(Minghui.org) Multiple arrests, intense forced labor, imprisonment, and horrific torture—Ms. Li Guiyue from Heilongjiang has gone through quite the ordeal in the last two decades for her belief in Falun Gong, a spiritual practice of the Buddha School.
Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, was first introduced to the public in May 1992 by Mr. Li Hongzhi. In the next seven years, it attracted more than one hundred million followers in China alone for its health benefits and spiritual guidance. Fearful of the practice’s growing popularity, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) banned the practice and launched a persecution campaign in July 1999.
Like hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners from across China, Ms. Li went to Beijing twice in 2000 to appeal for the practice and petition for her right to freedom of religion. She was arrested, beaten, and sentenced to one year of forced labor.
While serving at the notorious Wanjia Forced Labor Camp, Ms. Li was subjected to intense brainwashing, forced labor, solitary confinement, and beatings. As a common practice of the Chinese forced labor system, she was made to perform intense labor making toothpicks and various products that were exported to Asian countries such as Japan and Korea.
Unyielding female Falun Gong practitioners at Wanjia Forced Labor Camp that refused to renounce their belief were sent to male wards and beaten by male criminal inmates. Ms. Li also recalled one incident where the guards attempted to send her to the male ward by herself which potentially subjected her to gang rape. This was by no means an isolated case as it has been reported to have taken place in other detention centers and labor camps in China.
For spreading the truth about Falun Gong and the wrongful persecution, Ms. Li was the target of the local authorities from 2010 to 2015. She was arrested, detained, and her home was ransacked. She had to leave her hometown to avoid further persecution.
After witnessing the police ransacking his home in March 2012, Ms. Li’s elderly father experienced shortness of breath and was rushed to a hospital the next day. He eventually passed away while Ms. Li was on the run. Her father’s death due to the implication of the persecution against her faith and not being able to be there in his final days are the two biggest regrets that haunt Ms. Li to this day.
In May 2015, Ms. Li was arrested in Jiamusi for passing out Falun Gong informational fliers and sentenced to five years in prison. At the Heilongjiang Women’s Prison, she was routinely beaten, made to sit on a small stool for long periods of time, insulted and verbally abused on a daily basis.
Ms. Li was emaciated when released on May 16, 2020. She suffers from body pain, muscle weakness, drowsiness, and loss of appetite.
Regaining Her Health
Ms. Li was born in 1969 in Weizigou, a small farming village in Yilan County, Heilongjiang Province. She was weak as a child and suffered from tuberculosis. Ms. Li remembers coughing up blood when she was in elementary school.
After graduating Middle school, she worked at the Jiamusi Second Knitting Manufacturer. She developed a strange condition where she’d experience difficulty breathing but only during the first half of the night and by 3 a.m. all symptoms were gone. The rumor soon spread among the villagers that she was “possessed.”
Doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her but her condition kept getting worse and worse, to the point she had to stop working. Ms. Li felt guilty being the burden of the family and saw little hope in life.
Ms. Li was introduced to Falun Gong in the summer of 1996 and things looked up for her. Soon after she took up the practice, she found all her illnesses gone. Falun Gong gave her a second life to which she and her family are eternally grateful.
Ms. Li Guiyue in her younger years
Ms. Li Guiyue after suffering the persecution
The Good People
Besides her health, Dafa also gave Ms. Li a new purpose in life. She lives by the universal principles of “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance” and strives to be a good person, and a better person.
To protest the village head coming into power without an election, a group of angry villagers set more than 50 fires during the next three years. At first, the village officials and Communist Party members were called to rescue whenever there was a fire. But since it happened so often, the Party members stopped showing up and only Falun Gong practitioners consistently rushed to the scene. Eventually, the village broadcaster only bothered to call for Falun Gong practitioners to help put out the fire.
A villager’s home was set on fire one time. Ms. Li fetched more than 30 buckets of water and helped put the fire out. Winters in Heilongjiang get very cold. Ms. Li’s pants got wet and froze stiff—they stood upright on their own after she took them off.
Ms. Li and other practitioners from the village also chipped in to buy sand and rocks and fixed a two-and-a-half-mile stretch of road for the village. The villagers all agreed, “Falun Gong practitioners are good people.”
