(Minghui.org) Ms. Zheng Weili, 58, is a Falun Gong practitioner from Qiqihar City. In 1997, she started practicing Falun Gong which she credited for helping her regain her health. Before she took up the practice she had suffered from kidney failure, stomach and heart diseases, and other ailments.
Ms. Zheng was arrested in 2008 for telling people about the persecution of Falun Gong. While in police custody, Ms. Zheng had severe swelling in her body, but she was still tied to an iron chair unable to move. She lost the ability to walk after she was released from the iron chair. Later, she was sentenced to seven years in prison where she was deprived of sleep and left on the floor for ten months. Ms. Zheng was released on April 23, 2015.
Three years after she was released from the prison, Ms. Zheng still suffers severe pain. “I cannot take care of myself. Because of the torture I was subjected to in prison, I cannot lift anything with my hands. My shoulder is deformed from being hung up. I have pain in my collarbone, back, and shoulders,” said Ms. Zheng.
Legs Paralyzed from Torture with Iron Chair
Ms. Zheng was arrested on April 28, 2008, by the 610 Office of Zhuozhou City. She was tied to an iron chair for over 24 hours. Her upper body was completely bounded to the back of the chair with extra tape to prevent involuntarily lurching from electric shocks. However, when police saw that her entire body was swelling and that she had suffered from kidney failure before, they did not use electric batons on her.
Torture Re-enactment: Tied to an Iron Chair
When Ms. Zheng was released from the iron chair, she was not able to walk anymore. She was carried to Zhuozhou Detention Center where she was tied to an iron chair every day. When she passed out, she was sent to a hospital.
Ms. Zheng went on a hunger strike to protest the inhuman treatment, but police brutally force-fed her. Ms. Zheng was sent to Hebei Women's Prison more than a year after the arrest on June 28, 2009.
Left on the Floor for Ten Months
In the prison, Ms. Zheng was forced to watch videos that defame Falun Gong. Because she refused to give up her belief in Falun Gong, she was put into solitary confinement where she sat from 6 o'clock in the morning until 2 a.m. on the concrete floor for more than twenty days. She was then carried to her cell after police forced her fingerprint on a so-called “agreement to transform” which she declared void later.
After another month confined to bed because her legs were paralyzed, Ms. Zheng was put on the floor again. Four inmates took turns to keep her from sleeping 24 hours a day by poking her with sticks. As a result, Ms. Zheng suffered high blood pressure, heart problems, and swelling all over her body. According to Ms. Zheng, “I was so dizzy that the floor appeared vertical to me. I was half-conscious for 30 days; the only thought I had was that I was still alive.”
When Ms. Zheng refused to wear a name tag or answer roll call, the police summoned her son from Shanghai to the prison. He was not allowed to go back to work until Ms. Zheng complied with police demands. Later, when Ms. Zheng refused to wear the name tag again, everyone in her cell was punished by being forced to sit for long periods of time and not allowed to sleep. The police punished everyone on that floor just so other inmates would blame and pressure her.
Because Ms. Zheng was paralyzed, she could not get into bed without assistance. Ms. Zheng stayed on the floor for ten months for refusing to wear a name tag and answer roll call. On April 12, 2015, Ms. Zheng was finally released, but only after her son signed the paperwork for her.
Sent to Forced Labor Camp for Appealing for Falun Gong
Ms. Zheng ordeal began when she went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong in December 2000. When she returned to Qiqihar, she was arrested and taken to Xinjianglu Police Station. They cuffed her hands together and pulled them up from behind, then hung her on a bar of a bunk bed. They used a thin iron chain to tie her legs together so that her body was dangling in the air. They then pushed her so that she swayed back and forth. “I felt all my internal organs were pulling apart. Sweat dripped down,” Ms. Zheng recalled. “One of the police officers said to me, 'I will make you paralyzed for life.'”
Ms. Zheng was sent to Qiqihar Detention Center on January 8, 2001. She wore 50 lb shackles for refusing to recite prison regulations or to answer roll call. She went on a hunger strike to protest. She was sent to Shuancheng Forced Labor Camp four months later.
On May 13, 2002, World Falun Dafa Day, Falun Gong practitioners in the labor camp made banners using yarn from their sweaters. The banners read “Falun Dafa is a Righteous Way, Falun Dafa is Good!” The banners were hung from the windows of multiple prison cells in the early morning.
The guards were shocked to see them when they arrived for work and rounded up all the practitioners. Ms. Zheng and other practitioners were either tied to iron chairs or put in solitary confinement.
Ms. Zheng recalled the incident: “We were not allowed to wash and were only given a little to eat. After 23 days, none of us could stand up on our own. The guards kept asking who organized the activity, but no one said a word. When we were taken back to our cells after 45 days, none of us could walk.”
In the end, all the practitioners had their sentences extended for four months. Ms. Zheng was released in October 2002.
