| Index | Previous | Next |
1.3 Torture Cases Without Victims’ Names
1.3.1 Ancient cruel tortures adopted by police
Message received: March 1, 2000
Victims: Falun Gong practitioners in Meizhou
Location of incident: Meizhou, Sichuan Province, China
Description:
The police station in Meizhou tortured Falun Gong practitioners by inserting toothpicks into their nails. The police asked the practitioners, “Would you continue to practice Falun Gong?” while they were shaking the toothpicks. The practitioners did not give in.
The Meizhou police station also adopted another ancient torture that clamps one’s ten fingers with a clip and then pull the strings to two sides to make the clip tight enough that causes extreme pain.
Such cruel tortures could only be found in ancient China, but they failed before practitioners’ iron will.
When the police of Meizhou City ransacked the practitioners’ homes, they would take away their bank account certificates, cash and even small changes without any legal procedures.
1.3.2 Sufferings of practitioners from villages: homes ransacked, frozen in snow, stiff fines, tortures, and set fire
Message received: February 21, 2000
Victims: Falun Gong Practitioners
Location of incident: Villages and Towns in Shandong Province
Description:
Tangezhuang Township police station went to the homes of practitioners who refused to give up Falun Gong to confiscate their personal properties such as TVs and tractors etc. They took off practitioners’ clothes with only some underclothes left and then kept them in the snow during the day. At night, they detained practitioners in an empty house with windows opened.
Local authorities of Jiangtong Town beat up practitioners. Some were beaten to lose consciousness and almost got crippled. Each of them was fined 5,000 Yuan. Practitioners from all villages and towns were fined from several hundred to more than ten thousand Yuan.
The Heping Village in Laiyang City had cut the power supply of Falun Gong practitioners for a long time. They also ransacked their homes. In the detention center, practitioners suffered all kinds of tortures including one called “ Being Fully Fixed ” (namely, one’s head, hands, and feet are all fixed for days and could not move at all)
Some practitioners were under home arrest of their workplaces and could not go home. Some were removed from their posts or dismissed from schools.
1.3.3 Jiaozhou practitioners were mistreated
Message received: February 9, 2000
Location of incident: Jiaozhou, Shandong Province
Description:
In Jiaozhou, each level of the communist authorities has adopted some cruel methods to stop practitioners from going to Beijing to appeal. After arresting the appealing practitioners in Beijing, the local authorities would punish them in many illegal ways, such as cruel physical tortures, long periods of detention, and stiff financial penalties. Since July 1999, the detention center of the appeal office located in Nantan village of Fuan, Jiaozhou had detained a large number of Falun Gong practitioners. The detention center was over-full when the message was received.
In one case, on the way back from Beijing, the police from Beiwangzhu town of Jiaozhou stuffed seven appealing practitioners with handcuffs all in the back seat of a small cab, which can only hold three people. In the police station, the police used all kinds of punishments, such as slapping faces, grabbing hair, beating ankles, elbows and toes with sticks, forcing practitioners to squat on the concrete floor in bare feet etc. At midnight of December 15, 1999, the police took off the cotton overcoats of eight practitioners who had gone to Beijing, and handcuffed them onto the trunk of a tree for eight and a half hours. When the practitioners were untied, their hands and feet were all frozen and swollen with blood. Being treated like this, they were still detained for 18 days and fined 30,000 yuan (three years of income of an average Chinese worker).
1.3.4 Jinzhou practitioner was tortured in Beijing and Huludao
Message received: December 11, 1999
Victim: a practitioner from Jinzhou, Liaoning
Location of incident: Jinzhou, Liaoning Province
Description:
The following is a statement by him/herself.
I decided to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and arrived at Beijing on October 9. I was arrested when I was eating food with some other practitioners in a house in a suburb of Beijing.
