Crimes of Wu Aiying, Former Minister of Justice, in Persecuting Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) Sanctioning human rights abusers has become more commonplace among democratic countries. After the U.S. passed the Magnitsky Act in 2016, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the 27-member-country EU enacted similar laws. Australia and Japan are working on the same.

In accordance with these laws, Falun Gong practitioners have compiled lists of perpetrators involved in the persecution of Falun Gong these few years. Every year they submit several lists to democratic governments, urging them to sanction the named perpetrators.

Starting on July 14, 2021, Falun Gong practitioners in more than 30 countries are submitting the latest list of perpetrators involved in the persecution of Falun Gong to their respective governments, demanding sanctions against these human rights abusers, including denying entry into their countries and freezing their assets overseas.

One name on this list is Wu Aiying.

Perpetrator Information

Full Name of Perpetrator: Wu (last name) Aiying (first name) (Chinese: 吴爱英)Gender: FemaleCountry: ChinaDate/Year of Birth: December 1951Place of Birth: Changle County, Shandong Province, China

Title or Position

October 1970: Joined the Communist Party of China

April 1998 – March 2002: Deputy Secretary of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee

March 2002 – November 2003: Deputy Secretary of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial Political Consultative Conference, and Secretary of the Party Leadership Group

November 2003 – June 2005: Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Secretary of the Party Leadership Group

June 2005 – February 2017: Minister of Justice and Secretary of the Party Leadership Group

In October 2017, Wu Aiying was expelled from the Party due to serious violations of law and policy.

Main Crimes

Wu Aiying is a key contributor to the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong. She held important positions in Shandong Province for a long time, and served as the Deputy Minister and Minister of the Ministry of Justice for more than 13 years. Wherever she served, she actively implemented the CCP’s persecution policy against Falun Gong, spared no effort to persecute Falun Gong, and treated the persecution as an opportunity for her career advancement. Throughout the years that the CCP has been persecuting Falun Gong, she not only followed and implemented persecution policies, but has also been a mastermind in formulating persecution policies.

I. Crimes of persecuting Falun Gong during her tenure in Shandong

Wu Aiying worked in Shandong Province for a long time. Beginning in 1998, Wu Aiying was the Deputy Secretary of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee, in charge of political and legal work. After the CCP began to persecute Falun Gong in July 1999, Wu Aiying also served as the leader of the “Stability Maintenance Leading Group” of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee, in charge of the persecution of Falun Gong. During Wu Aiying’s tenure in Shandong, she actively implemented the CCP’s persecution policies and cruelly persecuted Falun Gong practitioners in the province along with Wu Guanzheng and Zhang Gaoli, two secretaries of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee. The following are the main crimes Wu Aiying committed while persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in Shandong Province:

1. On many public occasions, as the Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, she gave speeches emphasizing the need to strengthen the crackdown on Falun Gong

1) On January 21, 2001, on the eve of Chinese New Year, Wu Aiying visited the women’s labor camp in Shandong Province. She emphasized that the labor camp should continue to fight against Falun Gong and increase the intensity of their “transformation by reeducation.”

2) On February 1, 2001, Wu Aiying attended the Provincial Political and Legal Work Conference and delivered a speech, expressing the need to strengthen the fight against Falun Gong and severely crack down on Falun Gong.　

3) On January 7, 2002, Wu Aiying attended the Shandong Provincial Political and Legal Work Conference and delivered a speech emphasizing the need to continue to strengthen the fight against Falun Gong and increase the intensity of the attacks against Falun Gong.

4) On July 6, 2002, Wu Aiying delivered a speech at a TV and telephone conference on the maintenance of social stability in the province, emphasizing the need to crack down on Falun Gong.　

5) On September 27, 2002, Wu Aiying attended the Provincial Social Stability Work Conference and delivered a speech. In her speech, she emphasized that Falun Gong should be listed as a key target of their crackdown to ensure the smooth convening of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

2. Cruel persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in the province, with the number of Falun Gong practitioners persecuted to death during her tenure in Shandong Province ranking among the highest in the country

The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in Shandong Province has always been among the most severe in the country. Before November 2003, when Wu Aiying left Shandong to work in the Ministry of Justice, 94 Falun Gong practitioners had been persecuted to death in Shandong Province, ranking third highest in the country. Among those victims, 30 Falun Gong practitioners were persecuted to death in Weifang alone, ranking first among prefecture-level cities in the country.

