Chief Accountant Ms. Hu Dongling from Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, Arrested and Tortured During Interrogation

Name: Hu Dongling
Gender: Female
Age: 39
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Accountant
Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 22nd, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Baoquanling Detention Centre
City: Harbin
Province: Heilongjiang
Persecution Suffered: Beatings, torture, home ransacked, interrogation, detention

Ms. Hu Dongling is a 39-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province. She has been a chief accountant at her company for ten years.

While on a business trip to Baoquanling City, Heilongjiang Province, on August 22nd, that night Ms. Hu visited practitioner Ms. Li Guiyun. About two hours into her visit, several police officers broke in and arrested her, Ms. Li, and six other local practitioners who were also present including Zhao Hongyu, Qi Xiumei, Lv Chengying, Liu Gui, Liu Hongbin, and Wang Fengyu. It was learned later that the police acted on tips received.

During the arrest the police showered Ms. Hu with kicks and punches, leaving her bruised and with a severe injury to her lower back. When she refused to be led away, they dragged her outside and twisted her arms behind her back.

After taking her and the other practitioners to Baoquanling Police Department, the police tied Ms. Hu up to a metal chair, and Wang Fudong interrogated her through the night. At around 3:00 a.m., all eight practitioners were driven to the Baoquanling Detention Centre where Ms. Hu was subjected to ten more sessions of interrogation in which she was tortured. The guards handcuffed and shackled her and often questioned her for 7-12 hours in one sitting. Zhang Naiwu once hit her head with a bottle full of water. During the interrogation she had repeated relapses of her former heart problem. She had trouble breathing, she shivered, and her limbs became extremely cold. Once, she even lost consciousness and collapsed.

During her detention the Baoquanling police went to Harbin to ransack Ms. Hu's home. After turning her home upside down, Zhang Naiwu went to her workplace the next day to search her office computer.

Learning of her arrest, Ms. Hu’s family and people from her company rushed to Baoquanling to seek her release. For 11 straight days her father and stepmother went to the Baoquanling Police Station every day, asking to see their daughter. Due to anxiety, her father had a relapse of his arthritis and couldn’t even lift his legs. He also had trouble seeing.

Pressured by Ms. Hu’s family and company, the few people in charge of her case finally agreed to release her, providing that she hand over her two cell phones and pay a “fine” of 3,000 yuan¹.

The 30-day ordeal at the detention centre really took a toll on Ms. Hu’s health. She lost 33 pounds during that month. Even now she still often wakes up from nightmares and is unable to resume her work full time. Her 13-year-old son had to live with a neighbour during his mother’s detention and was also traumatised.

Ms. Wang Fengyu, 75, was released after paying an extortion of 30,000 yuan. The police had to let her go because she was over the maximum allowed age for detention. But the other six practitioners arrested at the same time remain in custody, and the authorities are planning to try them.

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/2011/10/17/247969.html