(Minghui.org) A 70-year-old woman was held down and had her right pinky finger slit by a fruit knife when she refused to cooperate with the police, who came to collect her blood sample.
Ms. Pang Jihong was targeted because she refused to renounce Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.
Ms. Pang
Injured finger
This was not the first time that the Guiyang City resident had her blood drawn by police. She complied with the demand when the police first came to draw her blood a few years ago. Officers claimed at the time that the government was building a massive database of all Chinese citizens’ blood samples to aid police investigation of criminal cases.
Ms. Pang soon found out that only Falun Gong practitioners were ordered to give blood samples. She came to suspect that the blood sample database is used for the state-sanctioned organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.
She refused this time around, only to be met with police brutality. As the police cut her finger, blood splattered everywhere. The slit on her pinky finger didn’t close for a week. She also sustained injuries to her rib cage during her struggle to get away from the officers.
Ms. Pang recounts what happened to her on October 26, 2016:
Deceived Into Opening the Door
I was home on October 26 when a man called to remind me to apply for a free senior fare card. Minutes later, I heard a knock on the door and saw a few uniformed officers outside through the peephole. I realized the caller was simply checking to make sure I’d be home.
I said to them, “Whenever you guys come, you ransack my home, draw my blood, or arrest me.”
One man promised they wouldn’t do any of those to me this time. I opened the door out of politeness.
As I didn’t want to treat the police as enemies, I decided to offer them some fruits as I would my invited guests.
I was going to peel some apples for them when I noticed a tall man with a camcorder. He said, “We’re here to draw your blood.”
I replied, “I broke no law by practicing Falun Gong. You’ve drawn my blood once already. Why are you here again?”
Another policeman said, “He [the man with the camcorder] is our chief. We need to videotape everything to show higher-ups that we did come to your home.”
I protested their infringement of my right not to be photographed in a private space. The chief put away his camcorder after taking some pictures of me.
Talking about Falun Gong During Standoff
As the police tried to get me to cooperate with them, I explained to them why I can’t stop practicing Falun Gong. I suffered from tuberculosis for several decades, but all my symptoms disappeared after I picked up the practice of Falun Gong.
I also told them that the persecution is wrong, as no law in China criminalizes Falun Gong.
The chief cut me off and said, “We must draw your blood today whether you cooperate with us or not.”
A young officer closed in on me with a syringe in his hand.
I jumped onto the couch and sat on its top. In the meantime, I opened the window.
The young man’s face turned pale, and he backed off saying, “Please, no. We’ll just leave.”
I told him, “Falun Gong prohibits killing. You think I’m going to jump out of the window? No. I’m just letting in some fresh air.”
The chief scolded me, “You’re threatening us.” He raised his camcorder again to videotape me.
I urged the police to stop committing crimes against Falun Gong practitioners like me.
One officer said, “We just want a few drops of your blood, and it won’t have any effect on your health. Why don’t you cooperate with us?”
I told them they had no legal ground on which to draw my blood.
A few officers begged me, “Granny, please do us a favor.”
I felt sad and didn’t say anything.
The chief called in three more officers, one of them being his deputy chief surnamed Chen.
Chen admitted they were violating my human rights but said they had no choice and must follow orders from their superiors.
I demanded to know who exactly their superiors were, and Chen couldn’t give me a name.
An officer chimed in, “The Communist Party is our superior. We get paid by the Party and must obey its orders.”
I tried to convince them they needed to do things based on the law and their conscience, but no one listened.
The chief then ordered two women from my local street committee to come. I knew these two women, as they once tried to persuade me to stop practicing Falun Gong.
Police Cut My Finger
One woman asked why I was sitting so close to the window. I told her that I felt the air was stifling, with so many officers in my living room.
As I was talking with the two women, Chen suddenly grabbed my legs and pulled me off the couch. A few officers held me down tightly, while others kept pricking my left hand. They couldn’t get any blood though because of my struggle.
Then, I heard one woman saying, “Please, don’t hurt her.” The next thing I felt was someone cutting my right pinky finger with the fruit knife I had planned to use to peel apples for them.
Chen ordered, “Keep squeezing out her blood!”
I kept struggling and had no idea of how much blood they collected.
By the time they stopped, I noticed the chief was already gone. Chen also tried to leave. I caught up with him and demand to know everyone’s name.
He hesitated but agreed to have everyone write down their names. As I was reading his officers’ names jotted down on a piece of paper, Chen took off as fast as he could.
Only six officers wrote down their names.
Bloodstains and Injuries
I found bloodstains on my right palm, my couch, my wood floor, a pair of clean socks, and some crumbled paper.
My fruit knife was nowhere to be found. I recalled seeing a young officer playing with the knife and saying, “If you don’t let us draw your blood, we’ll have your blood if you cut your own finger.” In retrospect, I realized he was hinting at what they may do to me.
My finger remained swollen for days, and it took one week for the slit to close. My rib cage also hurt a lot, and the pain worsened when I walked or coughed.
Blood stains everywhere in Ms. Pang’s apartment
