Name: Liu Qingxiang (刘庆香)
Gender: Female
Age: 55
Address: Qinghe District, Tieling City, Liaoning Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: March 18, 2002
Most Recent Place of Detention: Dabei Prison (大北监狱)
City: Shenyang
Province: Liaoning
Persecution Suffered: Detention, long-term standing, extortion, forced-feedings, forced labor, electric shocks, physical constraint, brainwashing, denied visitation, hanging by handcuffed wrists, interrogation, sleep deprivation, illegal sentencing, home ransacked.
(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Liu Qingxiang was imprisoned at Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province in November 1999 because she practices of Falun Gong. She was later released because she suffered a severe mental collapse as a result of torture and abuse in detention. After she recovered to a certain degree, Ms. Liu was sentenced to imprisonment again for five years in March 2002.
Map of Tieling City, Liaoning Province
Sentenced to Forced Labor for Her Belief
Ms. Liu Qingxiang went to Beijing to appeal against the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, but was arrested by plainclothes police officers in Beijing. She was sent to an isolated, abandoned house in rural Beijing by staff from the Liaoning Provincial Office in Beijing. In the damp and dark house, more than forty Falun Gong practitioners from Liaoning were detained. They were forced to sit on the cold cement floor. The detained practitioners were deprived of water and food for over two days. Ms. Liu was forced to take off her shoes and stand outside for twelve hours, then one night she was transferred to Jingzhou City. Two police officers, Zhang and Song, then took her to the local Qinghe Detention Center. The Qinghe Police Station extorted the Liu family for 5,000 yuan, and Ms. Liu was released after 15 days of detention. Upon learning the truth about the persecution, the Liu family demanded that the police return the money extorted from them.
In October 1999, Liu Qingxiang received a call from her supervisor Tan Xiwen at the local Food Bureau, asking her to come to her workplace. After she arrived, Tan Xiwen asked Ms. Liu if she was still practicing Falun Gong, and she answered “yes”. Immediately, the police officers who had been hiding in the next room ran in and took her to the Qinghe Detention Center. Fifteen days later, in November 1999, Ms. Liu was sent to Masanjia Forced Labor Camp by police officers Liu Yongren and Wang Leiqiang. In the following year of her imprisonment, her family was harassed, threatened, and extorted for money by the authorities.
Tortured to Mental Collapse in Masanjia Forced Labor Camp
In Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, Ms. Liu Qingxiang refused to recite the labor camp rules. Therefore, she and five other Falun Gong practitioners who also refused to do so were tortured by being forced to stand bending down, with the tips of their feet lifted and their hands touching their heels. They were forced to maintain this posture from morning until midnight, watched by inmates who had received instructions from the guards.
Practitioners in the camp started a hunger strike to protest the persecution, and the camp guards performed brutal forced-feeding on them. Ms. Liu's hands and feet were tied to a bed by guards and inmates, then four or five inmates stuck a feeding tube into her nose or mouth. Ms. Liu's nose and mouth bled terribly. Other practitioners suffered similar torture.
Ms. Liu Qingxiang, Qu Jiao, Li Guiying and a dozen other practitioners were later sent to work at a garment workshop. The practitioners protested the forced labor and demanded the right to practice the Falun Gong exercises. Led by warden Zhang Guorong, a group of inmates stripped the practitioners of their clothes, leaving only their underwear on, then forced them to sit on the ground in the snow. Their underwear became frozen under their bodies.
Because of her steadfast belief and refusal to renounce Falun Gong, the guards often tortured Liu Qingxiang with electric shocks. Once, she was brought to a cell used for torturing practitioners, where her arms were tied behind her back and her legs were tied together. Guard Zhang Guorong shocked Ms. Liu's back, neck, ears, face, hands, and feet. While shocking her with electric batons, Zhang kept yelling, “Do you still want to practice Falun Gong?!”
Once, Ms. Liu was dragged into an office because she had refused to do the forced labor. Again, her arms and legs were tied up and her clothes were taken off by inmates, and Zhang Guorong tortured Ms. Liu with electric shocks. The camp director, Zhang Bin, also took part in the torture. She pointed to Ms. Liu's breasts with an electric baton and threatened to shock her more if Ms. Liu continued refusing to do the forced labor.
Ms. Liu was then handcuffed to a heater, in a position in which she was unable to stand up or sit down. All family visitation was denied for her by the camp.
A female Falun Gong practitioner in her 60s was dragged out of her cell and thrown into the hallway by a male guard just because she had been reciting Falun Gong teachings. Then the warden stepped on this older lady's head.
Practitioner Li Guiying, also in her 60s, protested the forced labor and demanded her unconditional release. In retaliation, she was locked in an extremely small cell in which she could not stand up straight. She was denied use of the restroom, and had to relieve herself in the same cell. Ms. Li was not given enough food, and the guards tortured her with electric shocks every morning.
Ms. Liu Qingxiang was tortured intensively with physical brutality and brainwashing every day. In less than a year, she suffered from a severe mental collapse, and the camp finally released her.
Sentenced Again for Her Belief
Ms. Liu regained her mental health to a degree after returning home. However, she was arrested again by the Tieling Police because a taxi driver reported her on March 18, 2002, when she was talking to him about Falun Gong. In a room on the fourth floor of the Yinzhou District Police Station, Tieling, Liu Qingxiang was tortured by being hung on the wall for a whole night. Then she was locked in a small cage that did not allow an adult to stand up straight. Later, she was tied to a chair and interrogated for four days and four nights without sleep.
Liu Qingxiang was then sentenced to five years of imprisonment with an unclear charge. Police officer Liu Yongren and others from the Qinghe Police Station ransacked her home twice, and her husband, who was not a Falun Gong practitioner, was detained for seven days by the police.
Ms. Liu was sent to the Dabei Prison on October 10, 2002.
