(Minghui.org) A Jingzhou City, Hubei Province resident is seeking justice against the Hubei Province Women’s Prison for torturing her while she served time for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
As a result of the torture, Ms. Wang Qiong, 59, lost about 35 pounds in six months. Two of her ribs were broken and she lost a tooth. Her blood pressure was high and her feet and legs swollen. She also had difficulty breathing, and developed severe liver cysts and gallstones.
Ms. Wang mailed her lawsuit against the prison to the Jianghan District Court in Wuhan City, where the prison was located, in June 2021. The court accepted her complaint on July 21 and she also paid the litigation fee. But ten days later, on July 31, the judge rejected her case and asked her to seek compensation from the prison herself.
Ms. Wang filed another complaint with the head of the Hubei Province Prison Administration Bureau in August. The appeals office of the Hubei Province Women’s Prison later informed her that they received her complaint and were in the process of reviewing it.
Ms. Wang was arrested for her faith on June 20, 2017. Although she was released on bail on July 19, 2017, the police arrested her again on August 12, 2018.
Ms. Wang was tried by the Jiangling County Court on August 9, 2019 and sentenced to two years with a 10,000-yuan fine in October 2019.
As soon as she was taken to the Hubei Province Women’s Prison in January 2020, she was forced to stand for long hours and recite the prison rules. The guards also ordered her to admit she was guilty and write statements to renounce Falun Gong.
On the second day of her incarceration, a group of inmates pushed her to the corner in the restroom without a surveillance camera. They beat her and stuffed a rag used to clean the restroom into her mouth. In order to instigate all the other inmates in her cell to persecute her, the lead inmate forced all 20 inmates to stand with Ms. Wang, while keeping their head down and looking at their feet.
The inmates beat Ms. Wang at will in order to force her into submission. In addition to constantly putting filthy rags into her mouth and forcing her to stand for long hours, they pulled her hair, beat and kicked her, and slapped her in the face with a shoe. One inmate threatened to put a used sanitary napkin into her mouth or force-feed her with urine and feces.
Ms. Wang was also starved and not given daily necessities, including a toothbrush, clothes hangers, soap, or toilet paper. She had to do all of her washing with one towel. Without toilet paper, she had to clean herself with wet socks, which made her skin chapped.
At night, after a day of standing, the inmates didn’t allow her to sleep properly and woke her up every ten minutes. They also cursed at her with foul language.
On March 18, 2020, the inmates made another attempt to force Ms. Wang to write statements to renounce Falun Gong. After she refused, they dragged her to an area without a surveillance camera and beat her. One person pulled her hair and threw her against the metal rail of the bed, breaking two of her ribs. When the inmates forcibly stuffed a rag into her mouth and slapped her in the face, she lost a tooth, vomited blood, had difficulty breathing, and then passed out.
Ms. Wang reported to the prison guards several times that she had stabbing pain in the right side of her back and requested that she go to a hospital for a medical checkup. The guards ignored her request and accused her of pretending to be sick. They continued to force her to stand every day and to bend over to clean the floor.
She was released on July 10, 2020.
Hubei Woman Subjected to Dehumanizing Torture During 6-Month Imprisonment