Handicapped Practitioner Brutally Tortured

Name: Guo Ling
Gender: Female
Age: 55
Address: Kunming City, Yunnan Province
Occupation: Retired from Kunming City Supply and Marketing Cooperation
Date of Most Recent Arrest: January 15th, 2009
Most Recent Place of Detention: The Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison
City: Kunming
Province: Yunnan
Persecution Suffered: Sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, imprisonment, solitary confinement, torture, force-feedings, home ransacked, detention

Ms. Guo Ling was arrested on January 15th, 2009, and later sentenced to a four-year prison term. Her family didn't know her whereabouts until more than a year after she wa incarcerated in the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison. On June 14th, a prison guard with the surname of Zhang called Ms. Guo's family, asking them to come immediately. Only two family members were allowed to visit her. The next day Ms. Guo's husband and daughter went to the prison. When they saw Ms. Guo, she could not walk without assistance. She was emaciated and weak, and she seemed to be incoherent.

The prison guard wanted Ms. Guo's husband to sign a “Notification of Patient's Condition” document. The Notification stated that Ms. Guo had a necrotic thigh bone as a result of having suffered polio in the past. It also stated that Ms. Guo had “an irritable and delusional mental disorder.” Her husband refused to sign because she was a perfectly healthy person before being imprisoned.

The guard then asked Ms. Guo's daughter to sign the notification. The director of the prison hospital tried to tell her that the necrotic thigh bone had nothing to do with how Ms. Guo was treated in prison. Ms. Guo's daughter also refused to sign.

Ms. Guo's Thigh Bone Necrosis on Healthy Limb

Ms. Guo's relatives questioned the claim that she had polio for dozens of years. When she was arrested, she was perfectly healthy.

Ms. Guo's family checked medical information. They researched factors causing ischemic thigh bone necrosis and nowhere was it mentioned that polio could cause it. Besides, the necrosis was found on her healthy limb and not the one damaged by polio.

As for the “irritable and delusional mental disorder,” Ms. Guo is 55 years old and has never had any mental problems, nor is there history of such illness in her family. Her family couldn't understand how it was possible for Ms. Guo to contract a bone disease and mental illness while being imprisoned in the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison for just a little over a year.

Ms. Guo Tortured During Prior Imprisonment in the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison

The first time Ms. Guo was imprisoned in the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison was March 2003. At that time, despite a handicapped leg caused by polio, Ms. Guo had to walk a long distance to the prison workplace. She refused to renounce Falun Gong and was many times put in a solitary confinement cell, as well as under strict management. When she was held in the solitary confinement cell, she was not allowed to brush her teeth, take showers, or talk. She could use the toilet only three times per day. She was not allowed to use toilet paper when she had her menstrual periods.

During strict management, Ms. Guo was forced to sit on a small stool for sixteen hours daily, from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Her hands had to be on her knees, and if she moved even slightly, the prison guards ordered inmates to beat her. This kind of torture was used on practitioners who refused to give up Falun Gong. In the seven years Ms. Guo was imprisoned, she was monitored by other prisoners around the clock, even when she used the toilet. She was not allowed to talk to anyone. Ms. Guo went on a hunger strike for 56 days to protest the unjust treatment. The guards ordered prisoners to tie and force-feed her. Her physical condition had deteriorated during that time.

Ms. Guo Became Healthy from Practising Falun Gong

Ms. Guo had many illnesses since she was a little girl. She contracted polio when she was one year old and became crippled. As she grew older, she contracted many other illnesses. She took early retirement in her forties because of her poor health.

After she began practising Falun Gong in 1997, she became a healthy person. She was good-tempered and out-going. The neighbours liked her a lot and her family stopped worrying about her.

When the crackdown of Falun Gong began in 1999, police officers from the Wuhua District Public Security Bureau in Kunming City went frequently to her home to threaten and harass her, and ransacked her house. Officials took her to a brainwashing centre many times in attempts to make her renounce Falun Gong, but Ms. Guo refused. She was held once in a forced labour camp and twice in a prison.

In June 2001, police from the Domestic Security Brigade of Wuhua District Public Security Bureau broke into Ms. Guo's house without a search warrant and ransacked it. They arrested her and took her to a detention centre were she was held for three months. She was then transferred to a forced labour camp where she was held for a year.

One day in April 2002, when Ms. Guo was talking to a person about how Falun Gong was being persecuted, officers from the Domestic Security Brigade of Wuhua District Public Security Bureau arrested her. One of the officers slapped her until her face and eyes were swollen and bruised. She was released that night.

One day in July 2002, officers from the Domestic Security Brigades of the Public Security Bureaus in Panlong and Guandu Districts ransacked Ms. Guo's house. This time Ms. Guo was put in the Second Detention Centre in Kunming City for eight months. She was later tried in court, humiliated in public, and sentenced to a seven-year prison term. In the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison, she was put under strict management, held in a confinement cell, forced to sit on a small stool for a prolonged period of time, force fed, and forced to perform hard labour.

The Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison

Phone numbers of the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison: 86-871-5126217, 86-871-5126219

Warden: Yang Mingshan

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/7/6/43484.html