(Minghui.org) Ms. Zhou Yuqin from Hegang City, Heilongjiang Province, was sentenced for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since July 1999. She was taken to Heilongjiang Women’s Prison and is now being tortured for not renouncing her faith. Due to strict information censorship, details about her sentencing and the length of her term remain unknown at the time of this writing.
Arrests for Talking to People about Falun Gong
Ms. Zhou was arrested on April 8, 2020 after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. During her 15-day detention at Hegang City Detention Center, she wasn’t given a pillow to sleep on. The toilet in the corner of the cell faced two surveillance cameras monitored mostly by male guards.
Ms. Zhou was arrested again between December 11 and 13, 2020, and also held at Hegang City Detention Center. Days later, the police took her and other practitioners to Hegang Public Security Hospital next door to the detention center for physical examinations, including electro-cardiograms, blood tests, urine tests, blood pressure measurements, chest examinations, as well as ultrasonography. The police revealed only the practitioners’ blood pressure to them and kept all other test results secret.
While detained, Ms. Zhou was shackled for several days after she shouted, “The communist regime framed Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a righteous practice.”
Torture illustration: Shackled
Videos and audio recordings that slandered Falun Gong were broadcast in Hegang City Detention Center every day beginning December 12, 2020. Practitioners were forced to do jumping jacks. Inmates who stayed in the same cell as practitioners were forbidden from buying food or daily necessities if the practitioners didn’t renounce their faith.
Tortured in Heilongjiang Women’s Prison
Ms. Zhou was later sentenced and taken to Team 17, Division 8 at Heilongjiang Women’s Prison around June 2022. The inmates beat her, forced her to sit on a small stool for long periods, and humiliated her.
Guards never intervened when the inmates tortured the practitioners, even though they could see everything through the surveillance cameras. Inmates who persecuted practitioners were instead rewarded, earned more points, or had their sentences reduced. They were also given more time and money to make phone calls or spend, as well as more daily necessities and food, and freedom to walk around the cell. Some could even invite their family members to visit the cells.
On the second day after Ms. Zhou was taken to the prison, inmate Dong Xiaofeng ordered her to go to the prison hospital for a physical exam but she refused. Dong and other inmates then dragged Ms. Zhou to the hallway outside the cell, and punched and verbally abused her in front of 20 inmates and a few Falun Gong practitioners. Dong pushed Ms. Zhou to the ground and stomped on her. While Ms. Zhou struggled to get up, Dong continued to verbally abuse her. Dong then kicked and dragged Ms. Zhou along the hallway all the way to the ward entrance.
As Ms. Zhou refused to be transformed or write the guarantee statements, Dong and other inmates beat her and forced her to sit on a small stool. She was also deprived of sleep, not allowed to drink water, and denied use of the restroom. Dong forced her to relieve herself in a basin in the cell but didn’t allow her to dump the waste, as to incite hatred among other inmates towards Falun Gong.
During the summer the small room had about 15 people working on making fake eyelashes. Everyone struggled to breathe due to the smell and the hot weather. The door of every room was opened and the smell filled the hallway and cell. Those who had some conscience condemned Dong’s action.
Ms. Zhou was forced to sit on a small stool when she was in Team 17, and beaten every day by Dong and other inmates. Sometimes, Ms. Zhou was still seen sitting on the small stool at 2 a.m. Other practitioners were also beaten or scolded at times.
Torture re-enactment: Beatings
A cart filled with moldy blankets were taken to Division 8 in 2022. The smell caused many to experience headaches and nausea. The guards gave the blankets to practitioners and inmates who had just arrived at the prison. This practice was stopped after a while but Dong took away the new blankets given to the newly admitted practitioners and gave them to other inmates. The moldy blankets that had been used by other inmates were then given to these practitioners.
Practitioners who had just arrived or had not renounced their faith were often taken to the water room, restroom, or warehouse to be tortured.
All practitioners on the sixth floor are being forced to watch videos slandering Falun Gong or listen to other religious seminar talks every day from morning to night. They are made to sit on a small stool every day while maintaining an upright position, and are scolded if they closed their eyes.
In addition to the physical torture, the practitioners are also deprived of family visits and not allowed to talk to or look at other practitioners. Sometimes the inmates who were assigned to monitor the practitioners are also punished if the practitioners don’t follow the prison rules.
