(Minghui.org) A 60-year-old woman in China was imprisoned and tortured for six and a half years because she practiced Falun Gong, a mind and body discipline that emphasizes the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.
While Wu Zhiping was imprisoned, she was unable to care for her sick husband, who died during her absence. Her paralyzed mother-in-law was left without in-home care.Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, has been persecuted by the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since July of 1999. Many accounts of imprisonment include both physical and mental abuse and torture. Thousands have died under such brutality.
As a result of receiving severe beatings to her head while in prison, Wu Zhiping experiences constant headaches triggered by things such as sunlight or noises.
Ms. Wu lives in Nanchang, Jianxi Province. In June of 2015, she was arrested for practicing Falun Dafa and subsequently sentenced to three and a half years in the Jianxi Province Women's Prison.
Wu has maintained that she has done nothing wrong, and just seeks freedom to practice her faith.
The following is her account of the brutal torture that she suffered while in prison.
Sentenced to 3.5 Years in Prison
In 2015, I went to the Hongcheng Market to tell people about the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong. I was spotted by local police and arrested. They held me for two weeks before releasing me.
After my release, police continued to monitor and follow me. On June 5, 2015, I went to the local grocery store to shop. When I returned home, three officers from the Hongcheng Police Station grabbed me and forced me into a police vehicle.
They interrogated me at the station, and a medical exam was forced upon me against my will. The very next day I was sent to a detention center.
I pleaded with police to release me, as I had under my care my husband, who had just been discharged from the hospital for suffering from severe hypertension. I also cared for his 90-year-old mother, who was paralyzed. The police refused and submitted my case to the procuratorate.
While awaiting trial, the authorities held me in a detention for a year and three months. On Sept. 2, 2016, I was sentenced to 3.5 years in the Jiangxi Women’s Prison.
Inmate Torture – Hung from a Metal Rod
While in prison, the guards offered inmates rewards and reduced sentences in exchange for torturing and assaulting me. Prisoners tied my wrists to a metal bar and hung me up. To humiliate me further, they would hang me on a window frame next to the toilet, so that everyone could see me.
I was often hung from a metal frame in an isolated room where inmates had written on the walls slogans slandering the practice. One day, after tying my wrists to a metal bar suspended in the air, they wrote Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi's name on the seat of a stool and forced me to stand on it. Then they quickly pulled the stool out from under me. I dropped suddenly, all my weight snapping against my bound wrists. The pain was excruciating.
The inmates lowered me to the floor and covered my nose and mouth in an attempt to suffocate me. Then they took turns slapping my face.
The prison provided inmates with videos that slandered Falun Gong. They forced me to watch them, while they verbally abused me, around the clock.
When prisoners hung me in the air, they would often push me and spin me around, and then slam me into objects in the room. This made me very dizzy.
I was forced to work in a sweatshop during the day. While laboring, prison staff would play videos slandering Falun Gong, and demand that I repeat the narratives.Despite the tactics they used, because I refused to slander Falun Gong during my imprisonment, I was forced to stand upright for lengthy periods of time, with no break.
Isolation, Restricted Use of Toilet
They placed me in isolation, where I was given one cup of water per day for drinking and washing up. I was also only allowed to go to the bathroom once a day.
At night, I was forced to sit on a small stool with my hands and legs tied until 2:00 a.m., with only a few hours after to try and get some sleep.
But any attempt at sleep was difficult. They cuffed me to the bed frame at night, using the excuse that it was to prevent me from doing Falun Gong exercises. The handcuffs were fastened too tight, and it hurt tremendously. One inmate would get up during the night and pinch me hard, all over my body. I screamed and rolled around on the bed, as the pain was unbearable.
They tortured me like this for 20 days, until another Falun Gong practitioner was also imprisoned and became their new target.
Practitioners of Falun Gong who are imprisoned are required to write statements that denounce and defame the practice. Despite their torture and relentless pressure, I refused. So I was sent back to isolation.
Again I was forced to stand all day. They hung me from the window frame in the evening.
Because I wasn’t allowed to use a toilet, I defecated on the floor. The inmates entrusted with persecuting me became enraged. That night they tied me up and demanded that I renounce my belief in Falun Dafa. I refused.
Four prisoners viciously pulled my hair and struck me violently, with many blows to my face and head. The beating was so severe that the pain lasted for over a month. Even now, I suffer from severe headaches as a result.
The Death of My Husband
With me imprisoned for years, the strain on my husband became too much to bear. Added to his severe hypertension were constant fears and worries about me and my condition, and the torture I was enduring. I was not there to care for him or comfort him, and he died.
When I learned of this, I couldn't control my emotions, and went to the guards to demand my release. I told them that persecuting me for my faith was illegal in the first place. But they were cold to my sadness and instead became more irritated. I was thrown into isolation for a third time.
Again I was forced to stand during the day, but this time they made me squat through the night. When I refused to squat at night, prisoners beat me and grabbed me by my arms, and started smashing them against the floor repeatedly. I was still only allowed to use the toilet once a day.
I was kept in isolation and tortured everyday for three months.
In October of 2018, they changed their torture tactics to try and break me. Inmates forced me to stand 17 hours straight - from 7 a.m. to midnight - and refused to allow me use of a toilet, unless I cursed my faith.
This lasted until my release on Nov. 26, 2018.
The years of brutality and torture have taken a toll on my health. I have yet to recover.
I am underweight, and often have dizzy spells. My memory is poor. I suffer from severe headaches that are easily triggered by stimuli such as sunlight or noises.
But I still have my faith in Falun Dafa.
Related articles:
Ms. Wu Zhiping Tortured in the Jiangxi Women's Prison
55 Falun Gong Practitioners Still Incarcerated in Jiangxi Province Women’s Prison