After they took me to the Longfeng hotel, a dozen of policemen started to interrogate me in a room. When they learned that I had gone to CCTV and People’s Daily office to appeal, they started to beat and kick me madly, and they also slapped me many times. After they slapped me dozens of times, and still could not get anything from me, they thus sank me into water. I stayed in the water for more than ten hours.
I had not eaten anything for three days. On the fourth day, they asked me whether I would like to eat something. I felt grateful for their “kindness” because at least they feared that I might die of hunger. Later they transferred me to the police department of Huludao, Liaoning. Before they left, they submerged my head under water and I lost consciousness. They thus took me out of the water and kicked me until I regained consciousness. They had tortured me like this for more than two hours until the local police department came to pick me up.
After I was transferred to the local detention center, four or five officers beat me madly with police clubs. When I was put in the cell, I found my whole body black and blue. I spent 14 miserable days like that in the detention center.
1.3.5 Appealing practitioners were beaten by Beijing police
Message received: November 29, 1999 1
Victims: some practitioners who went Beijing to appeal
Location of incident: Beijing, China
Description (provided by a practitioner from Jingmen, Hubei):
On September 26, 1999, because of appealing for Falun Gong in Beijing, eight practitioners were sent to a police station in Beijing for interrogation. Two practitioners from Jiangxi were cruelly beaten one by one [police officer]. A practitioner from Jingmen, Hubei was beaten by three people in the police station. A practitioner from Hebei who was more than 50 years old was taken upstairs and beaten. When he finally came out, he could not stand up straight.
1.3.6 Appealing practitioners were beaten in Shandong Liaison Office in Beijing
Message received: November 29, 1999
Victims: some practitioners who went Beijing to appeal
Location of incident: Shandong Liaison Office in Beijing
Description (provided by a practitioner from Jingmen, Hubei):
On October 21, 1999 three female practitioners who went to appeal in the Appealing Bureau were body searched by a male officer in Shandong Liaison Office in Beijing including their underwear. Another female practitioner in her 40’s was also beaten cruelly without any reason.
1.3.7 Practitioners were tortured in Wuhan, a city in central China
Message received: November 17, 1999
Victim: a female practitioner from Wuhan, Hubei
Location of incident: Wuhan, Hubei Province
Description (given by herself):
After I was transferred back to Wuhan at the end of October [1999], I was sent directly to a detention center where many Falun Dafa practitioners from different places had already been detained. Seeing us discussing Falun Gong together, the head of the criminals reported to the guard. The guard then ordered a group of female criminals to slap our faces. They asked, “Will you continue to practice Falun Gong? Will you continue to recite?” We all said “yes”. Therefore, we were ordered to stand still for the entire day. A practitioner argued with them while standing there, a female criminal thus kicked and punched her madly, and pounded her head against the wall.
1.3.8 Practitioners in Daguang detention center had not enough food
Message received: November 6, 1999
Location of incident: Daguang detention center, Changchun, Jilin Province
Description:
The Daguang detention center held more than 200 people. Most of them were Falun Gong practitioners. Two meals are served everyday. Each meal consists of a small steamed bread of corn and a bowl of cabbage soup.
1.3.9 Practitioners appealing in Beijing were detained in a soccer field without food and water
Message received: October 30, 1999
Victims: Falun Gong practitioners who went Beijing to appeal
Location of incident: police station on Changan Street, Beijing, China
Description (provided by a practitioner from Sichuan):
On October 28, 1999, more than 20 Falun Gong practitioners were arrested at the Tiananmen Square and taken to the police station on Changan Street. There were already 200~300 practitioners in there at that time. The practitioners were forced to stand facing the walls and were not allowed to talk.
About 12:00 noon, the practitioners were transferred to a soccer field in Beijing because the police station had been full of arrested practitioners. It was estimated about 1000 people were brought there. The practitioners were not allowed to cross their legs. The police kicked practitioners who sat with their legs crossed. Several practitioners were kicked and rolling on the ground, some could not even stand up. But, the policemen did not stop. They continued the kicking. A female practitioner in her 40’s did not follow the order, [so] the policemen dragged her on the ground by holding her hair. She was dragged several times and was also kicked. Two practitioners who were students in Shanghai Jiaotong University guided other practitioners to recite Teacher Li’s poems. Their heads were beaten by the policemen. The policemen also pounded their heads against the wall and asked them to stand for four to five hours. All the practitioners were not allowed to talk, move or go to the restroom. Those who didn’t follow the order would be beaten.