During this period, the country’s first case of Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted to death occurred in Shandong Province. On September 27, 1999, Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Zhao Jinhua in Zhaoyuan City, Shandong Province was arrested by the local police station and beaten to death because she refused to give up her faith. She was 42.

The first case reported of a Falun Gong practitioner who was persecuted to death in a psychiatric hospital through forced injection of drugs that damaged the central nervous system also occurred in Shandong Province. Mr. Su Gang, a Falun Gong practitioner from Zibo City, Shandong Province, was forcibly arrested on May 23, 2000, by local police and taken to Changle Mental Hospital for persecution. During this period, he was forcibly injected with drugs that damaged his central nervous system and in just nine days, he was persecuted to the verge of death. He died ten days after he was sent home, in excruciating pain. He was only 32.

The first case of a Falun Gong practitioner being persecuted to death that was reported by overseas media also occurred in Shandong Province. On April 20, 2000, Wall Street Journal reporter Ian Johnson published an article in the newspaper on how Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Chen Zixiu (58 years old) from Weifang City, Shandong Province, was beaten to death by local officials on February 21 of that year. The publishing of this commentary article made Ms. Chen’s case the first case of persecution and death of a Falun Gong practitioner to be reported by overseas media.

These cases of persecution all occurred during Wu Aiying’s tenure in Shandong. Wu Aiying, as the Deputy Secretary of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee in charge of the persecution of Falun Gong and the leader of the provincial stability maintenance leading group, must be held accountable. Wu Aiying was promoted all throughout her brutal suppression of Falun Gong. In November 2003, Wu Aiying joined the Ministry of Justice as Deputy Minister at the ministerial level and was promoted to Minister at the ministerial level in June 2005 until she was dismissed in February 2017.

II. The persecution of Falun Gong during her tenure in the Ministry of Justice

The CCP used all the state machinery to participate in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, from propaganda through various media outlets, administration on all levels of government, public security, the procuratorate, the courts, the judicial system (prisons and reeducation-through-labor), the military, and other departments. The Ministry of Justice oversees the prison system and the reeducation-through-labor system throughout the country. Wu Aiying oversaw the Ministry of Justice for nearly 12 years (June 2005 to February 2017). This was a period of severe torture and brainwashing of Falun Gong practitioners in prisons and labor camps across the country.

According to available statistics, during the period when Wu Aiying oversaw the Ministry of Justice, at least 555 people were persecuted to death, including 347 people in labor camps and 208 people in prison. This number is believed to be the tip of the iceberg of actual deaths. Among the deaths caused by persecution, a considerable number of Falun Gong practitioners died in CCP prisons and labor camps due to torture.

These cases of persecution in prisons and the reeducation-through-labor system are closely related to collusion and support from the CCP’s Ministry of Justice. As the chief executive of the judicial system, Wu Aiying was responsible for the various persecutions against Falun Gong that occurred during her tenure. She has an inescapable responsibility, as she is a main culprit and a mastermind directly behind the persecution. The following are the main crimes and methods of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in labor camps and prison systems.

1. Crimes in labor camps

Although the CCP’s reeducation-through-labor system was officially abolished in 2013 due to pressure from the international community, in the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong, the reeducation-through-labor system does not require court proceedings, is equivalent to persecution through prison labor, and has been abused to the extreme by the CCP authorities.

According to statistics from Minghui.org, from November 2003, when Wu Aiying was appointed Deputy Minister of Justice and Deputy Party Secretary, to 2013, when the reeducation-through-labor system was abolished, a total of at least 16,347 Falun Gong practitioners were illegally sent to reeducation-through-labor camps (multiple times for some of them).

These labor camps attempted to force Falun Gong practitioners to abandon their faith in “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance” by physically torturing and mentally “brainwashing” them. Labor camps are filled with all kinds of vicious methods for forcing Falun Gong practitioners to “transform,” and numerous Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted to death, injured, physically disabled, and mentally disabled because they held fast to their beliefs and rejected the so-called “transformation.”

According to statistics from Minghui.org’s “2013 Investigation Report on the CCP’s Torture and Killing of Falun Gong Practitioners,” of the 3,653 Falun Gong practitioners persecuted to death by the CCP, a total of 714 deaths were a direct result of the last round of persecution in a labor camp prior to their death and 546 were directly tortured and killed in labor camps, involving a total of 127 labor camps across the country.

