 2010
Date of Most Recent Arrest: 2002
Most Recent Place of Detention: Wuhan Women's Prison
City: Wuhan
Province: Hubei
Persecution Suffered: Detention, beatings, home ransacking, force-feeding, forced labour, sleep deprivation, brainwashing, food deprivation, hanging by handcuffs, denied visitation, and extortion.

Ms. Ni Youmei was brutally persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for many years. She was only 47 years old when she died, at around 3:00 p.m. on December 29th, 2010. Ms. Ni began learning Falun Gong in May 1999. Her illnesses, including severe rheumatoid arthritis, stomach problems, and gynecological ailments, disappeared soon after she started the practice.

The following is an account of the persecution Ms. Ni has suffered since July 20th, 1999.

Arrested and Publicly Humiliated

Ms. Ni was arrested in September 2000 when she was reported to the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) while she was distributing Falun Dafa materials in Nanping Town, Gongan County.

Agents from the Gongan County 610 Office arrested seven practitioners in late April 2001, and sent them to a brainwashing center in the financial school. In order to try and help rescue the detained practitioners, Ms. Ni told the people who passed by the school the facts about Falun Gong and about the persecution. On the afternoon of May 13th, Ms. Ni was arrested by a group of more than ten agents from the 610 Office. Yang Liangfu, section head of the District Police Department, forcefully slapped her about the face. Zhang Zuyin then pushed her into an awaiting police car and began to choke her. She nearly died from the strangulation. Ms. Ni was unconscious when they arrived at the detention centre.

Zhang Zuyin and Zhou Liangqing put handcuffs and shackles on Ms. Ni in the detention centre. On May 28th, 2001, Zhang, Zhou and the guards dragged her to an interrogation room, where they punched and kicked her to the ground.

On the morning of June 1st, 2001, some convicted criminals were to be executed in Gongan County. Ms. Ni was forced to stand on the back of a vehicle with the convicts and was paraded through the streets. She was tied up and handcuffed, wearing a sign board hung around her neck. Along the way Ms. Ni shouted out “Falun Gong is good... Falun Gong has been slandered... Restore Falun Gong's reputation!” The guards quickly shoved an old rag into her mouth and tied it tightly around her head and throat with a piece of string. Blood began comin out of the corner of her mouth. After half a day of this abuse and humiliation, she was taken back to the detention centre. She lost consciousness for about 24 hours.

Officials from the 610 Office didn't notify her husband until July 5th, when she was on the verge of death. They then threatened her husband that they would be in serious trouble if she ever went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong again.

At around midnight on July 19th, 2001, 610 officials Yang Liangfu, Zhou Liangqing, and Zhang Zuyin took ten other officers to break into Ms. Ni's home. They arrested her and Ms. Guo Henghong, who was sleeping at her house that night. They were taken to the Gongan County Detention Centre. Ms. Ni went on a hunger strike for six days to protest her persecution, and was brutally force-fed. She was released on July 26th when she was close to death. At home she was monitored by people from her husband's company. In order to avoid being persecuted again, she was forced to become homeless, and had to leave her child and elderly mother at home. Her son was 14 years old and her mother was in her seventies, and suffered from high blood pressure.

Ms. Guo died on July 13th, 2002, at the age of 36, due to severe persecution.

Sentenced to Three-year Prison Term

While Ms. Ni was homeless, her mother was so worried that she became seriously ill and died in October 2001. When Ms. Ni returned home to attend the funeral, she was followed by the authorities and arrested.

A court hearing was held for Ms. Ni and practitioner Ms. Liu Ying, at Gongan County Court on the morning of April 6th, 2002. Many practitioners went there to support them, despite being searched at the courthouse entrance. Ms. Ni's husband and Ms. Liu's brother had to defend them in court, as the lawyer hired by Ms. Ni's husband was refused entrance to the court. The judge sentenced the practitioners to three-year prison terms.

Tan Jianping, section head of the Legal Division, has been actively involved in persecuting practitioners since 1999. He is the neighbor of Ms. Ni, and Tan Jianping's wife works with Ms. Ni's husband. When Ms. Ni was arrested, she told Tan Jianping the facts about Falun Gong, and informed him that good is rewarded and bad deeds are punished. She then advised him to treat practitioners well. Tan Jianping did not listen to her, and said that Ms. Ni had cursed him. He then filed an indictment against her and had her transferred from the Second Detention Centre to the First Detention Centre.

Forced Brainwashing in Wuhan Women's Prison

Ms. Ni and Ms. Liu were transferred to Wuhan Women's Prison on the afternoon of April 6th, 2002. Ms. Ni was assigned to the Fifth Team in the Third Division. The guards made her do forced labour, and sometimes deprived her of sleep for several nights. The skin on her hands was rubbed raw and bleeding, and she was physically and mentally drained. The guards told her, “You will have to pass the test of forced labour first, then you will need to pass the study test.” She was forced to attend brainwashing sessions that the guards called “study classes” beginning on July 18th, 2002. She was forced to watch videos slandering Falun Gong, and then had to write a statement promising to give up the practice. When she refused, the guards handcuffed her and made her stand for long periods of time.

When Ms. Ni told inmates that Falun Gong was good, she was not allowed to sleep for eight days and had to work extra hours. She was also constantly monitored by inmates. She was once handcuffed for not singing songs that glorified the CCP at meal time. Inmates then brought food to her, but as she was handcuffed, she could not eat for herself. Inmates fed her a few times and then deliberately stopped, not allowing her to eat sufficient food.

Ms. Ni's husband came to visit her, but was refused visitation rights. Instead, he was forced to pay for his wife's stay in the prison. The money was supposed to be for her to buy food, but the guards never gave her the money. She had to ask kindhearted inmates to buy food for her. When the guards found out that she had eaten, they stopped others from helping her. She was only given a little bit of water to drink during the hot summer days and was only allowed to use the toilet once per day. She was also not allowed to change her clothes or take showers.

Ms. Ni was once hung up on a fence near the stairway, with her feet not touching the ground. One practitioner said that Ms. Ni told her it lasted eight hours. The handcuffs cut into her wrists. They had to saw off the handcuffs to release her. A guard said, “These handcuffs cost 150 yuan¹ and now they are ruined. You will have to pay for them.” He then took the money from her account. When Ms. Ni found out, the guard refused to admit he had taken the money, and pressured her every day to say she had made a mistake about the accusation.

Under such pressure and brutal torture, Ms. Ni's endurance reached the limit. She finally succumbed and wrote a guarantee statement, renouncing her belief. The guards then transferred her to another team. She felt very sad in her heart and soon wrote a letter to the guards retracting her former statement. It stated that she declares null and void everything she wrote in the guarantee statement, and openly declares her intention to resume practising Falun Gong.

The guards ordered inmates to beat her and told her that she could not go home until she renounced her belief.

Ms. Ni suffered another three years of persecution in Wuhan Women's Prison, until May 2004. She was very weak, and in the first half of 2010 her whole body was in constant pain, especially her back and chest. She could not eat and was very thin. Ms. Ni passed away at 3:00 p.m. on December 29th, 2010.

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/2011/1/28/235433.html