By a Falun Dafa practitioner from China

Liu Limei

(Clearwisdon.net) One day in 2001, Ms. Liu Limei was taken against her will to the Second Detention Center in Harbin City (Heilongjiang Province) by the Department of Defense of Northeastern Agricultural University. She was sentenced to the Harbin City Wanjia Forced Labor Camp without proper legal procedure. In the forced labor camp, any Falun Dafa practitioner who refused to renounce their belief was tortured with various types of brutal methods. Some of the torture methods included: being beaten and cursed at, being beaten while being hung up in the air or handcuffed, forced sitting on the "Tiger Bench"* for an extended period of time, being hung for four or five days without being released (the practitioners had to urinate and defecate in their pants), and being locked in a solitary confinement cell. The practitioners weren't allowed to see their families and weren't allowed to leave until they had signed statements renouncing their belief in Falun Dafa.

Liu Limei suffered tremendously from the inhuman torture she received while detained in Harbin City's Wanjia Forced Labor Camp, but she never renounced her belief. In protest of the persecution, she went on a hunger strike for seven months. She was held by eight people and was force-fed rice soup through a tube to her stomach. She was tortured so badly that she couldn't walk and her weight was less than 20 kilograms. She wasn't released until she almost died. After being taken home by her family, she recovered totally in only one month after practicing the Falun Dafa exercises. The policemen from the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp wanted to arrest her again. To avoid this, she had to leave her home.

During the Chinese New Year Holidays of 2003, the authorities seized Liu Limei again. She was tortured to death while being detained at the Second Detention Center in Harbin City on August 12, 2003. When Liu Limei was in serious condition, needing a blood transfusion and emergency medical treatment in a hospital, the police and the "610 Office"** refused to allow it. While Liu Limei was unconscious, the authorities still interrogated her about whether she practiced Falun Gong. After she died, the police ordered the family not to discuss her death with anyone and refused the family permission to see her before she died. A cordon of policemen prevented the family from viewing her body.

Li Jiyu, the police from the Defense Department of Northeastern Agricultural University is one of main criminals responsible for Liu Limei's death. Li Jiyu kidnapped Liu Limei and put her in jail simply because she followed the Falun Dafa principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.

*Practitioners are forced to sit on a small iron bench that is approximately 20 cm (6 inches) tall with their knees tied together. With their hands tied behind their backs or sometimes placed on their knees, they are forced to sit straight up and look straight ahead. They are not allowed to turn their heads, close their eyes, talk to anyone or move at all. Several inmates are assigned to watch over and force the practitioners to remain motionless while sitting on the bench. Usually some hard objects are inserted underneath the practitioners' lower legs or ankles to make it harder for them to tolerate this abuse.

**610 Office: an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.