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Gao Rongrong, 37 years old, was subject to continuous electric shocks at Longshan Correctional Center in Shenyang, Liaoning Province starting from 3:00 p.m. on May 7, 2004, causing severe facial disfigurement and injury. She was sent to the hospital for emergency treatment, and later, escaped from the hospital with the help of local Falun Gong practitioners. Minghui.org published reports and photos of Gao’s face being severely disfigured on July 7 and it shocked the world. On August 30, the UN Special Commissioner Theo van Boven sent a joint emergency complaint to relevant UN organizations and personnel regarding the persecution of Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Gao Rongrong. In order to conceal the facts of the persecution, the CCP classified Gao’s departure from the hospital as “Major Case 26.” In March 2005, Gao was arrested again and sent to Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Liaoning. On June 16th of the same year, she was killed in the forced labor camp.

Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Jiang Xiqing, 66 years old, was persecuted to death in Chongqing Xishanping Forced Labor Camp on January 28, 2009. His family members were suspicious about his death and took photos. They were caught by more than 20 police officers (including those at the cremation center), and their photos were seized and destroyed. The family begged to be allowed to hold a memorial service for Mr. Jiang, but the authorities refused and claimed that the family members were making trouble. Subsequently, the family members were dragged out of the funeral home by the police, and Mr. Jiang Xiqing, whose body was still warm, was forcibly cremated.

These cases of death from persecution that we know about are just the tip of the iceberg. There are many Falun Gong practitioners who have been tortured and killed by the CCP’s labor camps, but their stories have been tightly covered up and it is difficult for the outside world to know the real situation of the persecution.

2. Persecution in prison

Since 1999, the CCP’s long-term persecution of Falun Gong practitioners has turned the police, procuratorial, courts, and prison system into a systematic crime chain, causing the entire prison system to become a criminal system. According to available statistics from Minghui.org, from November 2003 when Wu Aiying was the Deputy Minister of Justice until her step-down in February 2017, a total of 11,708 Falun Gong practitioners were illegally sentenced (with some illegally sentenced multiple times) and imprisoned in China. Among them, the provinces with the highest number of illegal sentences for Falun Gong practitioners are Liaoning Province, Heilongjiang Province, Shandong Province, Hebei Province, Sichuan Province, and Jilin Province. The years when Falun Gong practitioners were illegally sentenced the most were 2004 and 2016, when Wu Aiying was in office.

These illegally sentenced Falun Gong practitioners are from all sectors of society. Among them are experts, scholars, professors, those with doctorates and master’s degrees, college students, teachers, designers, entrepreneurs, IT professionals, soldiers, engineers, doctors, judges, police officers, government officials, workers, farmers, office workers, etc.

For example, in 2016, Minghui.org published 491 articles exposing the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in CCP prisons, confirming that at least 109 prisons used violence and torture to forcefully “transform” Falun Gong practitioners. The so-called “transformations” were to force Falun Gong practitioners to abandon their beliefs in “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance.” The prisons are willing to do anything for their “conversion rates.”

According to Minghui.org’s “2013 Investigation Report on the CCP’s Torture and Killing of Falun Gong Practitioners,” of the 3,653 Falun Gong practitioners persecuted to death by the CCP, 404 of them were imprisoned and persecuted in the prison prior to death, involving a total of 122 prisons across the country.

Like those in labor camps, due to the strict information blockade of the Chinese Communist Party, the number of Falun Gong practitioners who died in prisons is not known to the outside world. The actual number of deaths due to persecution is likely much higher.

3. The methods used in labor camps and prisons to torture and kill Falun Gong practitioners

To force Falun Gong practitioners to abandon their faith and increase the so-called “conversion rate,” prisons and labor camps do not hesitate to use extreme methods to torture and persecute Falun Gong practitioners. These torture methods can be roughly divided into 11 categories, including severe beatings, torture equipment, corporal punishment, force feeding, electric shocks, excessive labor or forced labor, abuse, sexual torture, forced “brainwashing,” confinement, and psychotropic drugs. Each category is subdivided into several sub-categories. These torture methods are widely used in prisons and labor camps. Here are only a few types of torture methods used:

1) Beating: There are various methods of beating Falun Gong practitioners in prisons and labor camps. The common ones include using police equipment, sticks, irons, belts, leather whips, bamboo sticks, etc. to beat Falun Gong practitioners, kicking Falun Gong practitioners with leather shoes, slapping Falun Gong practitioners, and grabbing Falun Gong practitioners’ hair in order to smash them into the wall or door frame. Beatings can target the head, face, limbs, and genitals.