Neither food nor water was provided. The practitioners sat on the soccer field until midnight. The temperature was at zero degree Celsius. There was a female practitioner, about 24~25 years old. Her six-months-old baby was very cold and hungry and kept crying.
After mignight 12:30am, they were taken to the corridor of the gym and were forced to sit on the floor until 9:00 a.m. the next day. The policemen ordered the practitioners to continue to sit on the soccer field. By 11:00a.m, practitioners had not been eating any food for one day.
1.3.10 Some practitioners in Changchun were stripped and tortured
Message received: October 10, 1999
Location of incident: Daguang detention center, Changchun, Jilin
Description:
In Changchun, several hundred Falun Dafa practitioners were detained. Some practitioners were brutally beaten. Regardless of gender, they were beaten with their clothes removed. There were wounds all over their bodies. The policemen even beat pregnant women. Ms. Xu was beaten while handcuffed in a hanging position. Her back had wounds everywhere.
1.3.11 Eight practitioners endured brutal torture to protect Falun Gong books
Message received: October 10, 1999
Victims: eight Falun Gong practitioners who were detained in Changping detention center, Beijing
Location of incident: Changping detention center, Changping county, Beijing
Description:
On September 8, in Changping Detention Center, Beijing, eight Falun Gong practitioners risked their lives to protect the Falun Dafa book. To prevent the police from taking away the book “Zhuan Falun”, the main text of Falun Dafa, eight Falun Gong practitioners took turns to cover the book with their bodies. 20 policemen beat them up using the police clubs and handcuffs. Some practitioners had their heads and breasts wounded. Some had their wrists cut to bleed by the handcuffs. The beatings went on from morning till afternoon. The policemen sweated and ran out of breath from beating them. At the end, the policemen were moved by these courageous practitioners, and said, “You are truly good men who dare to risk your lives. You can read the book. We don’t want it anymore.”
1.3.12 Practitioners in Shandong are put into “Chinese Pseudo-Jails”
Message received: October 2, 1999
Location of incidents: secret detention centers of appealing offices in cities of Jimo, Jinan, and Jiaozhou of Shandong
Description:
In cities such as Jimo, Jinan and Jiaozhou of Shandong, there are secret detention centers which are named “custody center of city appealing office,” which is actually like a jail. The relatives are not allowed to visit. Many people who went to appeal about injustice long time ago are detained there for many years. Among those people, there are 70-year-old man and 7-year-old child. The rats run around on the ceiling. Maggots crawl out of the restrooms. The surrounding walls are more than 3 meters high and there is sharp [broken] glass on it to prevent people from escaping. Any one who wants to go out must pay a living expense of 1000 Yuan per month.
At the night of September 8, 1999, these places were used to secretly detain Falun Gong practitioners. Some practitioners who refused to show “repentance” for practicing Falun Gong were taken away from their homes and thrown here without any legal procedures. There are rules about the time limit for detention in normal detention centers, but there is no rule regarding the time limit here. Therefore, practitioners here can be detained for a long time.
1.4 Hunger Strikes for Basic Rights
1.4.1 Hunger strike in Balipu Detention Center
Message received: February 25, 2000
Victims: 40 Falun Gong practitioners in Changchun City
Location of incident: Changchun, Jilin Province, China
Description:
Provided by a practitioner who has just been released from Balipu Detention Center.
