Yang Xiulian - 杨秀莲
(Minghui.org) My mother Ms. Yang Xiulian, in her 60s in March 2000, was arrested for peacefully protesting for the right to practice Falun Gong in Beijing. She was illegally detained for one month in the Hanzhong Detention Center. Her home was ransacked and many Falun Gong books were confiscated.
Then, my mother and I were illegally arrested in 2002 for distributing Falun Gong informational materials, but detained in different cells in the detention center. Guards ordered inmates to physically and mentally abuse us.
My mother was tortured. She had to remain in fixed positions, such as squatting, standing, or bending, for extended periods of time. The inmates also struck my mother in the throat, which made her unable to speak for months. She also developed bronchitis and asthma.
The worst ordeal was sexual assault with a toothbrush. The guards forced her to stand spread-eagled against a wall while four inmates held her four limbs. Two other inmates pushed a toothbrush into her vagina and moved it around.
My mother was sentenced to two years of forced labor in 2003 and taken to the Shaanxi Women's Labor Camp. When she was released in January 2004, she was emaciated and could only move slowly.
The trauma from the torture left her deeply scarred, and eventually robbed her of her life. She passed away on March 28, 2008. She was still being harassed, and her home was ransacked two months before she died.
