(Minghui.org) A Shenyang City, Liaoning Province resident was arrested on December 4, 2019, for her faith in Falun Gong. After eleven months of detention at Shenyang City Detention Center, Ms. Dong Mei was tried by the Shenhe District Court on October 28, 2020. Her family was informed on November 9, 2020, that she was sentenced to two years. She has appealed the verdict.
Ms. Dong, 50, began to practice Falun Gong, an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline, in 1996. She credits the practice for improving her character and curing the skin condition that had bothered her for two decades. For refusing to renounce her faith after the Chinese communist regime ordered the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, Ms. Dong was arrested multiple times and served two terms at Longshan Forced Labor Camp.
First Labor Camp Term
In October 1999, Ms. Dong, then 29, went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong and was arrested. She was sent to the Shenyang City No. 5 Detention Center on October 22 and transferred to the Longshan Forced Labor Camp on November 14.
For doing the Falun Gong exercises there, Ms. Dong was forced to stand or squat for long hours. In one torture, the guards forced her to stand with both hands up against a wall and shocked her with an electric baton when she couldn’t keep her arms up because of fatigue.
At one time, Ms. Dong was brought to the guards' office and forced to squat with her hands on her head. One guard stomped on her and pushed her to the ground and then another guard shocked her hands and head with an electric baton. Her body was shaking due to the strong current.
Second Labor Camp Term
Ms. Dong was arrested again on July 7, 2001, for distributing Falun Gong informational materials in a university. She was given two years at the Longshan Forced Labor Camp and for not renouncing her faith, her term was extended for three months.
The guards once pressed her to the ground, grabbed her hair and hit her head against the concrete floor. In another torture, they dragged her around barefoot on the concrete floor until her ankle bone was exposed.
On another occasion, the inmates forced her to sit on the floor, pushed her head down to touch her feet, and held her arms behind her back. Meanwhile, they shouted humiliating words into her ears. She felt her head was about to explode. Her hair and clothes became soaked in sweat, her chest became very tight, and she had trouble breathing. By the time she was allowed to stand up, she had already lost feeling in her legs. She was unable to walk on her own until two months later.
The guards beat her very often, causing her face to become disfigured. She was also forced to sit on a small stool for long hours every day, except when she was having a meal or using the restroom. Her buttocks festered as a result. When she held a hunger strike to protest the persecution, the guards force-fed her.
On October 7, 2003, the last day of her labor camp term, instead of releasing her, the authorities sent her to a brainwashing center and held her there for two more months until December 15, 2003.
Related reports:
Torture Survivor Faces Trial for Her Faith
Shenyang Practitioner Sues Jiang Zemin for Physical and Mental Suffering
Longshan Labor Camp Guards Torture Dafa Practitioner Ms. Dong Mei
Category: Torture of Women
