(Minghui.org)
Name: Sun RuntaoChinese Name: 孙润桃Gender: FemaleAge: 64City: ZhangjiakouProvince: HebeiOccupation: FarmerDate of Death: November 2024Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 17, 2019Most Recent Place of Detention: Hebei Province Women’s Prison
Ms. Sun Runtao was emaciated when she was released from prison in July 2023 after serving a four-year term for her faith in Falun Gong. She told her family that when she was in prison, she was forced to consume a paste drug that left her unable to eat much afterwards. She passed away in November 2024. She was 64.
Ms. Sun of Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province, was arrested on August 17, 2019, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. She was classified as criminally detained the next day and admitted to the Zhangjiakou City Detention Center.
The Zhangbei County Court held a virtual hearing of Ms. Sun’s case on September 15, 2020, and sentenced her to four years with a 20,000-yuan fine on December 3, 2020. She appealed to the Zhangjiakou City Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold her original verdict without having a hearing. She was transferred to the 14th division of Hebei Province Women’s Prison in May 2021.
Both the 13th and 14th divisions in the prison were for newly-admitted inmates, and that was where Falun Gong practitioners were tortured the worst. In the 14th division, also known as the “education” division, practitioners were subjected to intensive brainwashing and torture. After they were forced to renounce Falun Gong against their will, they still had to continue “studying” for a period of time before being assigned to regular divisions, where they were forced to work without pay. Those who refused to renounce Falun Gong would continue to be tortured and subjected to brainwashing.
Details of Ms. Sun’s torture in the prison aren’t clear.
After the persecution began in 1999, the police kept harassing Ms. Sun at home, including at night or when it was raining or snowing. The harassers included police chiefs Yang Zhirong and Yan Youming, local military director Wu Liang, 610 Office agents Li Zhanrong and Yang Zhanlin, township secretary Chen Qingshan, and township mayor Liu Jianjun. They often raided her home, looking for Falun Gong books and informational materials. They also threatened her and her family, attempting to force her to give up practicing Falun Gong or prevent her from traveling out of town. She and her family lived under tremendous pressure and in fear.
Between April 25 and July 20, 2000, the police and 610 Office arranged for people to live in Ms. Sun’s home to monitor her. When she and her husband went to work in the fields, they searched her place.
Ms. Sun’s husband, also a practitioner, was helping a friend harvest potatoes on September 29, 2002, when he was arrested by Tian Qing, the deputy chief of county police department, and Meng Xiangui, the head of the Domestic Security Division. They took him to the county detention center and raided his home, taking away a new TV and a new VCD player, after having confiscated an old VCD player not long ago.
Three days later, two village secretaries, Li Senlin and Luo Yong, and the local military director Wu Liang, held a 28-day brainwashing session that Ms. Sun was forced to attend.
Ms. Sun’s husband was sentenced to three years after 15 months of detention. He was transferred to the Shisanli Detention Center. When it was freezing cold outside, the guards stripped his clothes off and poured 80 buckets of cold water over him. They did that every few days. He was also subjected to daily beatings and forced to work without pay. He wasn’t allowed to sleep if he didn’t finish the work quota. The guards once held him in the same cell with death-row inmates, who hit him with their handcuffs and shackles. After about six weeks, he was transferred to Jidong Prison, where eight inmates watched him around the clock.
Ms. Sun went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong on November 22, 2004. She was arrested on Tiananmen Square, escorted home, and given one year in the Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp. She was forced to do all kinds of work in the labor camp, including cutting grass, feeding the pigs, and binding books. Sometimes she had to work in the fields in the heat of summer. The guards also randomly ordered her and other female practitioners to remove their clothes for body searches. If they didn’t follow the guards’ orders to the letter, they would be beaten, shocked with electric batons, or forced to stand or sit on a small stool for long hours without moving.
When Ms. Sun was released on October 5, 2005, her home was dilapidated and she couldn’t even afford to buy food.
Ms. Sun was arrested again on July 25, 2008, while cooking at home. She was held in the Xiaohezi Township Brainwashing Center for two months.
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