Recently, many practitioners from Jilin Province have gone to Beijing to appeal. Usually, they would be detained for 15 days. Currently, the Daguang detention center of Changchun City is full. Starting from February 19, arrested practitioners would be detained in the Balipu Detention Center. About 40 practitioners have started hunger strike. Some have been on hunger strike for 5 days. Up to now, the longest one has been on hunger strike for 9 days. (They have been on hunger strike in Daguang detention center for some days and are continuing their hunger strike after being transferred to Balipu detention center.) Today, a practitioner on hunger strike was given injection. The hunger strike is still going on.
1.4.2 Police force-fed Wang Xian with her hands and feet manacled during her hunger strike
Message received: February 23, 2000 [Buohuo Net]
Victim: Wang Xian, female, 46 years of age
Location of incident: Beijing, China
Description:
Wang Xian, female, 46, was an official of the Zhanlanlu Apartments Management Department in the Real Estate Management Bureau of Xicheng District of Beijing. On February 4, she got arrested for having given an affirmative answer to the police’s question “are you a practitioner of Falun Gong?” when she passed by Tiananmen Square. She was then detained in the Xicheng District police detention center. When the police asked her to sign on the detention warrant, she refused. She said, “You have no right to arrest me just because I am walking, even if I am a Falun Gong practitioner.” On February 10, she started hunger strike. Up to February 21, it had lasted 11 days. During her hunger strike, the police force-fed her many times by cuffing her hands and feet. However, she vomited all those force-fed stuff. The police also gave her an injection. According to a fellow practitioner who is being detained with her, she now looks skinny and weak.
1.4.3 Police force-feed killed one Falun Gong practitioner in hunger strike
Message received: February 22, 2000 Victim: Liu Xuguo, 29 years of age
Description:
HONG KONG, Feb 22, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) A hunger-striking member of the Falungong spiritual group died from serious injuries sustained when Chinese police tried to force-feed him, a rights group said Tuesday.
Liu Xugo, a 29-year-old factory engineer, died from lung injuries caused when police forced a feeding tube down his throat, said the Information Centre of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.
The Hong Kong-based rights group said Liu started the hunger strike just before the February 5 Spring Festival while detained at a “re-education through labour” camp in Jining, Shandong province. A centre statement faxed to AFP said he was taken to hospital in the town the following week and “brutally” force-fed, causing injuries to the trachea and lungs from which he died on February 11. “He was force fed in a very brutal manner and after his lungs were severely damaged the hospital did not take the necessary measures to cure him,” it said, adding that his death was confirmed by hospital employees.
The hospital declined to comment to AFP on the report, while the detention centre said it was false. The statement said Liu had been arrested in October for protesting against the July banning of the Falungong movement in Beijing. It said he was sentenced to three years of “re-edcuation through labour” earlier this month.
Message received: February 20, 2000, Minghui Net
Victim: Liu Xuguo, 29 years of age
Location of incident: Jining City detention center in Shandong Province
Description:
Mr. Liu Xuguo, 29, with a bachelor degree, was a technician in Zhoucheng Chemical Fertilizer Plant in Shandong province. Liu went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in last October and was removed from his post after he came back from Beijing. Later, he was detained in the Zhoucheng detention center and suffered maltreatment both mentally and physically. He had been detained there beyond the legal time limit. Before the Chinese New Year, he and another two practitioners were transferred to Jining City detention center and given a sentence of three years of forced labor “education”. Liu Xuguo and other practitioners started hunger strike. During their hunger strike, the authorities still forced them to do hard labor such as carrying sandbags. A practitioner lost consciousness on the fourth day of hunger strike and later the authorities sent him to the hospital affiliated with the Jining medical school to receive forced-feed. After 6 days of hunger strike, Mr. Liu was also force-fed. In the process of force-feeding, Liu’s respiratory tract was injured, which made his lung getting severely infected. On February 11, 2000, he died in that hospital. The authorities had tried to cover his death.
In addition, more and more practitioners from Jining City are going to Beijing to appeal. About 60 practitioners are being detained because of exercising their constitutional right of appeal. Some of them might be sentenced.
