Name: Peng Yan (彭燕)
Gender: Female
Age: 34
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: May 27, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Yangyuan Brainwashing Center
in Wuchang District (武昌区杨园洗脑班)
City: Wuhan
Province: Hubei
Persecution Suffered: Sleep deprivation, forced labor,
brainwashing, illegal sentencing, beatings, hanging by handcuffs,
imprisonment, solitary confinement, torture, physical restraint,
detention.
(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Peng Yan is the youngest member of a family of five from Wuhan City. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution of Falun Gong, Ms. Peng’s mother and second eldest brother have died in custody as a result of brutal beatings. Her eldest brother has been detained on numerous occasions, her father became mentally unstable after repeated arrests, and she had to travel back and forth between Wuhan and her workplace in Xinjiang Autonomous Region, thousands of miles away, to help get her father and eldest brother released.
When her eldest brother Mr. Peng Liang was arrested in December 2010, Ms. Peng immediately went back to Wuhan to request his release. In early 2011 she wrote an open letter entitled “Release My Oldest Brother Peng Liang Unconditionally,” which was published on the Clearwisdom website.
A few days before the 2011 Chinese New Year, Chen Chuanquan and others from the Wuchang District 610 Office went to Ms. Peng's family home and threatened her not to get involved with her brother’s case. Officer Wu from the Liangdaojie Street Office in the Wuchang District and other personnel also demanded that she lease her family home to them. When she refused, they installed a video camera near her home to closely monitor her.
Ms. Peng hired a lawyer to defend her brother in court, but officers from the Liangdaojie Police Station arrested her on May 27, 2011, just four days before her brother’s trial. Mr. Peng was eventually given a three-year sentence, and Ms. Peng is still being detained.
This is Ms. Peng’s third time in detention. While she was serving a three-year sentence in Wuhan Women’s Prison in 2000, she was tied to a death bed twice for a total of 39 days. The second time she was subjected to this torture, guards Zhu Meiling and Hai Tao ordered her to write a guarantee statement to renounce her belief, and said that if she agreed to write it, they would release her from the death bed. When she refused, they ordered an inmate to hit her in the face with the sole of a slipper several dozen times.
Torture re-enactment: Death bed
Ms. Peng’s personal account of her experiences at Wuhan Women's Prison is stated below.
I was transferred to Wuhan Women’s Prison on August 7, 2001, after being held at Wuhan First Detention Center for one and a half years. The day after my arrival, I was placed in the Spraying and Knitting Section. The guards assigned more than 40 inmates to monitor me and instructed them to take detailed notes of my every word and movement. They followed me everywhere and watched me when I slept. They worked in three shifts, with at least three inmates on each shift. Sometimes I had up to 12 people watching me in one day.
Forced to Stand for Long Periods of Time
Starting from August 8, 2001, I was forced to stand from 5:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m. every day, until September 30, when many of the guards took time off for the National Day holidays. During my 54 days of torment, the guards often twisted my hands behind my back and handcuffed me in various places.
Guard Cheng Yao initially made inmates read the prison rules to me, and I was then ordered to repeatedly listen to the prison rules on audio tape. When I refused, my hands were cuffed behind my back and I was fastened to the railings of a bunk bed.
Section head Zhang Caihong handcuffed me to the bed railings and told the guards to curse at Dafa and Master. When I told them to stop, they taped my mouth shut and tied my legs together with rope. My handcuffs were removed that night, when they noticed that I had started developing a fever. But they still made me stand there for half of the night.
When guard Wen Sun was on duty, she handcuffed me to the railings of the top bunk bed. When I tried to rest my feet on the bottom bunk, she kicked them away. It was very painful. I was later handcuffed to the railings of the bottom bunk bed and was left there for the entire night, without being allowed to sleep.
Another section head with the last name of Zhou once ordered inmates to cuff my hands behind my back and hang me from the top bar of a metal fence, with my toes barely touching the ground. I was in excruciating pain. The following day I was forced to stand for long periods of time. The guards instructed inmates to make sure I remained standing and didn’t fall asleep. As soon as I closed my eyes, they pinched my eyelids, shook me, and beat me. When they pushed me down once, I didn’t even have the strength to pull myself up. Inmate Liu Ying then beat me with the soles of her slippers.
As the torture became more and more unbearable, I tried to practice the Falun Gong exercises in the hopes of getting better. However, as soon as I moved my arms, the inmates held me down and called the guards to handcuff me to the bed railing. Every time I tried to do the exercises, I was punished like this for an entire day or night.
