(Minghui.org) In March 2013, about 40 practitioners who did Falun Gong exercises at a Shenyang City practice site were arrested. Ms. Zhao Shuyun, 62, a retired finance professional, was one of them.
Over a dozen Jilin Province police officers went to Ms. Zhao’s home in Inner Mongolia to arrest her in the afternoon of March 21. They arrived at her home at 2 pm and surrounded her apartment.
Ms. Zhao noticed the plainclothes police officers outside and locked her doors, but that did not stop the officers. The officers ordered a locksmith to open the door, rushed in, and pushed Ms. Zhao down to the floor. They then began to search the apartment. Cabinets were forced open, beds were turned over, and even the kitchen and bathrooms were ransacked.
They confiscated her Falun Gong books, picture of Falun Gong’s founder, cell phone, computer, and bankbook and pension certificates.
Ms. Zhao shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” to protest against the unlawful break-in and the ransacking of her home. To restrain her, officers wrapped her mouth with packing tape. This made breathing very difficult for Ms. Zhao.
The officers took her downstairs to the waiting police van, but she refused to get in. Some officers pulled her arms and some kicked her hard, forcing her into the van.
The officers took Ms. Zhao to Shenyang No. 1 Detention Center, which is more than five hours away by car, but told her family she would be taken to Zhaohua Detention Center in Shenyang. Because of their trickery, Ms Zhao’s family was unable to find her for a long time.
Beaten, Force-Fed, and Injected Unknown Drugs at Detention Center
This was not the first time Ms. Zhao was detained for practicing Falun Gong. Since the Communist party began to suppress Falun Gong in 1999, she has been sent to detention centers, brainwashing centers, and police stations six times, for a total of eight months.
She was also sent to labor camps three times. She was held twice at the Tumuji Labor Camp in Inner Mongolia for three years and was once held for five years at the notorious Masanjia Labor Camp. After the Masanjia Labor Camp was closed, many officers were transferred to Shenyang No. 1 Detention Center and continued to torture practitioners there.
At Shenyang No. 1 Detention Center, Ms. Zhao was beaten, tortured, shocked with electric batons, and forcibly injected with poisonous drugs.
1. Covered with bed sheets and beaten
Ms. Zhao was sent to the detention center at 1 o’clock in the morning. Officials from Shenyang Police Department came to interrogate her on the following day. Seeing that Ms. Zhao was not yielding or providing answers, they continued their interrogation from morning until after midnight every day for one week. Throughout this process, Ms. Zhao remained quiet and did not tell them anything.
Two thugs, Zhang Xiaoyi and Li Xiaoyi, showed up. They followed orders from officers to beat detainees, regardless of how old or young.
They wrapped Ms. Zhao with a bed sheet, dumped her on the floor, covered her with the bed sheet, and began to beat her. She could feel one of them bang a ball-shaped hard object on her right arm, causing her severe pain. Soon she found that she couldn't lift her right arm.
More officers came and continued to beat Ms. Zhao.
According to some inmates detained here, these officers were so practiced at beating detainees that they knew how to cause the most pain in the shortest time. Ms. Zhao learned this from her own experience. After returning to the cell, she was unable to move about for several days.
2. Force-feeding
Ms. Zhao started a hunger strike to protest the beatings. Guards began to force-feed her the next day. They tied her up on an iron bed. All four limbs were tied up and she was immobilized.
Guards inserted tubing into Ms. Zhao's nostril, carelessly and forcefully. They then forced a mixture of corn flour and salty water into her stomach. It was very painful. The half-solid food expanded her stomach. The guards did not stop until her stomach was fully expanded. After the force-feeding, guards abruptly pulled the tubing out of her nose. This not only damaged her nose, but also caused her mouth to salivate uncontrollably for a long time.
Torture re-enactment: Force-feeding
Guards repeated the force-feeding soon after that, causing further damage to Ms. Zhao's esophagus and stomach. As a result, whenever Ms. Zhao ate, she would cough, choke, feel nausea, and have a runny nose.
