(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Yang Lixia is a practitioner in A'cheng City, Heilongjiang Province. Because she practices Falun Gong, she has been repeatedly arrested, beaten, and sentenced to forced labor camps by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officers. Since September 1999, she has been imprisoned for approximately eight years and has suffered numerous rounds of torture. Her husband Zhang Bingxiang was tortured to death due to his belief in Falun Gong. The following is an account of the persecution they suffered.

I am Yang Lixia. During the past ten years since the CCP began the widespread persecution of Falun Gong, I have been illegally detained in prison for eight years. More information can be found at http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/10/2/53042.html.

On August 15, 2004, I distributed truth-clarification materials in Xiaoling Township, A'cheng City along with twenty-four local practitioners, and as a result I was arrested again. I was imprisoned for eight months in the A'cheng First Detention Center. On April 13, 2005, I was sentenced to a six-year forced labor camp term, and was imprisoned in Heilongjiang Women's Prison. During the imprisonment, I developed scabies. The prison police dragged me to the chambers for ill inmates and ordered other inmates to watch and torture me. Because I refused to wear the prison uniform, four or five inmates held me to the ground and stuffed a towel in my mouth. They beat me and cut my hair. Because I refused to write the promises not to practice Falun Gong, the inmates forced me to sit on a small stool for long periods of time. One month later, I was transferred to the intensive training team, where they tortured me with sleep deprivation.

My Husband Bingxiang Zhang was Tortured to Death

My daughter Tingting and I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. She was imprisoned twice in the labor camp. We were once detained in the same labor camp - at the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp. She was then twenty years old.

On October 15, 2000, my husband, daughter and I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. At that time, my husband had only been practicing Falun Gong for two and a half months. I was afraid that he could not endure the pressure and didn't want him to go. But he said, "Since I am now practicing Falun Gong, I have the responsibility to validate Dafa." We then went to Beijing together.

In May 2001, my husband was arrested at our home by police from the Heping Police Department. The police asked whether he would continue practicing Falun Gong, and he said yes. Consequently, he was sentenced to a labor camp for three years and taken to Changlinzi Forced Labor Camp in Harbin City, where he was subjected to long-term intense physical labor. My husband was one of three people who refused to cooperate with the persecutors and refused to work.

To protest the persecution, he went on a hunger strike for several months. As a result, he became emaciated, developed scabies, and experienced excruciating itchiness. But he had to tolerate it and not scratch. If the police knew that he had scabies, they would immediately take him to the prison clinic where they would scrape his skin and flesh, which is so painful that anyone would faint. His scabies became infected and bled. His pants became wet from the secretions. When the pants dried, they became stiff from the biological grime.

Due to the long-term hunger strike, my husband's life was in danger. When he was finally released, after returning home he was still constantly harassed by CCP agents. They attempted several times to put him back in prison. The Spring Festival was approaching, and in order to avoid the persecution, he didn't go home, and hid in an empty house without heat. It is truly very cold in northeastern China in the winter. Under these conditions, he could not recover physically. One day he told me, "If one day the truth clarification materials site runs out of money, let's sell our house." I was heartbroken when I heard this. I am a veteran practitioner. Yet I never thought about this. He was a new practitioner but he could put Dafa as a priority. Several days later, he passed away at the age of forty-three.