Arrested Twice in Beijing
The Chinese Communist Party banned Falun Gong in July 1999 and launched a nationwide persecution campaign against its practitioners. Overnight, all media outlets in China broadcasted propaganda slandering Falun Gong and its founder. Having benefited so much from the practice, Ms. Li decided to go to the capital to appeal for the practice and petition for her right to religion.
Ms. Li arrived in Beijing on May 8, 2000, but was quickly arrested at Tiananmen Square. She was taken to the Qianmen Police Station and beaten in the basement. The police officer was so forceful hitting her with a wooden mop handle that it broke into three pieces.
Ms. Li’s tailbone was broken. She was badly injured in the lower back area and buttocks which did not heal until several months later. The muscles on her left side separated from the hipbone which never recovered. She also experienced dizziness and eventually passed out after being taken to her hometown’s liaison office in Beijing. Ms. Li remained unconscious for a week during which she did not eat or drink.
Her village head Wang Zhongshun and police officer Chen Xiwen traveled to Beijing to escorted her by train to Harbin then by bus back to her hometown. Ms. Li was held at the Yilan Detention Center for two weeks and fined 1,000 yuan.
Torture reenactment: Beatings
Ms. Li went to Beijing again in the winter of 2000 and met the same fate. Village official Deng Huilin and police officer Wei Ziyu brought her back to Yilan County. She was sentenced to one year of forced labor for exercising her constitutional right to appeal.
Forced Labor
During her term at the notorious Wanjia Forced Labor Camp, Ms. Li was subjected to brainwashing, intense physical labor, solitary confinement, torture, and nearly became a victim of gang rape.
At Wanjia Forced Labor Camp, the guards made all practitioners watch CCP’s propaganda programs slandering Falun Gong on a daily basis in an attempt to “transform” them.
All detainees were made to perform intense labor for more than 12 hours a day, however, all profits went to the labor camp. The days were long and the working condition was poor. Ms. Li’s hands swelled after braiding hemp fibers and sewing them into cushions and couldn’t hold chopsticks. The glue used to make plywood made her dizzy and caused vomiting. The plywood was said to be exported to Japan.
The detainees also packaged toothpicks that were sold to Korea. The high-end version of the toothpicks has a plastic flower on one end. One by one, for more than 12 hours a day, Ms. Li made tiny flowers out of colored plastic paper and glued them to one side of the toothpicks before packaging.
These toothpicks were in high demand at hotels to serve fruits and appetizers. While enjoying their hors d'oeuvres at such hotels, few guests think about where these toothpicks came from.
According to Ms. Li, the camp received the toothpicks in bulk, often mixed with dirt and miscellaneous trash items. The detainees were not required to wash their hands before working and neither did they sterilize the toothpicks before packaging. The detainees worked from 5 a.m. until 9 p.m. and only took 15-minute breaks for meals. If a person’s quota was not met, she was not allowed to take a break nor go to bed.
Falun Gong practitioners faced more challenges than other inmates. They were not allowed to take showers for months on end and didn’t have clean clothes to change into. Many suffered from scabies that oozed pus and often bled. Even then, they were made to work in the workshop picking and packaging toothpicks as usual.
Group Exercise Met with Violence
Because of the practitioners’ doing the Falun Gong exercises together on January 8, 2001, guards from all 12 divisions, male and female, beat them with electric batons. The hallway was filled with the smell of burnt human flesh and many practitioners were badly injured. Some had their teeth broken, some had their hair pulled out, and some got black eyes.
The unyielding practitioners were taken to Division No. 12—the men’s wards to be monitored. There, the practitioners were made to squat from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. for 17 consecutive days with only 10-minute breaks for meals. Ms. Li was force-fed and made to stand outside in the snow for long periods of time. She was beaten, tortured on a Tiger Bench and placed in solitary confinement. After 17 days of squatting, the practitioners were sent back to the workshop and ordered to make oversized cushions for large vehicles.
