Woman Who Fled China in 2014 Recalls Mysterious Blood Draw in 2004 and Torture in Detention

(Minghui.org) [Editor’s Note: Ms. Yang Jinhua, a native of Laixi City, Shandong Province, fled China on July 30, 2014, to avoid being persecuted for her faith in Falun Dafa, a mind-body practice also known as Falun Gong that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since July 1999.

After reading uncensored information outside of China, Ms. Yang realized that she might have been a target for the CCP’s state-sanctioned organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners. She recalled that a doctor once drew a large amount of blood from her in 2004 when she was detained in China for upholding her faith. She was told it was just a physical exam but was never given the exam results.

She testified at the second public hearing of the Independent People’s Tribunal (also known as China Tribunal) in London on April 6-7, 2019. Chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice, QC, the tribunal consisted of seven experts tasked with conducting the world’s first-ever independent analysis of forced organ extraction in China.

In this report, Ms. Yang recounted further details of her persecution while she was still in China.]

My name is Yang Jinhua and I am 51 years old. I worked at Laixi City Clothing Manufacturer No. 14 Plant in Shandong Province until it went bankrupt in 2002.

I began to practice Falun Gong in October 1998. After reading its main teaching, Zhuan Falun, I realized that the purpose of life was to return to one’s true self and that I should live by the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to be a better and more considerate person. I regretted not having learned the practice earlier, and I joined the group exercises in a local park as often as I could. I was filled with joy every day back then.

On the night of July 19, 1999, a friend of mine warned me not to go to the park for the group exercises the next morning because he’d heard that Jiang Zemin, then-leader of the CCP, had officially initiated a campaign to eradicate Falun Gong that would begin the next day. Anyone who dared to do the Falun Gong exercises in public would be arrested and put in jail.

The persecution started the next day (July 20, 1999), with all the media (TV, radio, and newspapers) spewing lies about Falun Gong. As someone who had personally benefited from Falun Gong, I felt compelled to tell the government that the practice was nothing like depicted in the propaganda. Because of my efforts to raise awareness of the persecution of Falun Gong, I was arrested a total of 12 times and had my home raided three times over the next 15 years—until I fled China in 2014.

My arrests resulted in detention at various places. I was held in the Laixi City Lockup five times, the Laixi City Detention Center three times, and Shandong Province Second Women’s Forced Labor Camp (also known as Wangcun Forced Labor Camp) twice (totaling five years). My employer once held me in a storage room for three months. During my detention, I was subjected to all different kinds of physical torture and forced labor. Three times I passed out after being shocked with electricity.

When I was not being detained, I was harassed and monitored by the police. My phone was tapped. I was forced to live away from home for a total of seven years.

My mother was forced to turn in her Falun Gong books shortly after the persecution began and thus gave up cultivation. The police harassed her as well and she was forced to move three times. Fearing being implicated, my sisters severed ties with me.

Mysterious Blood Draw

The blood draw happened in October 2004, when I was being held in the Shandong Province Second Women’s Forced Labor Camp. I was 32 at the time and the youngest of the detainees in Team Two. That morning, the team lead told me to get on a bus, where I saw a male police officer waiting for me. He didn’t tell me where the bus was heading. The windows were all covered so I couldn’t see the outside.

After the bus stopped, I saw a courtyard with several rooms. I was taken to a room, where a female doctor measured my blood pressure and listened to my heart (I can’t recall how many physical exams I had in the labor camp prior to that). I was then taken to a second room, where a male officer pressed my fingers hard to collect my fingerprints. In the third room, another female doctor drew such a huge tube of blood from me that I was startled.

The next morning I asked the team lead what was going on with the bus trip the day before and he said it was just a physical exam. I was never given any exam results and gradually forgot about it. At the time, I was not aware of the CCP’s live organ harvesting.

After I fled China on July 30, 2014, I read a lot of uncensored information about live organ harvesting. I then recalled the blood draw episode and realized that I might have become a target of the organ harvesting.

Abuses in Detention

I was subjected to various forms of abuse in different detention facilities.

Involuntary Drug Administration in Psychiatric Hospital

Shao Jun, then political section lead of Laixi City Police Station, pressured my family to send me to a psychiatric hospital on July 28, 1999, because I refused to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong. The hospital forced me to take psychiatric drugs before every meal. The drugs caused severe side effects and damaged my central nervous system. I was also forced to watch TV programs attacking Falun Gong all the time. The physical and mental suffering was beyond description. I would not have been able to pull it through had it not been for my faith. My mother got me out 20 days later after she managed to pay the expensive medical bill.

Stomped on Head with Boots in Laixi City Shelter

I was once detained in the Laixi City Shelter. In November 1999, I was reciting the Falun Gong teachings when officer Wu of Chengguan Police Station noticed me. He grabbed my hair, held me down on the ground, and stomped on my head and body with his leather boots.

Force-feeding in Shijingshan Detention Center in Beijing

While detained in Shijingshan Detention Center, I was force-fed on June 14, 2000, because I went on a hunger strike in protest. I was taken out of my cell and held in a bed in the hallway. Several guards held my limbs and two female doctors inserted a tube into my mouth and force-fed me saline water. They didn’t stop until my mouth bled.

Handcuffing, Flogging, and Electric Shocks Following an Arrest in 2000

I was arrested in Beijing on July 19, 2000, and taken to Yuyuantan Park Police Station, where the police handcuffed me to a tree in the yard for three hours. Later that night, they moved me to Shijiazhuang City Detention Center in nearby Hebei Province.

The next day a guard handcuffed me and took me to an interrogation room, where he chained the handcuffs to the back of a chair. That night, another guard tied my upper body to the back of a chair and my legs to a bench. He then wrapped a wire around my fingertips and toes and shocked me with electricity three times. I passed out each time and only survived by reciting “Falun Dafa is good.”

On the third day (July 21), a head inmate flogged me with a leather whip for 20 minutes non-stop. This whip caused excruciating pain but did not leave external injuries.

I was later taken back to Beijing and held in Laixi City’s Liaison Office in Beijing.
On August 1, 2000, police officers Shen Tao and Liu Guanghong in Laixi City picked me up from Beijing and escorted me back to the Laixi City Lockup.

Torture Following My Arrest in 2002

I was arrested again on April 12, 2002, and held in Dashan Detention Center in Qingdao City, Shandong Province. On May 8, 2002, officers Shen Tao, Sui Guoqin, and Zhang Luning handcuffed me and transferred me to the Shandong Province Second Women’s Forced Labor Camp, where I was detained until November 2006.

Because I refused to renounce Falun Gong, I was often held in solitary confinement. I don’t remember how many times I suffered this abuse. Each time I was not allowed to sleep, eat, or use the restroom until I was let out of the solitary confinement cell.

I was held in the labor camp for 1,570 days, and every day I was forced to sit on a small stool for long periods of time. My buttocks festered, but I was still forced to sit.

From my arrest on April 12, 2002, to the day I was released in November 2006, I was forced to do unpaid work in both the detention center and the labor camp, including gluing handbags, boxing pencils and ballpoint pens, knitting sweaters, sewing beads on clothes, sewing small stuffed animals, nipping clothes threads, weaving Chinese knots (a kind of decoration), making carpets, sewing quilts, folding moon cake boxes, winding coils, and making various decorations with toxic glues.

Related Report:

London: Evidence Exposes CCP’s Organ Harvesting at Public Hearing of China Tribunal