Liaoning Woman Dies After Serving a Labor Camp Term and Two Prison Sentences

(Minghui.org)

Name: Li LiChinese Name: 李力Gender: FemaleAge: 71City: FushunProvince: Liaoning Occupation: N/ADate of Death: November 29, 2024Date of Most Recent Arrest: June 20, 2014Most Recent Place of Detention: Liaoning Province Women’s Prison

For upholding her faith in Falun Gong after the Chinese Communist Party ordered the persecution in 1999, Ms. Li Li, of Fushun City, Liaoning Province, was arrested five times, given a 3-year labor camp term and two prison terms totaling 9.5 years. Her health was damaged after severe torture and abuse in custody. The police continued to harass her after she was released. The mental distress took a further toll on her health. She passed away on November 29, 2024. She was 71.

Below is Ms. Li’s own account of the persecution she suffered.

Taking Up Falun Gong

I used to suffer from a herniated disk in my lower back. Whenever I had an episode, I couldn’t walk or even put on my pants. In addition, I had problems with my kidneys, inflammation of the colon and oral ulcers all year round. I tried all kinds of medications, but had no improvement. I lived in pain every day. In 1995, a friend introduced Falun Gong to me. By doing the exercises and studying the Falun Gong books, I soon regained my health and was full of energy. I was grateful for Falun Gong’s health benefits.

Arrests and Detention

In October 1999, three months after the onset of the persecution, I went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong. I was arrested at the Beijing Train Station, taken back to Fushun and detained for 17 days. 

I set out for another trip to Beijing to appeal in February 2000 and was arrested at the Shenyang Train Station in Liaoning Province. Officer Bai Songri of the Fumin Police Station raided my home and detained me at a lockup for three weeks. 

In July 2000, the police arrested me again and took me to the Fushun City Brainwashing Center. I held a hunger strike to protest and was released a week later.

Officer Bai planned to arrest me one more time in October 2000. To avoid the persecution, I was forced to live away from home. The police went to my home twice to look for me, but no one was home. They broke in with a master key and smashed the lock. When Bai still couldn’t find me after a few weeks, he arrested my husband in late October and held him at the police station overnight. He also forced my husband to take them to four of my relatives’ homes to look for me. Terrified by the police, my husband developed a heart condition shortly after.

Not long after I returned home, Bai showed up with a group of officers in January 2001. To avoid being arrested, I jumped down from a second story window and broke my leg. While I was still recovering from the leg injury, Bai and a few officers raided my home in late February 2001 and confiscated my Falun Gong books and audio tapes. They didn’t take me away because I was unable to walk.

Three-Year Labor Camp Term

As soon as my leg recovered, Bai arrested me in July 2001 and took me to the Fushun City Forced Labor Camp to serve a three-year term. I held a hunger strike to protest. About ten days later, the guards carried me to the hospital for force-feeding. I refused to go along with it. They instructed four inmates to hold me tight and pry open my mouth. Some of my teeth became loose and my mouth bled profusely. They inserted a half-inch wide plastic tube into my stomach. I have no words to describe the intense pain. 

To further increase my suffering, the nurses placed the tube against my trachea. I was suffocated and my face turned red. Then they pulled the tube back and forth nearly 20 times and finally stopped when the tube was full of blood. 

Because I was beaten for doing the Falun Gong exercises on November 13, 2001, I held another hunger strike to protest. Guard Chen Linghua held me in solitary confinement. In the dark and damp room, there were only a few wood planks on the ground, without a bed. Initially, they pretended to be kind and tried to persuade me to eat. When they realized that I was determined, guard Guo Qian slapped me in the face and then inserted a feeding tube through my nose into my stomach. They left the tube there and injected food into the tube every day. 

The tube in the stomach often made me extremely nauseous. It also caused extreme pain whenever I swallowed something, even just saliva, which then led to headache, dizziness and pain in my ears. 

When the guards found out that I tried to pull the tube out, they cuffed my hands behind my back and wouldn’t remove the cuff even when I used the restroom. I once fell to the ground in the restroom. I also had intense pain in my arms and shoulder. The feeding tube also caused me to have a runny nose, but I was unable to clean myself because I was handcuffed. I couldn’t wash myself or change clothes either. 

The room had a big crack on the window. Handcuffed, I wasn’t able to cover myself up with the blanket and I often shivered in the cold. There were two times when I managed to pull the feeding tube out, which had already turned black, while being handcuffed. The guards were infuriated and put the tube back. I ended the hunger strike after 45 days.