Torture reenactment: Tight Bench
The Division No. 12 they were sent to had been temporarily converted from a warehouse and had no insulation. The temperature inside was the same as outside and the cracked windows froze over. The winters in Harbin, a northern city in China with high latitude, are bitter. The beds were wooden boards covered with thin military comforters. Two or three practitioners shared one bed and one comforter. It was so cold at night that the practitioners couldn’t stop shivering. For each meal, they were only given sour cornbread and a bowl of turnip soup. Rats were often spotted running across the beds.
Refused to Denounce Falun Gong
At around 9 p.m. on January 30, director Shi Yingbai and a group of male guards dragged the practitioners out from each ward and beat them with electric batons. They forced each practitioner to denounce Falun Gong in writing. If anyone dared to say “no,” she’d be kicked to the floor. The guards formed a line and each practitioner had to go down the line and get beaten one by one if they refused to give up the practice.
Ms. Li was punched in the mouth, which caused her front tooth to break and cut into her lower lip when she got punched again. Blood dripped from the corner of her lips.
Ms. Li and five other practitioners were taken to Division No. 5 and made by the male inmates to squat for the entire night. Ms. Li’s legs were swollen. She heard that those who were taken to other wards were hung and beaten. To rescue practitioners that were placed in solitary confinement, all detained practitioners went on a hunger strike.
Torture illustration: Beatings
Squatting and Standing in the Snow
For trying to do the exercises again on February 2, Ms. Li and a few other practitioners were made to squat by instructor Qi Fengzhi and assistant division head Wu Peihua. The guards twisted the practitioners’ arms, tied their hands behind their backs with cloth straps, and taped their mouths shut. They were made to squat at the east end of the hallway for more than 30 hours straight, not allowed to move or to use the bathroom, and not given anything to eat. The guards monitored them around the o’clock and changed shifts every two hours.
The practitioners were then taken to the warehouse before all the other inmates got up in the morning. Gushes of wind blew through the cracked windows and the walls were covered with frost. When other inmates were having breakfast, the practitioners were made to stand outside in the cold.
The practitioners only had thin layers of clothes on and were made to stand in the snow with their hands tied to the back. It was so cold that they couldn’t help shivering and the wind cut into their faces like a thousand blades. Their hands hurt like being bitten by cats and their legs and feet were swollen and bruised to the color of dark purple.
Ms. Li urinated in her pants which made her pants soaking wet. Director Shi Yingbai laughed at her, “Such a big girl and you still wet your pants?” The practitioners were herded back into the warehouse after dark and made to squat again.
Due to humidity, the practitioners developed scabies. Ms. Li’s entire body was covered with red itchy patches and even her eyebrows fell out. Every time she scratched, it left a red mark that quickly swelled with yellow oil-like fluids oozing out.
Female Practitioners Sent to Male Cells
Male guards crowded the courtyard on May 24 and those who were released from solitary confinement in January were targeted. One by one, they were dragged into the courtyard and beaten. Other practitioners heard the news while in the cafeteria and rushed to the courtyard to protest the violent treatment and were also beaten.
Director Shi Yingbai and the guards rounded up female practitioners from all 12 divisions in the meeting room and divided them into groups of seven. Each group was taken to a male division where they were subjected to varying degrees of torture without exception.
Ms. Li recalled being taken to a male ward all by herself one day. Luckily, two female guards followed and questioned the male guards taking her, “What do you want to do? She’s single and never married. What do you want to do taking her to a male ward?” The female guards asked the same question three times and pressed the male guards for an answer until Ms. Li was let go.
Ms. Li’s force labor term ended after a year and was released in 2001.
Arrest, Home Ransacked, and Forced to Leave Her Hometown
Besides resuming her practice in Falun Gong after returning home, Ms. Li also shared her experience with others and openly talked about what Falun Gong is and why the persecution is wrong. For spreading truthful information, she was targeted by the local police. Deceived by the CCP’s propaganda and lies, some local people were also hostile toward the practitioners.
Ms. Li was reported while at Fanrong Village in Daotaiqiao Township on April 7, 2010. A dozen police officers from Daotaiqiao Police Station arrived at the village in two police cars and were led to Ms. Li. Three officers attacked her from the back. She was beaten and arrested.
