Name: Cao Shuangmei (曹双梅)
Gender: Female
Age: 52
Address: Lingshi County, Shanxi Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Death: July 2009
Date of Most Recent Arrest: January 2008
Most Recent Place of Detention: Second Ward of Shanxi Province Women's Prison (山西省女子监狱二队)
City: Jinzhong
Province: Shanxi
Persecution Suffered: Forced labor, beatings, imprisonment, torture, forced-feedings, home ransacked, interrogation, detention

(Clearwisdom.net) I was very sad to read of Ms. Cao Shuangmei's death (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2009/11/13/112353.html). Below are the facts I recently learned about the persecution Ms. Cao endured.

Ms. Cao Shuangmei entered the Second Ward of the Shanxi Province Women's Prison in May 2008. Lei Runxiang, the warden, observed that Ms. Cao was not accepting the brainwashing after a month, so she locked Ms. Cao in solitary confinement on the fourth floor, and ordered three prisoners to take turns closely watching her. Ms. Cao at first was allowed to sleep during the night, but later she was deprived of sleep and forced to watch slanderous materials.

Lei Runxiang then ordered prisoners to beat Ms. Cao, and one night they beat her the whole night. Lei used to go up to the fourth floor every day to ask if Ms. Cao accepted the brainwashing. Ever since she ordered the beating, she never went back upstairs again, and the prisoners were able do whatever they wanted to torture her. Ms. Cao became as thin as a skeleton, but she still refused to accept the brainwashing.

In March 2009, Lei arranged to have Ms. Cao stay in the same cell with the collaborators who had accepted the brainwashing, but Ms. Cao refused to "learn" anything from them. Lei was angry and ordered Ms. Cao to stand in the office all day as punishment. The next day she ordered prisoners to watch her closely as they played the brainwashing materials.

Around 9:00 p.m. on March 16, 2009, Ms. Cao Shuangmei told all her cellmates with all her heart to quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations and to recite "Falun Dafa is good." Lei Runxiang shocked Ms. Cao with an electric baton for a long time in front of all the second ward inmates in the hallway, and she especially shocked her face and neck. She ordered Ms. Cao to be dragged into the classroom where she used electric batons to shock her even more, while punishing all of the second ward inmates by making them stand.

Ms. Cao lay on the classroom floor all night. Her body was cold when she was carried back to her cell the next morning. Lei then ordered prisoners to closely monitor Ms. Cao, and forced her to watch slanderous materials day and night.

The brutal mistreatment escalated. Ms. Cao had been 5'6" tall, but she now appeared very short, and could not stand still or walk steadily, as she was emaciated.

Lei Runxiang, second warden: 86-354-3299768 (Home), 86-354-3299975 (Office)

Written on November 16, 2009