On March 6, 2013, Mr. Guo Xiaowen was sent to Jinzhong Prison. Under the instructions of prison guards, Guo Xiaowen was beaten to death on March 12 in just 6 days. He was only 40 years old.

2) Torture with instruments: There are dozens of instruments of torture often used in prisons and labor camps, such as handcuffs, fetters, compression straps, ropes, tiger benches, death beds, knives, fire, and other tools. Falun Gong practitioners are subject to physical torture, such as hanging, tiger bench, shackles, tying, etc., which directly cause Falun Gong practitioners to suffer extreme physical pain and even die on the spot.

On July 18, 2011, Mr. Li Xiwang from Tianjin, was arrested and sent to Gangbei Prison (now Binhai Prison). After just 11 days, on July 29, Mr. Li Xiwang was tortured to death. He was 49. He had suffered the “earth anchor” torture technique while being held in Tianjin Gangbei Prison.

3) Electric shock: The use of high-voltage electric batons is also a common technique used in prisons and labor camps. Police often use one or several high-voltage electric batons to shock Falun Gong practitioners at the same time. The shocks target the genitals, face, limbs, head, and sensitive parts of the body such as the neck, chest, breasts, back, waist, ribs, and anus.

On July 3, 2010, Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Liu Shuling was tortured to death at the Harbin Drug Rehabilitation and Labor Camp in Heilongjiang Province. According to eyewitnesses, Liu Shuling was tied to a metal chair by a police officer in uniform and electrocuted to death with an electric baton. There was a large ring of black bruising on the back of Liu Shuling’s left ear and at the bottom of her neck, both caused by an electric baton.

4) Forced Feeding: Prisons and labor camps also carried out brutal forced-feeding of Falun Gong practitioners who went on hunger strike to protest the persecution. The purpose of the feeding is not to maintain the lives of Falun Gong practitioners, but to torture them so they die in pain. They force fed Falun Gong practitioners with concentrated salt water, chili noodles, mustard noodles, mustard oil, raw corn noodles, boiling water, hot rice and soup, and even feces.

On February 25, 2011, Jiamusi prison guards carried Mr. Qin Yueming to the bathroom on the first floor of the hospital for force feeding, clamped his tongue with hemostatic forceps, pulled it out, forced it into a rubber tube, and used a funnel to pour in half a bag of salt and diluted milk powder. When Mr. Qin Yueming was dragged out of the bathroom, his mouth was full of blood, he had difficulty breathing, and kept screaming. Mr. Qin Yueming struggled all night in extreme pain and stopped breathing the next day.

5) Corporal punishment: Prisons and labor camps often use corporal punishment to persecute Falun Gong practitioners, such as forcing Falun Gong practitioners to squat, kneel, climb, run, and stand for a long time, forcing Falun Gong practitioners to sit on the floor or on small benches, or forcing Falun Gong practitioners to do a “jetliner position” for a long time. Although these torture and persecution methods do not cause obvious external trauma, they can cause serious internal injuries to the body parts and organs of Falun Gong practitioners.

6) Abuse: The abuse and destructive methods used by the CCP authorities against Falun Gong practitioners include prolonged sleep deprivation, providing no food or water, not allowing them to use the bathroom, no communication with others, and the use of feces, urine, sputum, chili water, and soapy water, etc. to fill Falun Gong practitioners’ mouths. Their mouths can also be sealed for long periods of time with foul-smelling socks, rags, clothes, and tape, and their clothes stripped for humiliation.

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Chen Ruiqin was abused in Tianjin Women’s Prison for a long time because she refused to give up her faith. She was forced to stand for extended periods of time and was not allowed to use the bathroom so she had no choice but to soil her pants. Her toes were trampled on to the point of bleeding and her body was beaten to the point of scarring. Another prisoner splashed hot water on her face, pinched her nipples, molested her lower body, and even made her eat feces and drink urine. On February 10, 2017, Ms. Chen Ruiqin was tortured to death in Tianjin Women’s Prison.

