(Clearwisdom.net)

Ms. Yu Xiuhua, 69, was a resident of the Yiyuan Residential Area, Weicheng District, Weifang City, Shandong Province. Ms. Yu began to practice Falun Gong in 1996. In 2000 she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong but was arrested and detained at the Chengguan Street Committee of the Weicheng District (where practitioner Ms. Chen Zixiu was beaten to death). Since she refused to renounce Falun Gong, she was brutally tortured. Her left arm was broken in a beating. Ms. Yu was later detained again for posting Falun Gong flyers.

At the end of 2007, several police officers ransacked her home and confiscated Falun Gong books, truth-clarification materials, and a portrait of the founder of Falun Gong. On February 10, 2008, she was reported to the authorities for clarifying the truth about Falun Gong in public. When the police arrested her, they shoved her into the police car so hard that she lost consciousness. She was taken to the hospital for treatment. After she came to she saw a police officer in her room to guard her. She escaped when she had a chance to go to the restroom.

Under the pretext of "a Safe Olympics," officers from the Chengguan Street Committee often went to Ms. Yu's home to harass her. She lived in fear and was under constant pressure. She had been healthy, without any history of heart disease, but after being persecuted several times, she developed symptoms of severe heart disease. She became very weak and thin. On June 14, 2008, Ms. Yu fell into a coma. She passed away on June 21, 2008.

Ms. Chen Lianfeng, 64, was a former employee of the Second Institute of the Aviation Department. Before she began to practice Falun Gong, she had nephritis and other illnesses. In 1992, she attended the second Falun Gong class that Master taught in Beijing and started practicing. She changed dramatically, both physically and mentally. Later, her husband and two daughters began to practice Falun Gong as well. They also set up a Fa study group in their home. The whole family lived very happily.

After the persecution of Falun Gong started in 1999, the officials at her workplace forced her to go to brainwashing centers several times. Her family was under great stress. At the beginning of June 2008, Ms. Chen showed severe symptoms of illness and was not able to eat for several days. A week before she passed away, officials from her workplace went to her home to "educate" her and warned her to not cause trouble during the Olympics. This caused her even greater stress and she became weaker. After being persecuted for nine years, Ms. Chen passed away on June 26, 2008.

Mr. Liu Chunqing was from Huimin County, Binzhou City, Shandong Province. Between 1999 and 2002, Mr. Liu was constantly persecuted. In December 2000, he was detained in the Huimin County Police Department for nearly a month and was very cruelly tortured. His daughter had money extorted from her in order to get him released at the end of 2000. At the beginning of 2002, he was arrested and taken to a brainwashing session at the Huimin County Police Department. Because Mr. Liu refused to give in despite torture and humiliation, he was severely beaten many times. After that he was taken to the police station from his home several times after 10:00 p.m. and tortured. He suffered physically and mentally. On July 12, 2003, Mr. Liu passed away at home at the age of 66.

A practitioner was recently tortured to death in the Eighth Division of Liaoning Province Women's Prison. To prevent the news from being made public, those in charge canceled visits for all the prisoners and cut off all communication between the prisoners and the outside.

The methods of torture frequently used in the Eighth Division include stripping off practitioners' clothes and pushing them under the beds, pouring cold water on them, freezing them outside during winter, and ordering other prisoners to beat them. The director of the Eighth Division is Zou Xiaoyan. The director of the prison is Yang Li, and the Party secretary of the prison is Fang Shuxia. Xu Min and Xu Jianmei are the deputy directors of the prison, and Xu Weiguo is the deputy governor of Liaoning Province. Zhang Jiacheng is the director of the Judicial Office of Liaoning Province, Chen Taibao is the director of the Judicial Office of Liaoning Province and the director of the Prison Management Bureau, and Guo Changqing is the Party secretary of the Judicial Office of Liaoning Province.

During the past two years, when the ratio of Falun Gong prisoners giving up their practice became important data in the selection of model prisons, the government designated Liaoning Province Women's Prison as a model prison. In each division, the prison police directly participated in the persecution of practitioners or they instigated other prisoners to do it. The model units or persons who persecuted practitioners were rewarded with special bonuses. The Eighth Division was the model female unit for the persecution of Falun Gong. The 610 Office also arranged for prisoners from other divisions to come learn new tactics to torment practitioners.

Officials from the Ninth Division sent prisoners to the Eighth Division to learn, including murderer Jiang Ping, rapist Dong Jing, and drug dealer Yang Dongme. They used to brutally beat and kick practitioners. After learning from the Eighth Division, they put ice cubes on practitioners' feet which cause several practitioners feet to rot. To try to force Ms. Zhao Guohui to renounce Falun Gong, they confined her in a tiny cell, did not allow her to sleep, and forced her to squat. They kicked her knees, legs, elbows, breasts, head, neck, and private parts. At the beginning, they tortured practitioners three times a day. Later they tortured practitioners any time they felt like it. They tied up practitioners' arms and legs and poured cold water on them after stripping off their clothes. They taped practitioners' mouths to prevent them from crying out. They forced them to squat in the cold water. If practitioners were not able to maintain the squatting position, they beat them. Jiang Ping broke her shoe beating practitioners with it, and she also used her belt to whip them. When she was tired, she went to sleep. When she woke up, she cursed the founder of Falun Gong. When practitioners tried to stop her, she started to beat them again. The director of the Ninth Division is Wu Li and the chief of the education section is LI Queqiao.