During interrogation, the head of Yilan Police Department Domestic Security Division Zhang Yingduo grabbed her hair and slammed her face into the wall. Ms. Li felt dizzy and her nose bled. She was held at the Yilan County Detention Center for two weeks and paid a 1,000 yuan fine.
The police came after Ms. Li again in the morning on November 14, 2011. She escaped in time but her home was ransacked. The police confiscated her Falun Gong books and other personal items. Ms. Li left town to avoid being arrested.
While passing out Falun Gong informational fliers in the rural areas in Yilan County on March 26, 2012, Ms. Li and two other practitioners were reported to Sandaogang Police Station. Ms. Li was able to escape while the other two, Ms. Sang Fengrong and Ms. Li Shuqin were arrested and detained at the Yilan County No. 2 Detention Center.
The police searched for Ms. Li, who lived with her parents, and confiscated more than 20 Falun Gong books, two MP3 players, more than 30 bookmarks and amulets, and a picture of the founder of Falun Gong from her home.
After witnessing the police turn his home upside down, Ms. Li’s father, who had underlying health issues, experienced shortness of breath that night. He was rushed to a hospital in Beijing the next day and eventually passed away. Ms. Li, who had left her hometown a few months before, was not able to be there when her father died.
Five Years Imprisonment
While on the run to avoid further persecution in her hometown, Ms. Li found a job in Jiamusi City as the live-in caregiver to a 90-year-old woman of Korean ethnicity. Besides working, Ms. Li distributed Falun Gong fliers in her free time to raise awareness of the wrongful persecution.
Arrest for Distributing Fliers
While distributing fliers on May 16, 2015, at a power plant on Shengli Road, a police car came directly at her. Ms. Li hopped onto her bicycle and pedaled as fast as she could. Two officers in uniforms got out of the car and chased after her while shouting, “Get her! Get her!” They caught up, grabbed her, and dragged her to the police car.
Once at the Changsheng Police Station, the police found in her purse 1,800 yuan cash printed with Falun Gong messages (given strict information censorship in China, Falun Gong practitioners are using creative ways to spread information about the persecution of their faith), Falun Gong booklets, CD’s, DVD’s, and some posters. Ms. Li was strapped to a special chair with her hands cuffed to the sides and interrogated for two hours.
The police escorted her back to her place and confiscated two pictures of the founder of Falun Gong, more than a dozen Falun Gong books, 200 copies of Minghui Newsletter, more than a dozen USB sticks, a printer, three laptop computers (one of them was brand new), four cell phones, four cell phones that were dedicated to sending truth-clarification texts, three MP3 players, three speakers (one of them was brand new), an electronic reader, an MP5 player, a 450 yuan hard drive, a purse, a wallet, a scarf and other items that belonged to her employer.
Ms. Li’s Home after the ransack (undated photos)
While the police searched her home, Ms. Li’s hands were cuffed to her back and she was not allowed to talk. If she tried to speak, an officer to her left tightened the cuffs to cause her pain. Ms. Li was videotaped but her cuffed hands were not revealed in the footage.
By 11 p.m., Ms. Li was back at the police station and cuffed back on the interrogation chair. She was kept up all night and not allowed to use the bathroom until 8 o’clock in the morning. The police then took her to the Central Hospital for a physical examination and dropped her off at the Jiamusi Detention Center at 2 p.m.
Torture reenactment: Restraint Chair
Ms. Li went on a nine-day hunger strike at the detention center to protest. She was taken to the hospital on May 25 for another physical examination. The doctor demanded that she urinate and threatened to catheterize her bladder knowing that she had not had anything to eat or drink for more than a week.
Ms. Li was taken back to the detention center at 10 p.m. When she didn’t cooperate to have her picture taken, guard Zhang Yanli grabbed her neck and hit her forehead so hard she almost passed out. Guard Wang Wengang kicked her and badly bruised her legs—they hurt for more than a month.
Sentenced to Five Years in Prison
Ms. Li was sentenced to five years in prison. After being held at the Jiamusi Detention Center for 10 months, she was transferred to Heilongjiang Women’s Prison in Harbin on March 30, 2016. Ms. Li was routinely beaten and verbally abused daily for the rest of her term.
