Falun Gong Practitioners Tortured at Yushu City Detention Center, at Least Two Die

(Minghui.org) Since the Chinese Communist Party began to persecute Falun Gong, a spiritual practice also known as Falun Dafa in 1999, at least two Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death at Yushu City Detention Center in Jilin Province. Other practitioners were force-fed and restrained with a straitjacket as punishment when they went on hunger strike to protest the persecution. The following are a few examples of the persecution that Falun Gong practitioners suffered at Yushu City Detention Center.

Deaths at Detention Center

Ms. Li Shuhua, 32, was arrested on September 24, 2003. Later investigations led to the discovery of the horrible torture that caused her death. At the Yushu City Detention Center, a group of police officers covered her head with a plastic bag and stabbed her fingertips, arms, back, and chest with needles. She was in excruciating pain. An officer ordered Ms. Li to tell him the source of the Falun Gong materials she had and the names of other practitioners she interacted with. When she refused to comply, the officer hit her in the eye so hard that he knocked out her eyeball. Ms. Li screamed in pain and lost consciousness.

Startled by what happened, the officers called their superiors for instructions. An official’s response was: “Kill her!” The police officers then covered Ms. Liu’s head with a black plastic bag and suffocated her to death. 

Ms. Song Zhaoheng, a 76-year-old retired teacher in Yushu City, was arrested on August 27, 2018, while she was talking to people about Falun Gong. She was taken to the Yushu City Detention Center after being interrogated at the local police station. She died on January 14, 2019, while awaiting the verdict of her trial. The cause of death is unclear.

Force-feeding and Straitjacket

Ms. Wang Hongyan went on a hunger strike immediately after she was sent to Yushu City Detention Center. After three days, the police force-fed her milk, salt water, and some unknown drug. The next day, she was restrained with a straitjacket, and the staff inserted and pulled out the feeding tube repeatedly just to torment her. 

Ms. Guo Shuxue was detained at the Yushu City Detention Center in January 2018 for practicing Falun Gong. To protest the arbitrary detention, she went on several hunger strikes and was force-fed each time. When the feeding tube was taken out, it was covered with blood. She then noticed that a medical worker surnamed Li always added some medicine from the medicine cabin into the milk powder. Li would not tell Ms. Guo what she had added. One time, a female guard said, “Feed her No. 1 and No. 2. Let her rot to death.”

At first, Ms. Guo vomited after each force-feeding. The feeding mixture was yellow-colored and had very strong odor. One day, a doctor at the detention center said to Ms. Guo, “Don’t be a fool. You’ve seen it - these drugs are designed for Falun Gong [practitioners]. Even if you can get out of here alive, you would be done for eventually.” Ms. Guo then decided to stop her hunger strike.

After nine months of detention, Ms. Guo’s face suddenly swelled and deformed. She vomited something resembling blood with a foul swell. She was unrecognizable by people in the same cell. But the police still refused to release her. She was later taken to the Jilin Women’s Prison after being sentenced to three years.

Ms. Li Xiujuan was also force-fed at Yushu City Detention Center. She remembers being carried by 5~6 detainees to the infirmary. The guards tied her to a chair while a nurse inserted a feeding tube into her stomach from her nose. She was fed with soybean powder mixed with other drugs. Each feeding session lasted over an hour. She always felt dizzy, weak, and her ears buzzing afterward.

In addition, police put Ms. Li in a straitjacket after each force-feeding. Her arms were crossed in the front and pulled to the back with a metal buckle in the back. The tighter the ties were, the more painful it was. She recalls that her chest was very tight and uncomfortable. She could not lie flat on the back because of the metal buckle. It also hurt badly if she lay on the side. Her entire arms and hands turned purple. Because of the tight restrains, the blood could not circulate well and it was extremely painful.