Forty-Two Additional Persecution-Related Deaths Confirmed in October 2004 (Photos)
By Clearwisdom reporter Gu Anru
(Clearwisdom.net) Non-governmental channels and information published on
Clearwisdom have confirmed that another 42 Falun Gong practitioners have died as
a result of the persecution in China. As of October 31, 2004, the confirmed
death toll of practitioners has reached 1,101 since July 20, 1999, when Jiang
Zemin's political group began its blatant persecution of Falun Gong. The fact that an additional 42 practitioners have died as a result of the
persecution was confirmed in October. Thirty of them died in 2004, four in
October alone. These 42 confirmed cases of practitioners being persecuted to death represent
19 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities: 6 cases in Jilin Province;
5 cases in Hebei Province; 4 cases in Heilongjiang Province; 3 cases in Liaoning
Province; 3 cases in Sichuan Province; 3 cases in Hubei Province; 3 cases in
Chongqing; 2 cases in Tianjin; 2 cases in Shaanxi Province; 2 cases in Henan
Province; and one death happened in each of the following locations: Beijing,
Anhui Province, Guangdong Province, Guangxi Province, Gansu Province, Shanxi
Province, Ningxia Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Autonomous Region and Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region. These 42 lethal persecution incidents have one thing in common: the
practitioners were subjected to both physical and mental torture. These
practitioners suffered various forms of merciless beatings, other forms of
torture, "reforming" brainwashing, and financial extortion. They were
sent to detention centers, forced labor camps, prisons, mental hospitals, and
brainwashing classes. They experienced outrages at local police stations and the
"610 Office's" cruel persecution that conspired to compel them to give
up their belief in "Zhen-Shan-Ren." Many persecution cases were particularly brutal. For instance, practitioner
Mr. Zhou Qingtian from Xi'an City in Shaanxi Province had metal needles imbedded
in all ten fingers, which seriously damaged his fingers. Practitioner Mr. Cui
Fengqi, from a gas factory with the Tangshan Iron and Steel Company, was
abducted many times and paraded in the streets for public display. The police
burned Tonghua City railroad employee Mr. Song Wenhua from Jilin Province with a
lit cigarette and cruelly beat him after stripping him naked. Practitioner Mr.
Ma Jijun from Changji City, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, was not only abducted
and forced into a brainwashing class by the local "610 Office"
perpetrators, but was also sent to a mental hospital where damaging treatment
caused edema in his entire body. He was in torment until he died. Twenty-four women in these 42 lethal persecution cases accounted for 57% of
the total; 23 people were over 50 years old and accounted for 55%. Thirty people
died as a result of the persecution in 2004, and four died in late October 2004.
The oldest was 68-year-old Ms. Mo Jiaying from Guilin, Guangxi Province; the
youngest was 31-year-old high school teacher Mr. Xiao Guobing from the Baihe
Forestry Bureau, Antu County, Jilin Province. After escaping from the forced labor camp, Chen Lijun lost her life as a
consequence of the persecution 40-year-old practitioner Ms. Chen Lijun from Zhengzhou City, Henan Province,
was detained twice at the Shibalihe Forced Labor Camp in Zhengzhou City. During
her detention at the forced labor camp Ms. Chen suffered from all kinds of
torture, including "Tying the Ropes" (1). The prison guards and
criminals punched her chest, abdomen and private parts. They stuffed human
excrement, feminine napkins and dirty rags into her mouth. On many occasions,
team leaders Zhou Xiaohong and Ren Yuanfang incited drug addicts to torture Ms.
Chen Lijun. Ms. Chen Lijun, who died on September 29, 2004 as a result of
the persecution During her second term of detention at the forced labor camp, three drug
addicts demanded that Ms. Chen meet with them in a room on the second floor of a
building at the Shibalihe Forced Labor Camp. They slapped Ms. Chen's face and
punched and kicked her chest and back. As a result Ms. Chen developed a high
fever that lasted for a month. Ms. Chen asked to see a doctor. The check-up
showed that she had tuberculosis. Team leader Ren Yuanfang forced Ms. Chen Lijun
to go to her home as well as to another practitioner's home. The prison guards
extorted several thousand yuan for medical expenses from each of the two
families. On September 7, 2004, Ms. Chen Lijun managed to escape from the
hospital. After Ms. Chen Lijun's escape, the Shibalihe Forced Labor Camp and other
related personnel immediately began to quietly search for her. They wanted to
recapture her since they were very much afraid that their evil deeds would be
exposed. Because Ms. Chen's relatives were intimidated, they dared not take her
in. She had to go to the homes of practitioners who had known her in the past. Ms. Chen Lijun used to be 1.65 meters (about 5 ft 4 in) tall with a fair
complexion. After her escape from the forced labor camp, her complexion was waxy
yellow, her eyes were sunk deep into their sockets, and she suffered from a
distended abdomen. She was skin and bones, her arms thinner than even a child's.
