The Suffering of Ms. Yuan Lin in the Police Hospital in Beijing

By Yoko Kaneko from Japan

(Clearwisdom.net) In early June 2002, I was sent to the Police Hospital of Beijing. It is a cruel place, in which Falun Gong practitioners are severely persecuted. The hospital put all of the practitioners in the Tenth Ward, which had no windows. The lights were left on 24 hours a day. There was no air conditioning. A bad odor was in the air all the time. In the winter it was cold and wet. In the summer it was hot and damp. There was a big black metal gate at the end of the hallway. Beside the gate there were two police guards with guns. The bathroom was located right beside the gate. There was a police officer on each side of the entrance to the bathroom, and each was holding a gun.

I was held in the same cell as Ms. Yuan Lin. While I was there, Yuan Lin maintained a hunger strike for over three months and was reduced to skin and bones. The policemen force-fed her every day and frequently handcuffed her to the bed. Every time she was handcuffed to the bed, she was left there for at least a few days and was not even allowed to get up to use the bathroom. The plastic feeding tube was left in place for many days at a time, and it would turn black.

In the cell we shared, Ms. Yuan told me some of her experiences. She said she had been sent to the police hospital from the 7th division of the Beijing Police Department. The 7th division is where the most steadfast Falun Gong practitioners were held. She also told me it had taken over seven months to process her case. During those seven months, the police tortured her in every way imaginable. They tried to get some information from her but failed. In the Shijingshan Detention Center, the police ordered four male detainees to torture her. The four detainees tied her to a wooden board and carried her to a big hall. They force-fed her while one person held her head and another stomped on her stomach. They used a big spoon to pry her teeth apart and jumped on her stomach every time they fed her a spoonful of food. The police then ordered the detainees to stamp on her stomach with more and more force. The torture lasted about two hours. Eventually Ms. Yuan lost consciousness and didn't know when or how she got back to the cell.

Later she was sent to a brainwashing center in Beijing. They ordered three groups, consisting of three persons in each group, to barrage her 24 hours a day with pressure and propaganda. They tried to force her to break from Teacher and Falun Dafa, but she refused. Then the guards took turns hitting her face with the book Zhuan Falun. Her face turned black with bruises, her eyes were swollen shut, and she lost the hearing in both ears. She was pushed to the floor, and the guards took turns riding on her back and jabbing her chest and stomach with their elbows for three days and nights nonstop. They pummeled her so hard and for so long that the skin on their arms and elbows was scraped raw. Only then did they stop hitting her. The torture left Ms. Yuan in serious condition, and she had to be taken to the hospital for emergency treatment.

The police guards from the 7th division frequently came to the hospital to try to force her to write the so-called Repentance Statement (1). One day a few guards went to the hospital and brought Ms. Yuan back to the 7th division. I was worried that they would torture her again. One week later Ms. Yuan was sent back to the hospital and again put in my cell, but her life was in grave danger, as the police had tortured her until she was almost dead. They still believed that they could transform her. When the guards sent her to the emergency room, they started looking for her home and contact information so that her relatives could prepare for her funeral. I was very worried too, but Ms. Yuan didn't die. She gradually recovered under Teacher Li's protection.

A few days later I was sentenced to one year of forced labor and sent back to the forced labor camp.

(1) Repentance Statement -- In this statement the practitioner is forced to admit remorse for practicing Falun Gong, promise to give up Falun Gong, and to never again associate with other practitioners or go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong.

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