A few practitioners and I escaped from the labor camp in May 2002. But the guards soon captured us and took us back to the labor camp. I was taken to a dark room and tied to a chair, with my eyes covered. Xu Hulie, the deputy director of the labor camp, guards Wang Jun, Jin and a few others whose names I didn’t know, shocked me with three high-voltage electric batons. One of them shocked me on my private part. I collapsed to the ground, rolling around with the chair. “I’m curious to see if you dare to run away again,” one of them said to me.

My arms were burnt and covered with blisters. Then, guards Luo and Jin continued to beat me. My face was so swollen that I could barely open my eyes. They then poured water on the ground and beat me in the water for another hour. 

The guards held me in solitary confinement. I again slept on the wood plank without bedding. The pain throughout my body kept me awake at night. A labor camp manager surnamed Wu interrogated me several times and he shocked me with an electric baton each time. 

In July 2002, they transferred me to the Fushun City Second Detention Center and planned to sentence me to prison, even when my labor camp term still had two years left.

Sentenced to Five Years

The Fushun City Second Detention Center is truly a hell on earth. We were only given rough cornbread and soup with few vegetable leaves for every meal. Over 30 people slept in a cell less than 20 square meter (roughly 200 square feet). The crowded space was extremely suffocating in the summer. We weren’t allowed to take showers and my body was covered with itchy scabies. Despite the poor living environment, we still had to do hard labor, which mostly involved wrapping colorful frills around toothpicks to be exported.

Practitioners Ms. Liu Chengyan and Ms. Wang Xiuxia held hunger strikes to protest and were both force-fed, beaten, deprived of sleep and forced to wear heavy shackles, among other torture methods. Ms. Wang eventually died from the torture. 

A prosecutor surnamed Liang from the Fushun County Procuratorate indicted me in January 2003. The Fushun County Court later secretly put me on trial without informing my family. Without any legal representation, I wasn’t allowed to defend myself either. The judge sentenced me to five years at the end of the trial. I appealed, but lost the appeal. 

In June 2003, as I was in critical condition due to severe anemia, I was finally released. 

Sentenced to Second Prison Term of 4.5 Years

I was arrested again on June 20, 2014 during a police sweep by officers from the Shuncheng District Domestic Security Division. I was brutally interrogated and lots of my hair was pulled out.

Director Jiao Chen led five officers to raid my home the next day. They not only confiscated 4,300 yuan and 1,200 yuan in Hong Kong Dollars from my home, but also withdrew 2,000 yuan from the debit card confiscated during my arrest. 

The Shuncheng District Court held a hearing of seven of us on December 16, 2014. The other six practitioners were Mr. Wang Jiaguo, 80, Ms. Tang Hongyan, 50, Ms. Wang Defen, 54, Ms. Wei Shaomin, 74, Ms. Wang Guoying, 42, and Mr. Jin Zhe, 65. 

Ms. Wang Defen and I hired lawyers from Beijing to enter a not guilty plea for us. The lawyers pointed out during the hearing that no law has ever criminalized Falun Gong in China. Unable to refute the lawyer, the prosecutor shouted, “Where are the police? Where are the police?”

Presiding judge Chen Quanzhong sentenced me to 4.5 years on March 16, 2015. I appealed with the Fushun City Intermediate Court. Appeals judge Qiu Zhongcui ruled to uphold the verdict on June 1, 2015, without holding a hearing.

I was taken to the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison on August 18, 2015 and forced to work from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. I developed high blood pressure. I also felt that my thumbs were about to break and had inflammation of the tendon sheath due to the repetitive work. 

The guards arranged inmates to watch me all the time. Sometimes I wasn’t allowed to use the restroom or wash myself. Sometimes I wasn’t given any food or water. On top of the physical abuse, I also faced their pressure to force me to give up practicing Falun Gong every day.

Continued Harassment

Even after I was released from prison, I still couldn’t live a normal life, as the police kept coming back to harass me. In September 2018, and March, April and September 2019, the police and local residential committee staffers harassed us many times, either by knocking on our door or calling us. My family and I all lived in fear and were under tremendous pressure. After having struggled with the heart condition induced by the persecution, my husband passed away in 2021. 

In addition to the prison sentences and harassment, the Wanghua District Social Security Bureau also withheld my pension for four years, totaling 107,300 yuan. 

I practice Falun Gong to be a good person and to have good health. I can’t understand why the communist regime keeps persecuting me.

Related Report:

Seven Falun Gong Practitioners in Fushun Illegally Tried in Detention Center