She needed support just to walk. She was extremely weak and her memory was very
poor. She seemed to be in a stupor and was in constant fear. Whenever she saw
strangers she would become uneasy. Ms. Chen Lijun was afraid that she might be
taken back to the camp, so she dared not remain in any one practitioner's home
for too long and dared not publish the suffering she had experienced at the
forced labor camp on the Internet. She feared even worse persecution and greater
suffering. Ms. Chen died around 4 p.m. on September 29, 2004 After she passed away the Zhongyuan Police Substation of Zhengzhou City, the
former "610
Office," and the Shibalihe Forced Labor Camp attempted to escape
responsibility for Chen's death. They would not admit to the practitioners who
had taken care of her or who had contact with her that they had anything to do
with her death. These perpetrators of the persecution also maintained
surveillance on some of the practitioners who were aware of the incident. Li Chunwen suffered and died from brutal persecution Mr. Li Chunwen, sixty-one years of age, was from Wujiazhuang Village, Xiulin
Town, Jingyang County, Hebei Province. He suffered years of cruel and inhuman
persecution because of his steadfast belief in Falun Dafa and died on June 10,
2004. After July 20, 1999, Mr. Li and a few other practitioners were arrested,
interrogated, threatened, and detained. Later on the police released them, but
only after they paid an illegal fine of 200 yuan. On February 9, 2000, Li
Chunwen was arrested again by Xiulin Town Police Station, because he refused to
give up practicing Falun Gong. When it was extremely cold in winter, they
handcuffed him in a cold room or outside, with just one thin layer of clothing. Li Chunwen still refused to give up practicing Falun Gong despite this brutal
persecution. Ten days later, the policemen secretly drove him to an abandoned
office at The Sixth Pottery Factory to persecute him more cruelly. The policemen stood around Li Chunwen. The officer on the left was holding a
stick to beat him, while the one on the right was holding an electric baton to
shock him. The two officers at the back and front were holding a thin rope that
was tied around him and pulled him in opposite directions, forcing Li Chunwen to
kneel down. Then these two policemen trampled his calves with their full force
(Note: This torture method is called "Pulling on Strings.") Six young
men were torturing one older man. They placed a thin rope under his arms, and
while two of them used all their strength to pull him up, the other two stood on
his calves. Such pulling upward while pressing down caused the thin rope to
quickly cut into the flesh under his arms, causing instant bleeding. Li Chunwen
had difficulty breathing and was sweating heavily after five minutes of the
first round of being "strung." He stopped breathing after ten minutes.
The policemen released him when they saw that he was about to die and forced him
to drink some water. If he refused to drink, they would use the police batons to
beat him and the electric baton to shock him. Then they tortured him again for a
second and third round, until the policemen became too exhausted to continue. After this torture, Li Chunwen's body was covered with blood and his mouth
was bleeding because he had bitten his lips from the pain. His legs were so weak
that he could not stand. When one policeman saw this, he said, "How cruel
they are (referring to the head and deputy head)! They have no human
feelings!" While the policemen were torturing practitioners, they extorted money from
them. The biggest amount was up to 10,000 yuan and the smallest amount was 1,000
yuan. If the practitioners paid the money, the policemen would release them.
Otherwise, the police would continue to detain them in the confinement room.
Such inhuman persecution lasted until February 23. The policemen sent Li Chunwen
and others to Xiantai for forced brainwashing. At Xiantai, Li Zhongyong, deputy
chief of the county police department, was in charge. The court, the Judicial
Bureau, and each town police station sent one person to monitor the
practitioners. The practitioners were forced to do heavy manual work from
morning to late at night. The Xuilin Town authorities then took them home and
detained them in metal cages for twenty days. The metal cages were normally used
for detaining violent prisoners. There was urine and excrement in the cages.
There was no place to sleep and the practitioners were not fed properly. The
authorities forced the practitioners' family members to pay a 3,000-yuan fine
before they would release them. After being tortured like this for fifty-one
days, Li Chunwen, once healthy and strong, turned thin and sallow and was
extremely weak. After Li Chunwen returned home, the county police department, the town
government, and the local police station came to his home to harass him once
every few days at all times of the day and night. It was the continuous
abductions and abuse that severely damaged the health of Li Chunwen and his
wife. The relentless and cruel torture so severely damaged Li Chuwen's health that
he became pitifully weak and thin and would fall down frequently. He could not
breathe properly, and his internal organs were constantly in pain. He could not
eat, drink or sleep properly. In this condition, he lived until June 10, 2004.