Inmates Involved in Persecuting Falun Gong Practitioners
Wang Min, 60 and from Qiqihar, was sentenced to 14 years for economic crime. She was assigned to be a captain and responsible for persecuting practitioners who refused to be transformed or just arrived at the prison. Her torture methods included deprivation of sleep and restroom use, beatings, and humiliation.
Yuan Jingfang, 40, was sentenced to life imprisonment for fraud. She was not assigned to persecute practitioners but actively participated in the persecution on her own. She sometimes pretended to be practitioners’ family to deceive newcomers. After the practitioners were subjected to torture and deprived of sleep, Yuan would take them to a place and said, “My grandma practices Falun Gong too. She often went out to distribute the flyers and even took out 10,000 yuan a few days ago to help the practitioners here. I read Dafa books too and know that you were wronged. I saw that you were tortured by others. You can’t win here, so why endure all of this? I see that you couldn’t endure it any longer so I called you here. Don’t let them know. Why not just write a guarantee statement and then write a solemn declaration to nullify your statement after you are released? Think about it carefully. Don’t tell others what I said.” Some practitioners believed her and wrote the guarantee statements. Sometimes Yuan also prepared the statements for the practitioners to sign. She then took the statements to the guards to get her rewards.
Fan Xiumei, 55, was sentenced for murder. She is in charge of persecuting practitioners and has beaten, humiliated, and abused practitioners. Even some regular inmates are afraid of her.
Dong Xiaofeng, 61, was sentenced to death with reprieve for fraud. She actively participated in persecuting practitioners and has beaten, humiliated, and abused practitioners. She has also forced practitioners to attend brainwashing sessions.
Zhang Yanjie, 62, from Harbin, was sentenced to life imprisonment for fraud. She has been actively involved in persecuting practitioners. She was in charge of cleaning the restroom a few years ago and did not allow practitioners to use the restroom freely. To prevent the practitioners from talking to each other, the inmates also arranged the practitioners to use the restroom at different times.
Elderly practitioners in particular needed to use the restroom in the morning but Zhang deliberately scrubbed the restroom slowly to prevent them from using it. She also found fault in them by accusing them of having mud on their shoe soles, spattering water on the ground, or using the restroom for too long. She sometimes reported this to the team captain so the captain would punish the practitioners.
Li Miao, in her 40s, was sentenced to five years for trafficking tobacco. She became the captain of cell 510 after moving from Team 19 to the fifth floor of the new building.
Qi Xin, in her 30s, was sentenced to 13 years for fraud. She was initially from Team 10 but was transferred to Team 15 in 2021 and became the captain. Qi has always been involved in persecuting practitioners. When she was in Team 10, she often reported on the practitioners, for them to be punished. She once saw two practitioners greeting each other in the lobby and shouted loudly that the two practitioners had talked. The practitioners were scolded in front of everyone, and again scolded by their respective captains after returning to their cells.
Shao Xiuping, 55, was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder. She became the captain of cell 612 after the prison moved to a new building.
Earlier Persecution of Ms. Zhou
Ms. Zhou lives in Hegang City, Heilongjiang Province. After practicing Falun Gong, she strove to live by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance and changed her bad habit of scolding people. However, she was repeatedly arrested and detained for not giving up her faith.
The police arrested Ms. Zhou at her home on August 15, 2011, and took her to the brainwashing center. Deputy Director Zhang Zilong sat on her, brutally beat her, shocked her eyes with an electric baton, and shocked the insides of her thighs and her private parts, while another officer kicked her from behind. He said that if Ms. Zhou refused to give up her belief in Falun Gong, he would order two men to strip her clothes off.
Torture illustration: Shocked with many electric batons
Practitioners held at the Hegang City Brainwashing Center were forced to watch videos slandering Falun Gong three times per day and then write thought reports. If the thought reports did not meet the guards’ requirements, the practitioners were slapped in the face, shocked with electric batons, and tortured. The guards unscrupulously told the practitioners that there were no human rights in the brainwashing center. The guards also took videos of practitioners who agreed to renounce Falun Gong and then used the videos to brainwash other practitioners.
Ms. Zhou was reported on October 20, 2016 while distributing calendars containing information about Falun Gong, and subsequently arrested. She was detained for 15 days at Jiefanglu Police Station.
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