On the first day at the Heilongjiang Women’s Prison, Ms. Li was given an ugly haircut which was how Falun Gong practitioners were distinguished. She was placed on Division No. 9 (the brainwashing division). The guards made her sit on a small stool all day and she was not allowed to sleep. She was beaten by inmates in her ward if she ever objected or moved so slightly.
The guards attempted to make Ms. Li write a statement denouncing Falun Gong on April 4. When she refused, she was beaten and insulted by cellmate Cai Deyu. Cellmate Zheng Huan beat and insulted Mr. Li every day, up until the day before Zheng was released. The inmates wrote phrases defaming Falun Gong and its founder on cardboard pieces and placed them around Ms. Li’s feet and on her bed. When Ms. Li took them off, she was beaten.
Head of Team 2 Han Lijun was serving an 11-year term for corruption and bribing. To have her term reduced, Han visited Team 1 every day to slap Ms. Li. She had memorized a lot of the language used in the CCP’s propaganda defaming Falun Gong and recited it in front of Ms. Li. While still dizzy from the slapping, Ms. Li was made to copy a statement denouncing the practice. Inmate Wu Guiru grabbed her hand to leave her fingerprint on the statement to which Ms. Li resisted and was beaten.
A few days later, Ms. Li asked to see the statement she copied. She recognized the handwriting as her own but the lines of characters overlapped and were not recognizable. Ms. Li tore the statement into pieces. Inmate Wu Guiru lied and told Ms. Li that she tore someone else’s statement.
Beatings and Mistreatment
The prison authorities encouraged the criminal inmates to beat and abuse the practitioners and promised to reduce their terms as an incentive. The inmates on Team 1 invented their own games torturing Ms. Li such as kicking her all over her body, including her chest and stuffing wire clothes hangers down Ms. Li’s collar. Cellmate Gao Qianquian, Wu Guiru, and Zheng Huan also slapped or kicked Ms. Li at will.
Head of Team 3 Jiang Mingqiu tortured the practitioners including Ms. Li as if she had gone mad. Her term was reduced from 10 to 8 years and she was released early.
Head of Team 4 also paid Ms. Li daily visits. She made Ms. Li sit on a small stool and verbally attacked Falun Gong in front of her. If Ms. Li couldn’t answer her questions, she was beaten.
To make her life even more miserable, the team head put inmates suffering from seizures to the bed next to Ms. Li’s so that she would not get any sleep if her neighbor experienced an episode at night. The team lead then transferred more seizure patients from other teams to place them next to Ms. Li to keep her up at night.
Torture illustration: Sitting on a small stool for a long period of time
Guard Xiao Shufeng called Ms. Li “a pretentious bitch.” Xiao didn’t let Ms. Li order extra food other than her small ration. Ms. Li had rapid weight loss and her belly and chest were sunken. Inmate Miao Hongchao verbally abused Ms. Li every day trying to get her to give up on her faith. Inmate Wang Xinhong stomped on Ms. Li’s toes. Inmate Wu Guiru slapped Ms. Li’s face with the sole of her shoes every day. Inmate Wang Xinhong, Cai Deyu, Zheng Huan Wang Xinhong, and Tian Yanru also beat Ms. Li.
Torture reenactment: Stomping Toes
Inmate Yin Li slandered Falun Gong in front of Ms. Li every day. She followed Ms. Li to whichever team she got transferred to just so she could beat her. Inmate Han Xiuzhi teamed up with Yin and read a repentance letter slandering Falun Gong written by a transformed practitioner to the local 610 Office in front of Ms. Li. When Ms. Li refused to listen, she was beaten and forced to read the letter herself.
The inmates put their legs on Ms. Li’s legs when she was made to sit on a small stool. If Ms. Li pushed their legs off, the inmates beat her. Inmate Sun Guizhi asked unreasonable questions and if Ms. Li refused to listen or answer those questions, she was beaten. Inmate Lian Qingzhi at first didn’t join others in mistreating Ms. Li but was threatened and peer pressured into it.
