(Clearwisdom.net) Practitioner Zhao Lingru was recognized as an exemplary employee at Jizhong Prison, Baoding City, Hebei Province. She has been illegally detained since September of 2002. She was ultimately sentenced to seven years of imprisonment in the 2nd Prison of Hebei Province located in Shijiazhuang City. She has been on hunger strike for nearly two months in protest, making her weak and so thin that she is now just skin and bones.
Zhao Lingru is 37 years old. She was an employee of Jizhong Prison, Baoding City, Hebei Province. After she started to practice Falun Dafa, she was diligent at work and was a good wife and mother at home. Practitioners employed in the prison system have been under close surveillance since the persecution of Falun Dafa began.
In May 2002, another practitioner, Yang Zhigang, who was a police officer at Jizhong Prison, went to Beijing's Tiananmen Square to appeal for Falun Gong wearing his police uniform. He was arrested and cruelly tortured. This event awed the authorities in Jizhong Prison. They put employees who were practitioners under close surveillance. Every one of them who practiced Falun Gong had to declare their attitudes toward Dafa and none was excused. If they didn't write guarantee letters to cut all ties to Falun Dafa, they were sent to the Zhuozhou City Brainwashing Center.
Because Zhao Lingru refused to cooperate with this plan, she had little choice but to leave her home or face certain arrest. However, in the middle of September 2002, Zhao Lingru was once again arrested by police in Nanshiqu District, Baoding City.
Zhang Yumei, a family member of a prison guard, was also abducted at the same time. Both were brutally beaten. Zhao Yuxia, head of the Political and Security Section of Mancheng County's Police Department, together with lawless personnel from Taihang Prison, subjected them to cruel torment in the torture room at Taihang Prison. They beat Zhao Lingru fiendishly and deprived her of sleep. She went on hunger strike to protest. Five men tortured her, pried her mouth open with steel objects, and forcibly fed her. In the words of someone who knew the situation, "Zhao Lingru almost died there!" Later she was sent to the Mancheng County Detention Center.
Zhao Yuxia and other personnel from Taihang Prison ignored the laws of the country. They violated the law while in a position to enforce the law. They sent the abducted Dafa practitioners directly to the prison's torture chamber room, tormenting them at will, all in blatant disregard of the law and without going through any due legal process.
Zhao Lingru showed signs of severe physical abuse ¨C her face was swollen and her body showed signs of edema. Zhang Yumei was cuffed and hung, and was tortured so severely that she could not stand or walk. Her whole body trembled. The head of Mancheng County's Police Department Zeng Qihuo, together with Zhao Yuxia, personally tortured the detained Dafa practitioners.
In May of 2003, Zhao Lingru was transferred to the Baoding City Detention Center. The guards refused to let her family visit her. Later, Nanshiqu District Court illegally handed her a severe sentence of seven years of imprisonment. She appealed to the Baoding Intermediate Court, but Jia Zhihui, the presiding judge of the 2nd Court, let the original sentence stand.
In June of 2004, Zhao Lingru started another hunger strike, protesting the persecution and the unlawful, long-term imprisonment. She was later transferred to Taihang Prison where she continued her hunger strike. Soon after that she was transferred to the 2nd Prison of Hebei Province in Shijiazhuang City.
Zhao Lingru has been on hunger strike for nearly two months and her physical condition worries people. She was already skin and bones and was also extremely weak when she was in Taihang Prison. From the time she was abducted to the time she was transferred to prison, she was detained in a detention center for a period exceeding the legal limit by 21 months. But personnel from the Nanshiqu District Police Division said, "It is OK to detain Falun Gong practitioners without a time limit."
We call on the people of the world and human rights organizations to pay attention to Zhao Lingru's situation, to rescue her as soon as possible so that she, who with all her heart to pursue kindness, might regain her freedom and not be persecuted anymore!
July 23, 2004