On that day, Li Chunwen fell down unconscious and died. Qin Jinxiu began a new life after practicing Dafa, yet she was persecuted to
a tragic death for telling the truth Practitioner Ms. Qin Jinxiu died in her home on February 23, 2004, after
undergoing torture multiple times. Ms. Qin Jinxiu was 60 years old, a retired employee of the Fifteenth Middle
School of Wuhan City's Steel Company. She lived at 65-10, 6th Street,
Baiyushan, Qingshan District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province. Ms. Qin Jinxiu, passed away at home on February 23, 2004 In the second half of 1998, Qin Jinxiu was on the verge of death due to
diabetes. Family members carried her on their backs to the Baiyushan group
practice site to learn the Falun Gong exercises. In less than two months, her
diabetes was cured. The persecution started soon after, but she never wavered in
her steadfast faith in Falun Dafa despite the fact that she had only just begun
practicing. She distributed truth-clarification materials in the Baishan region
when the police were monitoring her, and she was arrested. On March 1, 2000, Qin Jinxiu went to Beijing to validate the Fa and was
detained by police in Beijing. She was sent back to Wuhan after being detained
in Beijing for several days. The "610
Office" detained her in the Qingshan Police Station and detention
center, where she was tortured in many ways. She was released after 29 days and
thereafter monitored closely by the Neighborhood Office workers. She was forced
to report to the Neighborhood Office every morning and lost her personal
freedom. Over the past five years of the persecution, police, neighborhood officers of
Baiyushan Street, and security guards often came to her house to ransack her
place, harass her, and arrest her. In January 2003, she was reported while
passing out truth-clarifying materials and was arrested at her house. Police
locked her in a cage designed for torture. In the cold of winter, the police forced her to stand inside a metal cage
barefoot and did not allow her to eat, drink, sleep or sit. They did not even
allow her to use the toilet. Four people (from the police station or "610
Office") took turns interrogating her 24 hours a day. Ms. Qin clarified the truth about Falun Gong to all of them and saw through
their plot to identify practitioners using fingerprints on the
truth-clarification materials. From standing for a long time inside the metal
cage barefoot, her body was swollen, and her legs and hands could not function
normally. The police were afraid that she might lose her life, so they sent her
home. She could not take care of herself when she returned home, and she had
become extremely emaciated. She died at home on February 23, 2004 "We also won't release him as long as he is still alive." Song
Wenhua dies from torture and neglect Practitioner Mr. Song Wenhua, 56, was a resident of Tonghua City, Jilin
Province. Mr. Song Wenhua was an employee of the Tonghua City railroad
transportation system. In October 2004, Song Wenhua was tortured to death at
Chaoyanggou Forced Labor Camp in Changchun City, Jilin Province. In 2003, when Song Wenhua was clarifying the truth about Falun Gong in
Hulutao Township, Tonghua County (a suburb of Tonghua City), employees of the
town government arrested him. He was sentenced to two years of forced labor. Mr.
Song was sent to Chaoyanggou Forced Labor Camp. According to a reliable source,
his health started to deteriorate in March 2004. Three or four medical
examinations revealed that Mr. Song had come down with tuberculosis and some
other diseases. More seriously, fluid had accumulated in his body, filling 80%
of one lung. This was a life-threatening condition, and Mr. Song could die any minute. Li
Fei, a medical doctor who works for the labor camp, said, "If Song dies,
the labor camp will not assume responsibility." Song Wenhua's family
members asked the labor camp to release him for medical treatment. The labor
camp refused, stating that they lacked authority to release him. The family
members then petitioned those with the purported authority. They said it was the
labor camp's problem. The authorities passed the buck back and forth. Eventually, the forced labor camp authorities told the family members that
visitations were not permitted. He was not even given nutritious food. Some
official from the labor camp bellowed, "We don't take care of the old and
sick. We also won't release him as long as he is still alive. If he is dying, we
will carry him outside the labor camp's gate at the last minute so he can die
outside. Then his death will not be counted as 'tortured to death by the labor
camp.'" Although Son Wenhua suffered from life threatening diseases,
resulting in extreme weakness, he was denied medical care, medication and
nutritious food. In addition, those in charge still forced him to do hard
physical labor daily. For more than 10 days, Song Wenhua was feverish, with a temperature above 39
degrees C (102.2 F). He was unable to take any sustenance for about five days.
His eyesight became blurred and his hearing deteriorated. The forced labor camp
personnel did not report Mr. Song's situation to their supervisors, so he did
not receive the necessary medical treatment in time. By the time his family members were allowed to visit him, Mr. Song was unable
to take care of himself, and he had become emaciated. On October 8, 2004, after
about 18 months of torture, the labor camp released him. By that time, his
condition was irreversible. No medical treatment could save his life. On the
ninth day after Song Wenhua returned home (October 17, 2004), he died having
suffered great injustice.
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/11/2/88143.html
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