For refusing to recite the prison regulations, Ms. Li was beaten. The inmates played recordings of the prison regulation and rules at night right next to Ms. Li with the volume set on high. Inmate Wang Li came down from her bunk and beat Ms. Li for keeping her from going to sleep. The inmates and guards colluded to get Ms. Li in trouble.
Helping Practitioners and Clarifying the Truth
Ms. Li was transferred to Team 2 four months later and some inmates followed and continued to make Ms. Li’s life a living hell. The inmates at Team 2 hung their laundry around Ms. Li’s bed and got her bedding all wet. Team lead Han Lijun posted notes slandering Falun Gong and its founder around and under Ms. Li’s bed. When Ms. Li took them down, she beat and kicked Ms. Li in her chest and lower back.
Soon after she was transferred to Team 2, Ms. Li looked into a mirror one day and found her nose bridge bruised but didn’t recall what happened to her nose.
Ms. Li was transferred again to Team No. 4 seven months later. She was forced to help her cellmates meet their quota at the workshop, or she would be beaten. Inmate Sun Shuhua kicked and beat Ms. Li when she didn’t mop the floor as Sun asked.
Ms. Liang Cuirong from Yichun City was an unyielding practitioner in her 70s. The authorities feared that she and Ms. Li would team up to resist the mistreatment, so they transferred Ms. Li back to Team 1. When Ms. Li tried to stop inmates from kicking and beating another practitioner Ms. Yang Shujun, she was again transferred to Team 10.
Head of Team 10 Rong Chunhua’s term was coming to an end. To make sure she was released without delay, Rong beat practitioner Ms. Jin Fengying every day to please the guards. When Ms. Li tried to stop her, Rong screamed at her, “If you dare to stop me, I’d beat you too.”
Despite Rong’s threat, Ms. Li remained kind to her and clarified the facts about Falun Gong to her. Ms. Li’s kindness touched Rong—she asked other inmates to take care of Ms. Li and left a lot of her clothes for Ms. Li before she was released.
Practitioners on Team 10 were made to sit on small stools for long periods of time every day. Ms. Zheng Yingchun’s legs were bruised from the knees down. Her lower legs were of a dark purple bluish color and the skin was dry and cracked like tree bark. The blood circulation to her lower legs and feet was cut off which caused a high fever. Ms. Li made ice packs with plastic bags to help cool her down.
Elderly practitioner Ms. Liang in the next ward to Ms. Li’s was forced fed. The prison doctor used a food processor to chop steamed buns into small pieced and forced fed Ms. Liang the crumbs through a tube inserted into her nose.
When Ms. Li tried to stop the doctor from force-feeding Ms. Liang, she was beaten by the inmates and pinned to the ground. Inmate Guo Yang kicked her left leg and left a nasty bruise that didn’t go away for a long time. Ms. Qu Shuxia from the next ward who rushed over, trying to stop the inmates, was taken back to her ward and beaten.
Financially Bullied
Ms. Li’s cash card was taken by her cellmates on Team 1 and 1,700 yuan worth of purchases was charged to it. Guard Xiao didn’t let Ms. Li include details of the transactions when she filed a complaint to the prison authorities. The complaint was intercepted before reaching the director.
After four rounds of hunger strikes, Ms. Li finally met with division head Tao Shuping who promised to return the money, except that he never did.
The inmates at Team 10 took Ms. Li’s cash card and spent her 12 yuan monthly food subsidy from the government for nine months. Guard Fan Tingting then took the card but lied to Ms. Li and said that she accidentally mailed her card to Guangzhou City and didn’t return it for six months. Ms. Li had to use a different card when ordering food.
At Team 14, guard Li Ying refunded the six months worth subsidy back onto Ms. Li’s card but not the nine months' worth of money spent by inmates from Team 10. Ms. Li tried to appeal to the prison authorities and was beaten multiple times by head of Team 14 Jiang Haiyan and inmate He Haiying, instigated by guard Fan Tingting. He Haiying’s term was ending and as a tradition, she was used by the guards to beat and abuse Falun Gong practitioners.
