(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Zhao Xiangrong, a 40-year-old taxi driver from a city in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, was sentenced to forced labor for going to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong. Ms. Zhao was released in September 2001. In October 2001, Ms. Zhao went to Chengdu City, Sichuan Province to validate the Fa with a fellow practitioner from Xinjiang, Ms. Zhu Yinfang, who was later tortured to death in the Nanmusi Women's Forced Labor Camp.
At about 8 o'clock in the morning on October 4, 2001, Ms. Zhao Xiangrong, Ms. Zhu Yinfang and others went to Tianfu Square in Chengdu City to explain to the public that Falun Dafa is good. They were seized by a dozen or so armed police from the city's Xiyuhe Police Station. They were taken to a big tree outside a row of shabby houses. Ms. Zhao Xiangrong and Ms. Zhu Yinfang were handcuffed behind their backs. At noon, several plain-clothed policemen came and dragged all the practitioners onto two mini-buses and drove them straight to the city's Longquan Detention Center and locked them into two separate cells.
I was being held in the same detention center myself at that time. One morning, accompanied by the clanking sound of a heavy lock and an iron chain, the steel door of my cell opened, and Zhao Xiangrong walked in. She walked with great difficulty since she had to drag two shackles bound with heavy iron weights and a chain. She moved to the rear of the cell and slowly sat down beside us. The police introduced her as "#3 anonymous person." Later I learned her name.
At the time I only had to wear one shackle. It was excruciating when I wanted to shift a little because the iron ring from the shackle rubbed painfully against the bone in my shin. However, Ms. Zhao Xiangrong had thicker legs so the iron rings from the two shackles cut deeply into her flesh. The slightest shift in position was extremely difficult for her. A large section of the skin and flesh on her legs had turned black and were covered with thick scabs. Because we persisted in practicing the Falun Gong exercises when we were free of the handcuffs a group of policemen would punch and kick us first, and then step on our heads, hands and legs to force us to put on the handcuffs.
One morning when Ms. Zhao Xiangrong saw two policemen bash and kick Ms. Zhu Yinfang, she stood in front of Ms. Zhu as a shield. As a result, Ms. Zhao became the target of the police bashing and kicking. The police also used a torture tool made of thick steel wire mesh to beat Ms. Zhao's buttocks and legs. Not long after her legs and buttocks were black and blue, and the flesh had turned into hard lumps which were extremely bruised and painful. Although Ms. Zhao Xiangrong was wearing heavy shackles she always sat in the forefront of the practitioners to protect them. When the gang of between 5-8 police charged forward to beat the practitioners, she was always the first one to be attacked. These beatings were always led by either the head of the detention centre or the male doctor named Tang.
I will never forget the stirring scene of one particular morning. A doctor named Tang ran toward where we were sitting and began viciously kicking Ms. Zhao Xiangrong in the face with his shoes. However, Ms. Zhao sat there completely unmoved and with a peaceful expression. The force of the doctor's kicks made her head swing backwards, but Ms. Zhao would resolutely hold her head straight, sitting as still as possible with a peaceful expression. I lost count of how many kicks to the head she suffered that morning. Her face was full of big lumps and was all swollen. Her lips were torn and blood streamed down. She still could not open her mouth at lunch time so she did not have anything to eat. Seeing our fellow practitioners tortured, every one of us felt very grieved and we just sat there in silence.
There is nothing wrong with a person who wants to live by the Falun Dafa principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance" and there is nothing wrong in wanting to live your life as a good person. We took the handcuffs off because that was the only way we could practice the exercises. As a matter of fact removing the handcuffs was also very painful. The police tightened the cuffs until the teeth of the cuffs cut into the flesh which made our hands very swollen. Every time when we removed the handcuffs the pain from our swollen hands was beyond description. Sometimes the skin of our little fingers would be torn showing the reddish flesh filled with blood. Our actions should have awakened their conscience and touched their hearts, however, what we faced was an even crueller torture device known as the "dragon holding a column" (1). This torture device would make the victims unable to stand or walk. If the victim wanted to go to the toilet he/she had to move extremely slowly. It was very difficult for a person shackled in this way to take their pants off. They also had difficulty eating.
