(Minghui.org) Ms. Li Yi from Chengdu, Sichuan Province filed a criminal complaint against former Chinese Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin on August 9, 2015 for initiating the persecution of Falun Gong that resulted in her repeated detention and torture.
The 51-year-old woman was arrested four times and sent to forced labor camps twice between 2000 and 2006. Each time, she was brutally tortured, including being force-fed and beaten. Her husband divorced her in 2001, just a few days before she was sent to a labor camp.
Despite the ordeals she has endured, Ms. Li remains firm in her faith. She laments that Jiang and the regime had turned police officers and detention facility guards against Falun Gong practitioners like her.
She still remembers how shocked she was when a detention center guard said to her, “We all know that Falun Gong is good and that you guys are good people. But our superiors have banned the practice and we can only follow orders. See that rectangular bottle on the table? If the authorities say it's round, we'll also say it's round.”
One Year of Forced Labor After Two Arrests
Ms. Li was arrested and taken to Tiananmen Square Police Station for protesting the persecution of Falun Gong in November 2000 while she was on vacation. The police hit her for refusing to get into their car, and then beat her at the station for refusing to give her name and address. She was also strip-searched by agents from Chengdu in their Beijing office.
When she returned to work in the middle of January 2001, Ms. Li was arrested and taken to Suining City Detention Center. She was closely watched and allowed only water and substandard food.
On March 1, she was sent to Lianhuacun Detention Center near Wenjiang, where more than 200 practitioners other practitioners were held. They refused to enter a meeting room where the walls were plastered with propaganda slogans attacking Falun Dafa and its founder, Master Li Hongzhi. The practitioners lined up arm-in-arm in front of police officers and recited passages from Dafa books in unison even as they were being beaten.
Ms. Li was forced to sleep next to a toilet that night. She was detained for over 40 days and forced to do long hours of slave labor every day. She became emaciated as a result.
She was then given one year of forced labor and taken to Zizhongnanmusi Women's Forced Labor Camp on April 28. Her husband had divorced her a few days earlier.
Third Arrest Followed by Brutal Torture
Ms. Li was arrested on May 4, 2003 by Jitou police officers for distributing DVDs explaining the persecution of Falun Gong. She was handcuffed to a staircase while the officers ransacked her home. She left her jewelry and 7,000 yuan in cash in a drawer when she was taken away. The officers kept her house key.
Ms. Li was tied to a stairway in the police station overnight. She had to curl up to try to stay warm. The next morning, they pulled her arms far apart and tied them to a post with her feet off the ground and interrogated her, demanding to know where she got her Dafa literature. She could not breathe and almost suffocated. The torture lasted more than half an hour.
Ms. Li was taken to Chengdu Pi County Detention Center on May 7. The guards hit and kicked her for refusing to wear the inmate uniform. They also pulled her hair and bashed her head against a wall.
Practitioners were not allowed to talk to one another or do the Falun Gong exercises in the detention center. They went on a hunger strike to protest the mistreatment, and Ms. Li was brutally force-fed three times every other day. When she grit her teeth to resist, they jabbed her teeth and gums. They then force-fed her through her nose with a plastic tube. The excruciating pain made her scream.
Second Term in a Labor Camp
In July, Ms. Li was taken to Zizhongnanmusi Women's Forced Labor Camp for 18 months. She was forced to sit on a small bench and closely watched by four drug addicts for long periods of time. She was not allowed to shower or use the toilet. She became emaciated and constipated.
Arrested a Fourth Time for Suing Police
Ms. Li was escorted home by officers from Jitou Police Station when she was released from the labor camp on September 8, 2004. Her jewelry and cash were gone. She requested their return multiple times and filed a lawsuit reporting her total loss of about 12,000 yuan on January 8, 2005.
Her suit was rejected by the court because she was a Falun Gong practitioner. She also wrote to the Police Department Discipline Group, the Jitou Comprehensive Management Office, and other departments on January 23.
In retaliation for her filing the lawsuit and writing to government offices, the police arrested her again on April 29, ransacked her home, and seized her Falun Dafa books and literature. She was taken to Jinhua Brainwashing Center and not allowed to shower for almost six months.
Ms. Li was transferred to Xinjin Brainwashing Center in Chengdu right after the 2006 New Year. She was closely watched around the clock, forced to watch propaganda videos, and frequently threatened for refusing to give up her faith. In June 2006, she was suddenly short of breath and had an accelerated heartbeat. To avoid legal responsibility, the center released her on June 26.
Background
In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.
The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners over the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.
Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the 610 Office on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.