Mistreatment at Team 15
Ms. Li was transferred to Team 15 where the inmates answered to roll calls every day. The next morning, Ms. Li didn’t answer to roll call or stand in the front as other inmates did. Head of Team 15 Yu Bing had inmate Niu Yu drag Ms. Li to the front of the team. When her name was called, Ms. Li shouted, “Falun Dafa is good.” Inmate Sun Lili grabbed a rag from the bathroom and stuffed it in Ms. Li’s mouth.
Team lead Yu Bing sold overpriced fruit to practitioners who had no way to file complaints. Yu once bought two small bags of dried milk powder to force-feed Ms. Li when she was on a hunger strike and later sold the rest to Ms. Li for 40 yuan to make more profit.
For refusing to wear prison uniforms, Niu Yu and a few other inmates stripped Ms. Li naked and tied her hands to her back using her own sweatshirt. Niu Yu also sat on Ms. Li. This happened seven times while Ms. Li was on Team 15. Her hands were often badly bruised from the tight knots.
Team lead Yu Bing also came up with the idea to have inmates who slept on the top bunk to climb into bed with ladders from two adjacent bunk beds and placed Ms. Li right under their crotches as an insult. Ms. Li went on a hunger strike to protest so Yu cooked up another plan. She arranged for five inmates to sleep side by side with their feet toward Ms. Li. Yu then had all the inmates on the team put their shoes by the head of Ms. Li’s bed. Ms. Li went on yet another hunger strike.
Ms. Li bought a container of dried milk powder for another inmate to compensate her for some food she gave to Ms. Li. When Yu Bing found out, she cursed Ms. Li and said, “You don’t even know who’s the boss here and who’s number two.” Yu order 50 yuan wroth of fruit and charged it to Ms. Li’s cash card.
Ms. Li asked another inmate in private, “I thought it’s against the rules to use other people’s cash cards.” The inmate told this to Yu Bing. Yu Bing told Ms. Li, “I paid with your card for the fruit. How about you use my cash card to order something so we’re even.” When they received the next month’s subsidy, Ms. Li charged 50 yuan onto Yu Bing’s cash card only to find the charge showed up on her statement a few days later. Yu Bing used connections to charge Ms. Li’s account.
From sitting on a stool for a long period of time, Ms. Li suffered from nose bleeds and the blood dried and formed clots. The regular beatings made the back of Ms. Li’s head feel hot and uncomfortable and she rinsed her head with cold water to relieve the pain.
The Final Stretch
An outbreak of the CCP virus (Covid-19) in Wuhan in January 2020 quickly radiated to many regions and more than half of China was under lockdown. Ms. Li was transferred to Team 8 to be quarantined before her release.
She was forced to wear a mask and her face was pinched by inmates and became swollen. A few inmates dragged Ms. Li to the prison clinic for a physical exam. Ms. Li shouted, “Falun Dafa is good. Down with the CCP,” all the way.
At the clinic, Ms. Li was pinned to a chair and two inmates each grabbed one of her legs and separated them. One inmate choked her by putting her arm around Ms. Li’s neck to pull her head back. Mr. Li could not breathe or see. Something poked her throat and she was told she was being swabbed for Covid-19 testing. The nurse also drew a blood sample from her left arm.
Ms. Li was carried upside-down back to her ward and a muscle on her arm was pulled and swelled. Inmate Deng Xiubo kicked her head when she tried to do the exercises.
Inmate Li Jing didn’t let Ms. Li use the bathroom the day before she was released. She dragged and pushed Ms. Li and verbally insulted her. Inmate Zhang Aoshuan from Team 7 joined Li Jing and beat Ms. Li and stomped on her feet.
Team lead Han Lijun told Ms. Li to fill out a form to which Ms. Li said no. Han had inmate Song Baozhu beat her and pull her hair. Four or five inmates grabbed Ms. Li and forced her to leave a fingerprint on the form.
Ms. Li refused to wear a prison uniform on the day she was released and was beaten by inmate Song Baozhu. Song forcibly put the uniform on Ms. Li.
Ms. Li was released on May 16, 2020. She was emaciated and almost unrecognizable compared to five years ago. A month after returning home, Ms. Li still experiences body pain, weakness in her limbs, dizziness, and a poor appetite.
Related report:
Category: Torture of Women
