Ms. Wang Sulan's Life in Danger, Her Family Calls for Public Awareness

Name: Wang Sulan
Gender: Female
Age: 48
Address: Tangshan, Hebei
Occupation: Employee at the Service Division of the Qianjiaying Mine Company in Fengnan District, Tangshan
Date of Most Recent Arrest: February 2009
Most Recent Place of Detention: Shijiazhuang Women's Prison
City: Shijiazhuang
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: Sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, imprisonment, torture, force-feedings, extortion, fired from workplace, home ransacked, interrogation, detention, denial of toilet use

Ms. Wang Sulan was arrested in Beijing in 2009. In March 2003, the Xuanwu District Court in Beijing sentenced her to nine years in prison. She is currently incarcerated in Shijiazhuang Women's Prison. She is in critical condition after having been tortured for not giving up Falun Gong.

The prison authorities extorted 16,000 yuan¹ from Ms. Wang's family with the excuse that she needed the money for surgery to remove her uterus. Later, they wanted another 20,000 yuan for medical expenses and claimed that another surgery was needed to remove a malignant tumour.

Ms. Wang's family was upset because she used to be healthy--why would she suddenly have such serious illnesses after being imprisoned? In addition, a second surgery was needed because the first one was not done right. The family believed that the prison authorities were torturing Ms. Wang and were using different excuses to extort money from them.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members at work repeatedly lock up Ms. Wang and brainwash her

Ms. Wang began to practise Falun Gong in 1996. She went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong on July 22, 1999, two days after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution of Falun Gong. She was sent home and the local police locked her up for two days. On October 8th, 2000, Hu Xinghai, a CCP secretary at Ms. Wang's company, locked her into the staff room for a month and had someone watch her around the clock. Hu extorted 3,000 yuan from her. On November 3rd, police officers Tian Guibao and Wang Xudong transferred Ms. Wang and another practitioner to the Tangshan City Administration Detention Centre. They were locked up for 15 days and fined 425 yuan each, and were released on November 18th.

Afterward, Wen Fuli, the CCP secretary at her company, followed orders from officials of the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) and put her under house arrest in the company's staff room twice. The house arrest lasted two weeks each time. Wen also put tremendous pressure on Ms. Wang's husband and forced him to file for a divorce. Consequently, Ms. Wang developed heart problems.

On March 1st, 2001, Jiang (currently a secretary at Mining Company hospital) from the 610 Office and the company's CCP secretary, Wen, took Ms. Wang to a “Legal School,” located at the Hebei University of Science and Technology in Tangshan, and tried to brainwash her into giving up Falun Gong.

Tortured in the Tangshan City Second Detention Centre

When Ms. Wang went to work on December 3rd, 2001, officer Tian Guibao locked her up for three days and searched her house during that time. On December 5th, Tian took her to the Tangshan City Second Detention Centre, where she was imprisoned for four months.

The second day in the detention centre, Ms. Wang tried to stop Xing Lixin, the captain of the prison guards, from torturing another Falun Gong practitioner. Xing brutally beat Ms. Wang and slapped her a dozen times. He hit her arms and mouth with a broomstick; shocked her face, arms, and chest with an electric baton; and beat her arms and back with a baton.

Ms. Wang was in extreme pain after she was beaten and could neither lie down nor sleep for three weeks. Her bruises did not go away for two months.

In order to protest the brutal beating and imprisonment, Ms. Wang went on a hunger strike for nine days. Xing ordered a force-feeding and four male prisoners carried her to the prison clinic and held her down in a chair. Two of them pulled her arms backward, one stepped on her feet to keep them down, and the other one pulled her head back by her hair and held her lower jaw. The doctor at the clinic with the last name Wang inserted a plastic tube into her right nostril and down into her throat. It took the doctor a while to get the tube into her stomach. Ms. Wang became nauseated and vomited a lot of blood and mucus.

In January 2002, the authorities at the detention centre obtained a business contract and wanted to use the prisoners to make rattan chairs. Ms. Wang refused to do the forced labour. Director Wang Yuhe had four male prisoners put her in an iron chair and cuffed her wrists to the back of the chair. She was not allowed to eat, sleep, or relieve herself for four days. Her arms and shoulders ached badly, her limbs were swollen, and the handcuffs cut into her flesh. Xing continued torturing Ms. Wang this way even when she was having her period. The weather was frigid and the prisoners put Ms. Wang at the door so that she would freeze in the wind. This lasted 12 days, until visitors came to the detention centre.

Ms. Wang's weight dropped from 154 lbs to less than 110 lbs within the four months she was in the detention centre.

Unjust Conduct in the “Legal Education School”

On April 2nd, 2002, Liu Baoyu from the 610 Office, CCP secretary Wen Fuli, and officer Tian Baogui transferred Ms. Wang back to a brainwashing centre at the “legal education school” to continue to torture her.

When Ms. Wang arrived at the brainwashing centre, she escaped while no one was watching. Zhang Shi caught her and started beating her in the street. The beating caused a traffic jam and a lot of attention from passersby. Zhang quickly dragged Ms. Wang back to the brainwashing centre. Her head was swollen and her legs were bruised due to the beating.

Head of the school Zhang Zaisen, CCP secretary Sun Mingliang, collaborators Zhang Aning and Wang Zhijie, and staff member Zhang Shi worked together to mentally torture Ms. Wang. The next morning, they took her to a brainwashing session, and she had to watch videos that slandered Falun Gong. She was not allowed to sleep at night. Zhang Aning covered her face with cold towels to keep her awake. He instigated Wang Zhijie to beat her and force her to stand facing the wall to prevent her from falling asleep. This lasted for three days.

They took Ms. Wang to the university police office and interrogated her, and then locked her in the office. During the summer, Ms. Wang was not allowed to take a shower for almost three months.

During these seven months of her mistreatment, Ms. Wang did not receive a salary from her employer. Additionally, and as a result of being tortured, Ms. Wang's lower back hurt so badly that she could not sit down. Zhang Zaisen pushed her down into a chair. After that, she lost control of her bladder and bowels and could not clean up after herself. She was also not able to sleep at night due to the severe back and leg pain. She gradually stopped eating and weakened. Officials of the brainwashing centre did not want to shoulder any responsibility and thought that she might not live much longer, so they notified her employer to take her home.

Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison in Beijing

Wang Degang and Ji Bao from the Qinghe Police Bureau in Beijing arrested Ms. Wang in February 2009. In March 2010, the Xuanwu District Court sentenced her to nine years in prison, and she was taken to the 6th ward of Shijiazhuang Women's Prison. When her family visited her, a captain with the last name Liu wanted money from them several times. He sometimes claimed that Ms. Wang needed a blood transfusion and sometimes said that she needed surgery.

Currently, Ms. Wang's condition is critical, and we call upon the international community to help secure her release.

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/2011/2/14/3625.html