I Was Heartbroken to Learn of My Mother and Brother's Deaths
China Central Television's (CCTV) “Focal Point” broadcast a program on November 11, 2001, featuring my family and defaming Falun Gong. While being forced to watch the program, I learned that my mother Li Yinxiu had died, not long after my second eldest brother, Peng Min’s death.
When my relatives came to visit me the next day, political instructor Cheng Juhui told them that no one ever bullied me. I began to cry uncontrollably and told my family, “They deprived me of sleep for so long and forced me to stand for at least 20 hours per day.” The guards then abruptly ended my family's visit.
Prison Guards Forced Me to Renounce My Belief
In May 2002, Zhang Caihong led a team of more than ten people attempting to force me to renounce my belief. She ordered me to watch videos slandering Falun Gong on a regular basis, and made me do hard labor making decorative light bulbs. I was given an unrealistic daily quota, and if I didn't meet the quota, I wasn’t allowed to sleep. I often had to stay up all night to complete the work, while Zhang kept increasing my workload and moving me from one job to another. This continued until August, when the order was completed.
Numerous people were assigned to talk to me every day. They included the guards on the team, guards from other divisions, and people from outside the prison, such as professors and retired officials from Huazhong University of Science & Technology. They made up numerous lies about Falun Gong and repeated the CCP's propaganda. They all tried to convince me that I should give up the practice, but I remained steadfast in my belief. Zhang Caihong and Jiang Chun put me in solitary confinement, and I was later handcuffed with my hands behind my back and hung from the top bar of a metal fence for three days, which caused terrible swelling in my legs. Then with my hands still cuffed behind my back, I was forced to stand facing a wall for three more days. When I was finally returned to my cell, more conversations were imposed on me, with three different groups of people talking to me in the morning, afternoon, and evening.
In early September 2002, Cheng Juhui, Chen Zhi, Zhang Xinhong, and Jiang Chun took me to another building of the prison. Seven guards and four inmates were assigned to watch over me around the clock. We all lived together. From 6:00 a.m. to midnight, people were brought in to talk to me, one after another. When I refused to listen, they swore at me and forced me to stand for long periods of time.
Before I was allowed to go to bed each night, I had to write a report on my thoughts and hand it to the guards. I felt my body was failing me. My legs began to swell and I had trouble sitting down. My head hurt so much that I thought it was about to explode, and my chest was in excruciating pain. Even though my body felt extremely tired and weak, I couldn't fall asleep after they brought me to this building. Every night when I was resting, two inmates were always there. Even when I had gone to bed I could hear them discussing what they would do with me the next day. They often held meetings until 3:00 a.m.
My mind was on the verge of collapse, and on September 24, 2002, I finally succumbed to the guards' demands. They immediately began to instruct me to write all kinds of materials criticizing Falun Gong. I often felt lightheaded, had a bad headache, was short of breath, and was tired. I also couldn’t stand or sit for long.
I was taken to a conference room on the second floor of Yangyuan Brainwashing Center in October to be interviewed by CCTV. The journalists kept asking questions, with the intention of getting me to badmouth Falun Gong. I knew I should have pointed out the crimes and injustice against me and my family, but I didn’t.
When I was taken back to the prison, Zhang Caihong still had inmates taking turns to monitor me, keeping track of my movements, until the day of my release. When I returned home I still suffered from health problems. I had trouble falling asleep and felt a sharp pain on the right side of my abdomen. A slight move often led to a piercing pain.
After My Release
When my three-year sentence finished on February 23, 2003, I was taken straight to the Yangyuan Brainwashing Center, where my father, Mr. Peng Weisheng, and my eldest brother, Mr. Peng Liang, were detained. When we protested our detention, the guards agreed to have one of my cousins pick me up to stay at her home.
In March 2003, when officials from the local community office ordered another person and me to sweep the streets, I declined because I knew that the other person was only there to monitor me. In September that year I decided to visit a few of my relatives in Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province. The moment I stepped into the door, an officer from the Wuchang District Police Office and the head of Wuchang District 610 Office, Chen Chuanquan, showed up. They threatened my relatives to not let me in. My relatives had no choice but agree to have them take me back to Wuhan.
Related articles:
“Release my Eldest Brother, Peng Liang, Unconditionally” - http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2011/2/26/123475.html
“Remembering My Mother and Brother” - http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2011/5/15/125221.html
“Ms. Peng Yan from Wuhan City Arrested Again and Her Oldest Brother Facing Unlawful Sentence” - http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2011/6/9/125915.html