The Jining police are intensely interrogating practitioners to find out who posted a practitioner’s sufferings in the Jining mental hospital on Minghui Net.
1.4.4 140 practitioners were on hunger strike in Changchun
Message received: February 14, 2000
Victims: 140 detained Falun Gong practitioners
Location of incident: Changchun, Jilin Province
Description:
[AFP February 14, 2000 (Hong Kong)] Up to 140 detained members of the outlawed Falungong spiritual group are on a hunger strike in northeast China in protest at their “illegal detention,” a rights group said Monday.
The hunger strike in Changchun, Jilin province, began on Lunar New Year’s eve, February 4, with some Falun Gong practitioners fasting for several days and others for up to nine days, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said.
The rights group, citing a Falun Gong member who was released after refusing food for eight days, said some of those detained were rounded up because they came to Beijing to lodge official complaints with the central government on last year’s July ban of the group.
Others were detained for doing Falun Gong exercises and meditation in public places, while more were apprehended after admitting to police that they continued to practice Falun Gong in their homes, the center said in a statement.
“Most of the people detained were only informed verbally of their detention and normal legal procedures were circumvented.”
1.4.5 Practitioners went on hunger strike, and were frostbitten because of abuse
Message received: February 8, 2000
Victim: Zhou Ximeng, female, from Shijiazhuang, Hebei; etc.
Location of incident: the First Women Labor Camp, Tangshan, Hebei Province
Description:
Fellow practitioners saw Zhou Ximeng, the former contact person of Falun Dafa in Shijiazhuang, in the First Women Labor Camp of Tangshan on January 27, 2000. She was on the eighth day of a hunger strike that day. Some other practitioners were also on a hunger strike. The number of them was unknown. Their situation was very dangerous.
On January 19, 2000, all practitioners detained in the First Women Labor Camp of Tangshan started a hunger strike to protest the physical torture because of practicing Falun Gong. They were forced to stand outdoors in a weather of minus 15 degree Celsius. Some practitioners got frostbite in their hands and other areas of their bodies.
1.4.6 Zhu Sufang went on hunger strike for 12 days
Message received: January 22, 2000
Victim: Zhu Sufang, female, 53 years of age, from Yancheng, Jiangsu
Location of incident: Yancheng, Jiangsu Province
Description:
Zhu Sufang was arrested because she held up a banner of “Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance” on the Platform of China Century on January 1, 2000, and she was on a 12-day hunger strike in the detention center. The police authorities released her on the night of the twelfth day of her hunger strike for fear of “fatal accident”.
1.4.7 Practitioners detained in Beijing went on hunger strike
Message received: December 19, 1999
Victim: practitioners detained in Changping county and Xicheng district, Beijing
Location of incident: Changping county and Xicheng district, Beijing
Description:
The practitioners detained in Changping district and Xicheng district were severely tortured. Many of them went on hunger strike. One of the practitioners, who went on hunger strike for 6 or 7 days, was forced to take infusion.
1.4.8 Practitioners detained in Heizhuizi Female Labor Camp forced to do 18-19 hours of hard labor
Message received: December 13, 1999
Location of incident: Changchun, Jilin Province
Description:
Many Falun Gong practitioners were being detained in the Heizhuizi Female Labor Camp in Changchun. They had all been sentenced to one year of forced labor “education” without trial because they refused to give up their beliefs in Falun Gong and they had appealed to higher authorities. They were almost in isolation from the outside world because authorities did not allow their family to visit them regularly. According to reliable sources, they were forced to work for 18-19 hours per day, and the labor was extremely demanding. They were now on hunger strike against the inhumane treatment.
1.4.9 Chengdu practitioners refused to repent for practicing Falun Gong and went on a hunger strike
Message received: November 7, 1999
Victims: about one hundred practitioners detained in the Jiuruchun detention center, Chengdu, Sichuan
Location of incident: Chengdu, Sichuan Province
Description:
About one hundred practitioners who were being detained in the Jiuruchun detention center in Chengdu refused to sign the pledge asking them not to practice Falun Gong in public, not to go to appeal, and not to contact other practitioners. They are now on a hunger strike. Some practitioners have been on hunger strike for 5 days.
