Blinded in One Eye from Beatings in the Datong Bureau of Mines Detention Centre, Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Li Lanying Grossly Abused in a Forced Labour Camp

Name: Li Lanying
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Datong, Shanxi Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: July 29th, 2009
Most Recent Place of Detention: Datong Bureau of Mines Detention Centre
City: Datong
Province: Shanxi
Persecution Suffered: Detention, beatings, force-feeding, and interrogation

Ms. Li Lanying, who worked in Datong Bureau of Mines, benefited physically and mentally after practising Falun Gong.

On July 29th, 2009, the bureau posted a slanderous slogan about Falun Gong. Ms. Li went to the Bureau of Mines headquarters and exposed the persecution of Falun Gong to people near the bureau. She was arrested and held in a detention centre. While she was there, guards incited the inmates to beat and force-feed her. They beat her nearly to death. She has completely lost sight in her right eye and has only limited vision in her left eye.

Ms. Li's personal account of being grossly abused and mistreated:

I have practised Falun Gong since 1998. After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, I continued to tell people about the physical and mental benefits I derived from practising.

The morning of July 29th, 2009, I went to a place close to the Bureau of Mines headquarters. As I was clarifying the truth about Falun Gong, I was arrested and taken to the Xishenjie Police Station. The police transferred me to a detention centre in the middle of the night.

I began a protest hunger strike. Thirteen criminal detainees surrounded me and pushed me to the floor. I repeatedly shouted, “Falun Gong is good!” I heard a male guard shouting to a criminal, “Beat her to death!”

The next day my eyes hurt and continually teared. I told the inmates the truth, but they would not listen. They slandered Falun Gong. They pounced all over me and beat and kicked me.

At noon they force-fed me. Someone held my head and someone pinched my nose. They attempted several times, but I would not cooperate. They used force to open my mouth. Criminal Ko Jun force-fed things into my mouth, but I tried to push them out. She incited another criminal inmate to push me down on the floor and pull my hair out. They tortured me for a long time until female guard Liu Shuying and a male guard showed up.

Criminal inmate Jiang Yuxin pulled up one of my arms and kicked my ribs three times, and another criminal, Lanlan, stomped hard on my back. I lost consciousness. They poured cold water on me to wake me up, but I didn’t. They finally pinched my philtrum really hard to wake me up. They pinched it so hard so that my upper lip was torn and bleeding.

That night I was ordered to stand up, but I couldn’t. When they pulled me up, I felt dizzy. I fell after the first step and lost consciousness again. Later, I was told that they took me to a conference room and feed me sugar water and brought me to the clinic. When I woke up, I found an egg-size lump on my ribs.

The detention centre head tried to persuade me to eat on the fifth day of my hunger strike. I asked to be able to practice Falun Gong. I returned to my cell and practised the exercises twice. Once again I told the inmates about the goodness of Falun Gong and the persecution. This time they listened. Some of them even asked me to teach them how to do the Falun Gong exercises.

I was transferred to Xindian Women's Forced Labour Camp in Taiyuan seven days after my arrest. During a required medical exam for admission to the camp, the nurses could not measure my blood pressure or draw blood. I was carried into an ambulance because I was unable to walk and transferred to Taiyuan Central Hospital. The nurses there tried to take blood but failed. They got a small blood sample from my fingertip. I had an ultrasound. The results showed tumours in my abdomen. A doctor confirmed two tumours. Several doctors looked at my case. They told police that the tumours endangered my life.

At about 10:00 p.m. I was pushed into a police vehicle and returned to Datong City at about 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. the next day. The police took me to the Datong First Hospital for further evaluation. The diagnosis was the same. The hospital's chief of staff declared that I was in critical condition. He suggested a biopsy for further evaluation. I was returned to the Xinshenjie Police Station at noon and released right away.

My eyes hurt, and so did my head. My vision was getting worse. Although I had corrective surgery at the Taiyuan Ophthalmic Hospital, it didn't improve. Now I have no vision in my right eye and weak vision in my left.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/2/13/236233.html