After 34 days of inhuman torture, all the Falun Dafa practitioners who had been illegally held at the Longquan Detention Centre were transferred to a newly built jail--Chengdu Detention Centre in Pixian County. This was at the beginning of December 2001. The construction of the jail cost two hundred million yuan (2). Many Falun Dafa practitioners have been held in this jail. The police guards there are even more cruel.
Ms Zhao Xiangrong and I were still locked in the same cell. Because we refused to cooperate with the evil, either to sit upright with inmates or to number off, one evening when we were just about to sleep, one male and two female police came into our cell holding handcuffs. They ordered the inmates to remove our blanket and then yanked Ms. Zhao Xiangrong from the bed to the floor. The inmates and the policeman bashed and kicked her for a long period of time and then the policeman cuffed her hands behind her back. The policeman forced Ms. Zhao to kneel on the floor and pushed her face with one of his feet toward the cement wall. After all that, he handcuffed her hands in a position known as "Carrying a Sword on the Back" position (3) and left. A few days later, in order to deceive the public, the police shifted Ms. Zhao Xiangrong to the prison house upstairs to carry out further torture and persecution. She was transferred to the No. 12 prison house where the short-term prisoners were held.
At the end of December 2001, a policeman asked me to leave the cell. As soon as I walked out of the door I saw Ms. Zhao Xiangrong. Squatting on the floor she was shackled with the torture device, "dragon holding the column." Ms. Zhao was wearing a wet yellowish army coat, cotton-padded trousers and a pair of wet cloth shoes without socks. Her face was swollen, black and blue lumps from the beating were still clearly visible, and a few places on the top of her head had no hair. Ms. Zhao told me that after forcing that torture tool on her the police ordered the inmates cover her mouth with sticky tape and then a group of inmates started to punch and kick her and step on her body.
She said, "If my head was a ball it would have been squashed flat." She said that the inmates dragged her by her hair with such force that a lot of it had been pulled out. After the beating they poured cold water all over her so that her padded coat and trousers were all soaked. This was during a severe winter. Since her hands and legs were cuffed together she could not take her clothes off to dry them so she had to dry the wet clothes with her own body heat.
She told me of the suffering she had experienced while we moved slowly toward the interrogation room where she would meet the policeman who sent her to the detention centre.
She said she would tell the policeman that it was wrong to send her there and the persecution she had suffered was also wrong. Seeing Ms. Zhao Xiangrong could only move in a squatting position I felt very sad. This was a typical example of how the police cruelly tortured those Falun Dafa practitioners who refused to give up their belief in Falun Dafa.
In September, 2002, I learned that Ms. Zhao Xiangrong was still held at the Pixian Detention Centre together with Ms. Zhu Yinfang. Later they were sent to Nanmusi Women's Detention Centre in Zizhong, Sichuan Province. I have not heard any news about her since.
During the current persecution of Falun Dafa in China, no one knows how many Falun Dafa practitioners have suffered unimaginable torture and persecution like Ms. Zhao Xiangrong! These policemen have actually committed crimes while claiming they are enforcing the law in accordance with the persecution policy from Jiang Zemin, ordering them to "defame Falun Gong practitioners' reputation, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically". We appeal to all kind-hearted people in the world to take immediate action and show concern for the current persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
(1) "dragon holding a column": This torture device is usually only used to restrain inmates who have been sentenced to death. It is a special shackle device designed to cuff the hands and feet together which doesn't allow the person to be able to move except in a crouching position.
(2) yuan: Chinese currency, the monthly salary for an average Chinese urban worker is about 500 yuan.
(3) "Carrying a Sword on the Back": a cruel torture method. The practitioner's hands are tied behind his/her back with one hand over the shoulder and the other hand up from the lower back. The police then apply a great deal of force to pull the two hands toward one another and handcuff the two hands together.