7) Use of psychotropic drugs and poisons: Prisons and labor camps still use psychotropic drugs and poisons to destroy Falun Gong practitioners mentally and physically. The practitioners would be forcibly injected or fed drugs that damaged the central nervous system. Sometimes, poison was secretly put into Falun Gong practitioners’ food. Of the Falun Gong practitioners who were tortured to death through CCP psychotropic drug/poison methods, 33% were persecuted to death using psychotropic drugs/drugs in labor camps and 18% were persecuted to death by use of psychotropic drugs/poisons in prisons.

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Zhu Yifang was being held in the Chengdu Women’s Prison when she was locked in a room for a long time while vile insults were hurled at her non-stop. She was taken to the hospital twice. There, four male prisoners forcibly held her down on the bed, tied her hands and feet to the four corners of the bed and her stomach and knees to both sides of the bed with bands of fabric, and then injected her with unknown drugs. Afterwards, she became agitated, her blood vessels hurt, her stomach swelled up, and she was in extreme pain. On March 6, 2012, Ms. Zhu Yifang was tortured to death.

Other persecution methods, such as forcing Falun Gong practitioners to engage in high-intensity forced labor, sexually assaulting Falun Gong practitioners, and forced “brainwashing” them, are common in prisons and labor camps.

Since the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999, the Ministry of Justice, the highest regulatory body in the prison and reeducation-through-labor system, has become a tool to help the CCP persecute Falun Gong. It has adopted policies condoning and supporting the torture of Falun Gong practitioners in these places. During Wu Aiying’s tenure in the Ministry of Justice, Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death, injured, and disabled in prisons and labor camps. Wu Aiying must be held accountable for her crimes.

III. Suppressing human rights lawyers and preventing them from defending the innocence of Falun Gong practitioners

The Ministry of Justice also manages the work of lawyers nationwide. During Wu Aiying’s reign, she actively cooperated with Zhou Yongkang, Meng Jianzhu, secretaries of the Central Political and Legal Committee, and others to suppress human rights lawyers, manipulate provincial judicial departments and municipal judicial bureaus, prevent lawyers from representing Falun Gong in not guilty pleas, and even illegally revoke some lawyer’s licenses to practice. The persecution of the famous Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng and the “709” human rights lawyer raid case that shocked China and foreign countries are just some of the examples.

Facing the CCP’s persecution, many family members of Falun Gong practitioners have been subdued by great pressure from the CCP. Only some family members have dared to hire a lawyer, and some family members search their entire region and cannot find any lawyers who dare to take on Falun Gong cases. Other family members hire lawyers, but under threat from the authorities, the lawyers are forced to withdraw halfway through the case.

On March 21, 2014, four human rights lawyers, Tang Jitian, Jiang Tianyong, Wang Cheng, Zhang Junjie, provided legal assistance to several Falun Gong practitioners who were illegally detained in Heilongjiang Jiansanjiang’s “Legal Education Base,” which was actually a brainwashing facility. They were arrested, tortured, and abused, and three other lawyers and dozens of citizens who went to help rescue them were all arrested. This case attracted international attention.

On July 9, 2015, the Chinese Communist Party began to launch the “709 Case” that spread across the country. The Ministry of Justice, as the regulator of lawyers, worked with the Ministry of Public Security of the Communist Party of China to arrest and summon human rights lawyers from all over the country. As of December 16, 2016, at least 319 lawyers, law firm personnel, human rights defenders, and their family members from 23 provinces have been interrogated, summoned, restricted from leaving the country, placed under house arrest or residential surveillance, arrested, forced to disappear, forced to confess guilt on TV, or illegally sentenced. Lawyer Wang Quanzhang was not released until April 2020. Attorney General Wu Aiying was the principal culprit in the “709 Case.”

Conclusion

Wu Aiying is a key member in the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong. Both during her tenure in Shandong Province and the Ministry of Justice, she actively implemented the CCP’s persecution policy and spared no effort to “ruin [Falun Gong practitioners’] reputations, destroy them financially, and physically eliminate them” through mass extermination methods of persecution. Although she was dismissed and expelled from the CCP, her own serious violations of law and policy and the crimes she committed against Falun Gong cannot not be wiped out because of her step-down and she must bear all the consequences for this.