Radio Free Asia: Falun Gong Practitioners Are Still Suffering Persecution

(Clearwisdom.net) It's been more than five years since Chinese authorities banned Falun Gong as an illegal organization. However, many Falun Gong practitioners still express their objections by means of appeal or written petition. As a result, they are also continuously subjected to persecution. Some have even died from the oppression. The following is a report from Yan Ming, Hong Kong correspondent of Radio Free Asia.

Since Mainland China (Jiang's regime) started suppressing Falun Gong, quite a number of Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned for continuing their practice or appealing for an end to the persecution. The following is a report about Heilongjiang practitioner Jia Yongfa and his younger sister, as well as Jilin practitioner Li Shuhua.

On July 20, 1999, Mainland China started repressing Falun Gong. Falun Gong practitioners consecutively appealed to their local appeal offices for an end to the persecution. They were forcibly dispersed, beaten, detained and interrogated by police officers. In Ren Xingqin's family of seven from Hebei Forest Bureau, Heilongjiang Province, six members practice Falun Gong. On Tuesday, Ren Xingqin told RFA that her eldest son Jia Yongfa died from reeducation through forced labor simply because he wrote a letter to Jiang Zemin and the Hebei Forest Bureau to express his support of Falun Gong.

Ren Xingqin said, "That night, others fled, but he (Jia Yongfa) did not. He was arrested. Then they (the police) began to beat him, forced him to sit on the Tiger Bench. They slashed him with leather belts. He was in extreme pain. He told me after he went back home that they slashed him with leather belts several times and poured cold water onto his head. This was all done by the police. I'm really unable to describe what he suffered. Later, they imprisoned him for one year. During that period of time, he kept protesting and demanding that they release him. He said. "I have done nothing wrong, why would you imprison me?"

Ms. Ren Xingqin said, "He went on hunger strike for 12 days. One day, when they tried to force-feed him, several people were unable to press him down. In the end, he lost consciousness. He was beaten so badly that he lost consciousness. After force-feeding, he was unable to breathe. Then he was sent to Jiamusi City Central Hospital. When I went there to see him, he was tortured to the extent that one could not even recognize him. He was emaciated and his face was sallow. He was tortured so badly. They said that the tube was inserted into his lung and his lung was damaged."

When Mr. Jia Yongfa died, his two younger sisters who practiced Falun Gong were still imprisoned in Jiamusi Forced Labor Camp. Ms. Ren Xingqin said that one of the sisters, Jia Dongmei, passed away shortly after she was released due to the terrible torture.

Regarding the torture of the Jia brother and sister, this reporter phoned the 610 Office chief, Zheng Wenshan, of the Hebei Bureau of Public Security to find more information.

Reporter: Did you mistreat her son and daughter?

Zheng: No, absolutely not!

In Yushu City, Jilin Province, 32-year-old Falun Gong practitioner Li Shuhua died during her imprisonment. Her family suspects that she was beaten to death.

Li Shuhua's father told RFA this Tuesday that Li Shuhua's husband, Mr. Yang Zhanjiu, is also a practitioner of Falun Gong. Their apartment was once the group Fa-study site. Because they persisted in practicing Falun Gong, Yang Zhanjiu was sentenced to seven years in a forced labor camp. Li Shuhua was detained last September. Sixteen days later, the Bureau of Public Security gave the family an oral notice that Li Shuhua had died from starvation.

Li Fuchen told this reporter, from the look of her body, she did not seem to have died from starving. He said, "I figured that she died in an extremely terrible situation. After the autopsy, her stomach was found to be full of blood, as much as two ladles full.

Reporter: When doing autopsy, her stomach was full of blood, as much as two ladles.

Li Fuchen: Yeah. Later we heard that her eyeballs were beaten out of the eye sockets. They later did a cosmetic surgery on her. People in the Bureau of Public Security asserted emphatically that my daughter died from starvation. My son-in-law knew the details. At that time, he was also imprisoned in the same jail. He knew it all.

Reporter: You mean that Li Shuhua's husband knew all the details?

Li Fuchen: Yes. They heard the sound of the beating and her tragic cries. They tightly tied him onto a bed so that he was unable to move.

Reporter: Her husband was tied to a bed and was not allowed to move?

Li Fuchen: Yes.

Reporter: Because Lishuhua's husband heard her cries?

Li Fuchen: Right.

The above was reported by RFA correspondent Yanming.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/12/23/92028.html

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