Because of the severe torture and her extremely weak health, Ms. Zhao had to stop her hunger strike.
3. Chained to an Iron Bed
Guards once chained Ms. Zhao to an iron bed for one week, 24 hours a day, simply because she expressed her opinion, “Falun Dafa is good!” During those days, she was denied access to a toilet, had to go right next to the bed, and had to maintain the same standing position the entire time because both of her feet were chained. She was in severe pain.
4. Shocking with Electric Batons
Ms. Zhao once requested officials to release practitioners. A guard dragged her from the cell to a storage room and handcuffed her. Two more guards came, beating her hard for a long time. Ms. Zhao's head felt dizzy and she no longer remembers how long the beating lasted or how many guards in total were involved.
These three guards took Ms. Zhao to the storage room again the next day. The guards had two yard-long electric batons with them. They turned on one baton, which emitted a foot-long blue spark. One guard walked towards Ms. Zhao with the baton pointed at her. Ms. Zhao tried to protect her body with her hand. The guard directed the baton’s spark at her hand, immediately leaving a large burned area.
Ms. Zhao did not yield. She grabbed the baton from the guard and bent it with her full strength. The baton broke into two and no longer worked. The three guards were shocked and backed off. But they immediately came back to assault her. She did not fall down. Instead, she kept calling out, “Falun Dafa is good!” and “Whoever persecutes Falun Gong will be held responsible!”
According to officers and detainees, these guards were from the disbanded Masanjia Labor Camp. They had been transferred from Masanjia to Shenyang Detention Center, and were continuing to do bad deeds.
5. Forced Drug Injection
In order to restrict her words and actions, officials assigned inmates to watch Ms. Zhao 24 hours a day. However, this did not intimidate Ms. Zhao, who still often called out “Falun Dafa is good!” which annoyed the officials. The officials wanted to get rid of Ms. Zhao, but did not want to release her. They tried to send her to prison, but failed. They created a new plan to deal with this dilemma.
One night in late February 2014, an inmate was instructed by officers to report to the guards that Ms. Zhao had a fever and could not get out of bed. In fact, this was not the case. It was nighttime, and Ms. Zhao was asleep like other detainees.
Nonetheless, this gave guards an excuse to inject drugs into her.
While Ms. Zhao was half-awake, a guard injected her with an unknown substance. Ms. Zhao woke up, but she could not do anything—four inmates were pinning her down, and she was unable to move.
Her mind went blank, as the poisonous drug was absorbed and circulated throughout her body. Ms. Zhao felt dizzy, and tried very hard not to lose consciousness, but it was difficult. She tried to recall the Falun Dafa teachings she had learned, but she could not remember anything. Little by little, her mind drifted away. The world felt very distant to her.
Ms. Zhao was not released. The next day, guards handcuffed her, chained her feet, and sent her to the former Masanjia Labor Camp Hospital. Although referred to as a hospital, this place was not open to the public, nor did it have patients. However, a number of practitioners and inmates have died there.
After examination, they claimed she had myocardial infarction and follow-up treatment was needed. “I am a healthy person and do not need any medicine,” said Ms. Zhao. But officials ignored her words. Guards sent her from the detention center to the hospital every day for the following two weeks for intravenous injection of four bottles of an unknown drug. They then took her back in the afternoon. It took one hour to transport Ms. Zhao from the hospital to the detention center.
After this continued for several days, Ms. Zhao began to have an unusual feeling. She no longer felt healthy. She suffered from nausea, fatigue, blurred vision, and unconscious slobbering. She had skin and mouth dryness, but was unable to drink water. Her memory loss was also significant and she was unable to sleep during the day or at night.
When officials found the drugs were working as they expected and Ms. Zhao's health continuing to deteriorate, they released her on March 15.
Many practitioners who had a similar experience often had internal organ failure even after release and died. Ms. Zhao did not know what would happen next. Right now, Ms. Zhao's health is extremely poor. She lacks strength, her face is dull and lifeless, and her hands shake. She is unable to take care of herself.
The inmate who reported Ms. Zhao's “illness” was transferred to another detention center on the following day.