1.4.10 Practitioners from Ren county went on a hunger strike
Message received: November 02, 1999
Victims: practitioners from Ren county, Hebei Location of incident: Ren County, Hebei Province
Description:
Many practitioners from Ren County of Hebei were transferred from Beijing. The practitioners started a hunger strike as soon as they were thrown into the jail. The longest one was nine days. They were put in shackles because they continued to practice Falun Gong in the jail. The police arrested all the contact persons of Falun Gong because they refused to lie to the police that they had given up Falun Gong. When the [this] message was received, all the detained Falun Gong practitioners were on a hunger strike.
1.4.11 Changchun practitioners went on a hunger strike in Balibao and Daguang detention centers
Message received: October 25, 1999
Location of incident: Balibao detention center and Daguang detention center, Changchun, Jilin Province
Description:
Before October 1, the national day of China, the Changchun local authority detained about 500 Falun Gong practitioners in order to prevent them from going to Beijing to appeal. Among them, there was an old couple in their seventies, although they had no intention to go to Beijing.
The practitioners suffered from all kinds of torture there. Some practitioners were burned with lit cigarettes. Some were struck with a thick stick (some sticks were broken from the striking).
Among the 400 practitioners detained in the Balibao detention center, most went on hunger strike one after another for periods varying from three to seven days.
When the [this] message was received, most of the practitioners detained in the Daguang detention center were on hunger strike. The police treated them brutally. They were locked in the cells and not allowed to go out or be visited by family members.
1.4.12 Three Shijiazhuang practitioners went on a hunger strike
Message received: October 20, 1999
Victims:
1. Liang Yening, female, from Shijiazhuang, Hebei;
2. Huang Wei, (gender not indicated), from Shijiazhuang, Hebei;
3. Zhang Jianzeng, (gender not indicated),
from Shijiazhuang, Hebei
Location of incident: Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province
Description:
Until this message was received, Liang Yening, Huang Wei and Zhang Jianzeng had been on hunger strike for eight days. They started the hunger strike on October 13 when they were taken back by the local police from Beijing. Liang and Huang were almost dying, but the Shijiazhuang police department still refused to release them.
Photo of Yening Liang and her baby
3.4.13 Liang Shaolin was on a hunger strike before being released
Message received: October 14, 1999
Victim: Liang Shaolin, female, from Guangdong
Location of incident: Guangdong Province
Description:
Liang Shaolin was on a hunger strike for seven days in the detention center before being unconditionally released.
3.4.14 Shenyang practitioners were on a hunger strike
Message received: October 13, 1999
Victims: more than 17 Falun Gong practitioners in Shenyang, Liaoning
Location of incident: Shenyang, Liaoning Province
Description:
Shenyang police department arrested many Falun Gong practitioners before October 1st (the 50th anniversary of People's Republic of China) and detained them in different places. On October 13, there were still 17 practitioners being detained. They had already been on hunger strike for seven days. They needed several people's assistance to stand up and walk out to see their family members who came to the prison to visit them.
According to the message received on October 14, 1999, 15 out of the 17 practitioners were released, while the remaining two were still in detention.
3.4.15 Qiu Liying went on hunger strike for 11 days
Message received: September 28, 1999
Victim: Qiu Liying, female
Location of incident: Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province
Description:
Qiu Liyin, who was detained in the police station of Shijiazhuang Oil Refinery Factory, was finally allowed to go home at 8:00 p.m., September 28, after her family gave their guarantee that she would not go to Beijing before October 5th. However, she still remained under house arrest. Before she went home, she had already been on a hunger strike for a full 11 days in the police station.
Photo of Qiu Liying who went on hunger strike for
11 day.
| Index | Previous | Next |