Ms. Liu Shuzhen Sentenced to Eight Years in Hebei Women's Prison

Name: Liu Shuzhen
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Liuhongmiao Village, Yanshan County, Cangzhou City, Hebei Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: November, 2004
Most Recent Place of Detention: Hebei Women's Prison
City: Shijiazhuang
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: Detention, interrogation, brutal beating, sleep deprivation, shocked with electric batons, force-feeding, denied visitation, brainwashing, imprisonment

Ms. Liu Shuzhen has been repeatedly arrested and tortured by the Chinese authorities because she practises Falun Gong. She was forced to become homeless in late 2002 to avoid further persecution. In November 2004, she was arrested in Cang County and was taken to a brainwashing centre in Cangzhou City. Later, she was transferred back to Yanshan County and was sentenced to eight years in Hebei Women's Prison, which is located at Luquan of Shijiazhuang City.

In 2009, a new guard at the prison in Division Six, Wu Hongxia, handcuffed Ms. Liu to a large steel door. She was only wearing light clothing at the time and her feet suffered from frostbite because she was exposed to the bitterly cold winds. Wu Hongxia always sent others to monitor her and prompted her cellmates to beat her. As a result of her mistreatment, she had a relapse of psoriasis, which had disappeared when she started practising Falun Gong.

Interrogated and Tortured at Mengcun County in Cangzhou

Ms. Liu was arrested in Mengcun County on June 14th, 2002, and was taken to Yanshan County Police Station that night. Team leader at Cangzhou Domestic Security Division Jia, another team leader Wang Yixin, head of Yanshan Police Wang Wenping, head of the Riot Prevention team Liu Weidong, and another man interrogated her.

In an attempt to obtain information on the whereabouts of certain practitioners and the sources of Falun Gong materials, they beat Ms. Liu about the body with rubber batons. Wang Wenping grabbed her by the hair and pushed her to the ground repeatedly, causing clumps of her hair to come out. She was beaten until she fell unconscious. Ms. Liu was tortured on a regular basis. She lost control of her bladder, was deprived of sleep for long periods of time, her hands were cuffed behind her back and she was shocked in the ribs with electric batons. Her face was struck with the handle of a screwdriver, and her feet and wrists were burned many times with cigarettes. The police often yelled obscenities at her and threatened to throw her into the men's prison naked.

During this period of time, Yanshan police arrested another practitioner Ms. Li Yuxia, who was kept in the office close to Ms. Liu's room. Wang Wenping and others were responsible for her case. Ms. Liu could hear muffled sounds of them yelling obscenities at Ms. Li while they were beating her. The offices in the police station became torture chambers for Falun Gong practitioners.

The police once turned a metal barrel upside down, put it over Ms. Liu's head and sealed it with a towel. They then struck the bottom of the barrel. Liu could hardly breathe and the sound inside the barrel was horrendous. The police told her that nobody could endure this for more than a few minutes. However, they continued to do this for more than 20 minutes.

Ms. Liu and Ms. Li had toothpicks inserted into all of their fingernails, and were beaten severely. One of their family members was very distressed when they saw the state of the practitioners. The police wanted to cause even more harm to them by sticking pushpins under their fingernails and into their faces. One of the officers was sent out to find pushpins, but when he came back, he told the others that he could not find any. Later, he told Ms. Liu that he said that because he could not bear to see them torment her anymore. The police then deprived her of sleep for 6 days. Ms. Liu later began a hunger strike.

When Ms. Liu was taken to the detention centre in Yanshan, she was tortured so severely that she was unrecognisable. Her whole body was swollen and her face had changed its shape. She could not walk, and needed help getting to the toilet. When other prisoners asked her what crime she had committed and why the police were so brutal towards her, Ms. Liu told them, “I am a Falun Gong practitioner. I am not a criminal.”

Ms. Liu was force-fed and prevented from seeing her family members because she continued to hunger strike to protest her persecution. Some of the guards and prisoners also privately accused those police who participated in the persecution, and some officers repeatedly called the local government to report the serious injuries sustained by Ms. Liu. Her situation was also reported to the Yanshan Prosecutor's Office.

On the night of June 28th, 2002, Ms. Liu was taken to the emergency room at Shoupu Hospital, as she was critically ill and in danger of losing her life. To shirk responsibility, the police told her family members to take her back home. However, they still warned her not to try and run away, as they could find her wherever she went.

Wanted by Cangzhou Police

When Ms. Liu left home to avoid further persecution, the police published an announcement of "Missing People" in the Cangzhou Evening Newspaper on November 7th, 2002. They offered a reward for the capture of three Falun Gong practitioners, including Liu Shuzhen. There were two other announcements searching for Xu Yanhui and Yang Yueliang.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/11/30/250026.html