(Minghui.org) A Jilin City, Jilin Province resident serving a five-year prison term for practicing Falun Gong is being tortured for not renouncing her faith.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since 1999.
Ms. Lei Xiuxiang, 60, used to have a very strong personality, but she became more considerate after she took up Falun Gong. For refusing to renounce her faith, however, she has been repeatedly persecuted in the past two decades. Prior to her latest prison sentence, she was given three labor camp terms and subjected to forced feedings, injection of toxic drugs, electric shocks, and extreme stretching.
Ms. Lei’s latest arrest was on July 9, 2015, after a plainclothes officer claimed that her water pipe was leaking and deceived her into going downstairs to check it. Ms. Lei went outside, only to be seized by the police, who also took away her home key.
The officers broke into her apartment and confiscated her Falun Gong books and some related materials, as well as the mailing receipt for a criminal complaint she had filed against Jiang Zemin, the former head of the communist regime who ordered the persecution of Falun Gong.
The police first held Ms. Lei at Songjiang Brainwashing Center and then transferred her to Jilin Detention Center on August 7, 2015. The detention center guards forced Ms. Lei to do unpaid labor. She refused to comply and was dragged by the inmates to the restroom, where they beat her, pinched her nipples, pulled on her breasts, and jabbed her in the ribs with a wooden stick.
For more than 20 days, the inmates deprived her of sleep and forced her to squat in a corner. As soon as she fell asleep, they woke her up.
They also forced her to wear handcuffs and shackles at all times. One inmate once placed the chains of the shackle on her feet and then stepped on it. They also dragged her around in the hallway as a result of her refusing to do forced labor.
Ms. Lei was tried by Fengman District Court on March 22, 2016. According to her family who attended the hearing, she was emaciated after months of detention. She kept her head down and didn’t say a word during the hearing.
When her family went to the detention center to deliver clothes to her in September 2016, they were told that Ms. Lei was no longer there. After asking around, they found that Ms. Lei had already been sentenced.
When her family went to Jilin Province Women’s Prison to visit her, the guard on duty said that Ms. Lei refused to meet with them. Her family suspected that the guard had lied to prevent them from visiting her.
The prison launched a campaign in April 2018 to force the practitioners to renounce Falun Gong. As Ms. Lei refused to comply, she was forced to sit on a “small stool” for long hours every day for nine months.
Between February 21 and 25, 2019, inmate Wang Kuo tortured Ms. Lei by pushing her head into a water bucket or pouring a bucket of water on her, knowing that she didn’t have clothes to change into. Wang later received a term reduction of nine months, the longest one-time reduction.
In July and August 2019, the prison launched another campaign to force practitioners to renounce their faith. Ms. Lei was forced to sit on a small stool that was only 6 inches high and had a sitting area of 7 by 9 inches. She was ordered to keep her body straight and maintain a 90-degree angle between her upper body and legs. The inmates put a piece of paper between her legs and forced her to keep her legs together. If the paper fell, the inmates would pinch or verbally abuse her.
The inmates later forced Ms. Lei to stand 15 to 16 hours a day and didn't allow her to buy extra food or take showers.
Related report:
Falun Gong Practitioners Tortured in Jilin Women’s Prison for Refusing to Renounce Their Belief
