Firsthand Account: Ms. Li Qiongying, in Her Sixties, Sentenced after Refusing to Bear False Witness Against Another Practitioner

Name: Li Qiongying
Gender: Female
Age: 62
Address: Zhongyue Village, Duwei Town, Xianyou County, Fujian Province
Occupation: Farmer
Date of Most Recent Arrest: 2004
Most Recent Place of Detention: Fujian Province Women's Prison
City: Fuzhou
Province: Fujian
Persecution Suffered: Brainwashing, beatings, hung up, imprisonment, interrogation, detention

When Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Li Qiongying was arrested, she refused to bear false witness against a fellow practitioner. She was subsequently tortured by the director of the First Division of Xianyou County Police Department, Zeng Jinxiong, and sentenced to six and a half years in prison. The following is her account, in her own words.

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Xie Liqian died as a result of torture in 2004. Her whole family was being persecuted, with some being held at detention centres, and others imprisoned as forced labourers. Her relatives dared not to take care of her funeral. Another practitioner, who was also her relative, and I took it over. The police secretly took pictures of us, and Zeng Jinxiong and other officers subsequently searched my home when I was at my daughter's house. They lied to my husband and said that a bottle of oxytetracycline in our house might be poisonous and forced him to go with them “to the lab.” Once he got into their car, they made him take them to my daughter's home. They arrested me there, and afterwards arrested the fellow practitioner who took care of Ms. Xie's funeral with me.

In their office, Zeng threatened me, “Xie Liqian's family is your example if you do not cooperate.” I was silent, and he threatened me again, “Someone reported the number and location where you gave out [Falun Gong informational] fliers, and you stored copiers for others.” I still remained silent, as it did not matter whether what he said was true or not. Telling others the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong was the right thing to do. They handcuffed me to a window frame with my arms behind my back.

At night, I heard another practitioner crying and I felt very sad. Being educated in the Communist Party cultural environment, my husband was used to complying, and the officers used his weakness to arrest us. This other practitioner's family depended on her wages as a maid. How would I face her family if something bad happened to her? I said to the police, “Release the other practitioners if you want me to admit that I gave out fliers.” Zeng accepted my condition, and I made up the number of fliers and some places I had never gone to or heard of in the county. I saw three practitioners being released.

The officer then asked me to acknowledge getting the fliers from the deceased practitioner's home. They said, “Cooperate with this, and we will immediately take you home in a police car.” I clearly told them, “My conscience won't allow it. I'd rather die.” Zeng punched me in the face, and I fell to the ground. This time they handcuffed me to the window frame with my arms behind my back for eighteen hours. Afterwards, the officers handcuffed me and pushed me into a police car, saying they wanted to verify the copier storage location in Duwei Town. They repeatedly said that the bitter experience of Xie Liqian's family was the result of their “not cooperating.”

I maintained my silence, and they kept talking, “A family who practises Falun Gong such as Xie Liqian's family, they almost all died. Only half of the family of Lin Xuer from Daji Town are alive. You are an old woman, and don't you think of your children? Don't the examples of these two families scare you?” I made great efforts to control my anger. I said calmly, “I am the only Falun Gong practitioner in my family. God cannot be commanded by humans, and what will happen is not mastered by man. The ancient Chinese said 'Man is acting, god is watching.' One person won't be able to consume all the things that belong to his offspring. If you don't listen, what is waiting for you is retribution.”

When we arrived at the Duwei Police Station, Zeng asked me for the phone number of the other practitioner. I said, “You and the officers do such dishonorable things. I am in my 60s, and a citizen with a gentle heart; I wouldn't tell you even if I knew it.” Zeng banged on the desk and shouted, “Well let's see what we can do. Do you think we have no way to make you talk? Your way won't work here.” My endurance reached my limit, and during the struggle, my head hit Zeng's nose. He began to bleed and was taken to hospital.

Several officers grabbed my hair, and held one of my arms to my back from my shoulder and handcuffed my arms behind my back. They pushed me into their police car, and an officer sat on my back. I was in a sitting posture but not actually sitting. The handcuffs tied my arms tighter and tighter as the car started, and I felt that my arms were going to break and I was going to die from being unable to breathe, as my neck was squeezed hard. I had almost lost consciousness when the car stopped at the detention centre. An officer under Zeng, Xie Shengde, took my fingerprints on a form before he released the handcuffs. My hands were bloody.

The next morning in the detention centre, the inmates saw that my neck was crooked and swollen. They asked what illness I had in my neck. I could not eat or drink and the guards threatened me with forced-feedings, and had the inmates force me to clean the floor. Four days later, I could eat and drink, but my neck was still crooked and had two big blisters. Even today my neck has not fully recovered.

A year later I got a letter from my family. My son had a newborn boy, and my father-in-law had died. I blamed myself for his death and desperately missed my family, and I wanted to starve myself in desperation. However, I remembered to practise Falun Gong. I kept doing the exercises during the 15-day hunger strike. On the last day of my hunger strike, I suddenly realized that as a practitioner, I should not end my life. I stopped the hunger strike and ate a pear that night.

During the seven months in the detention centre, guards repeatedly attempted to coerce me to admit that the fliers came from Xie Liqian, but I refused. I was sentenced to six and a half years in prison.

I was taken to the Fujian Province Women's Prison on January 13th, 2005. I endured brainwashing tactics, various torture methods, humiliation, and the pain of my family being implicated. The guards forced me to watch videos that defame Falun Gong.

After I was released on November 19th, 2010, the local police kept harassing me. I did not bow to the injustice and am telling others the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/10/5/247506.html