(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Li Shuming is a Falun Dafa practitioner in the District of Lingbei in the City of Lingyuan (Liaoning Province). She has been taken away by the police many times for practicing Falun Dafa and sent to the local labor camp. Due to the severe torture she experienced, she lost her hearing four years ago, which has brought great suffering to her life. Ms. Li is in her 50's.

In December 14, 2000, (Chinese lunar calendar, January 8, 2001, solar calendar), Wang Chunfu, deputy director of Lingbei Police Station, along with a policeman and Zheng Zhiyong, director of Village Security, broke into Li Shuming's home and took away all of her Falun Dafa books and related materials. They also took her tape recorder. The younger son of Li Shuming followed them to the yard and demanded the tape recorder back. Li Shuming said, "Why don't you demand for them to give back the Falun Dafa books?" So her elder son went out to the police van to retrieve the books. Li and her husband also went out. Wang Chunfu drove away in a hurry.

Li Shuming decided to stay away from home for a while to avoid further persecution. Just when she was about to leave, Feng Guimin, the village head, went to her home and prevented her from leaving. Soon, the police station sent a van and seven to eight policemen. They ransacked her home like bandits. They found a letter from Beijing underneath the bed and forced Li to tell them who sent the letter. They couldn't find anything else as evidence, so they took the letter. They also threatened to arrest Li's elder son. In the end, they didn't take him away, but took Li and her younger son to the police station, accusing her son of "attempting to interfere with police at work" for demanding the tape recorder back.

They beat Li's younger son, threatened him, and forced him to stand for long hours facing a wall. They pressed Li to tell where she got the truth-clarifying materials. Si Jicheng, head of the police station, came over with an electric baton. He punched and kicked Li for a while, kicking her legs with his boots, and grabbing her hair to throw her head against the wall. "Bang!" the sound of Li's head hitting the wall surprised everyone on site.

Si Jicheng then shocked Li on her face, nose, lips, and the back of her hands with the electric baton. In the end, they handcuffed Li and her younger son to the rails of a bed and forced them to stay in a sitting position for a whole night.

The next day, Si Jicheng came to press Li for the source of the truth-clarifying materials. He cursed her with dirty words, and threatened her. At the same time, he was preparing documents to send Li to a detention center. At noon, someone spoke up for Li's younger son. He was fined 200 yuan and then released. At dusk, the head of the police station, along with Liu Shiwen, personally drove the police van to send Li Shuming to the Detention Center of Lingyuan City, where she was detained for 32 days. She was released on the 17^th day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar.

Because of Si Jicheng's throwing Li Shuming's head against the wall, Li lost her hearing for ten days. She also felt muddle-headed. She couldn't hear clearly what people said. After ten days, she gradually improved. In fact, she only felt that she was improving; she still couldn't hear normal conversations. Her face turned black due to the electric shocks, as if she were beaten severely. The burning smell it left made it hard for her to breathe. She had no appetite. When breathing, she felt her heart and lungs were tweaked.

On the evening of September 30, 2001, Li Shuming went to appeal in Beijing alone. On October 3, she was taken back by police from the Lingbei Police Station. When they arrived at the police station, it was eight o'clock in the evening. People from the town office were waiting there, giving her another round of punching, kicking and verbal abuse. Liu Guoying, the female deputy Town Manager, was the one who cursed and beat her most ferociously. They forced Li to stand for two days and nights without sleep by handcuffing her to the bed rack.

On the afternoon of October 5, the people appointed by the Town Hall to administer the Falun Dafa practitioners in Miaodongcun Village went to the police station and interrogated Li Shuming, asking her, "Who gave you orders to go to Beijing? Who gave you money for the trip? and "Who were you supposed to contact in Beijing?" Li Shuming clarified the truth to them and told them why she went to appeal in Beijing. While she was talking to them, Liu Guoying kept on cursing and beating her. She asked her questions while beating her in the face, giving her countless punches and kicks.

On the same day, officials from the Town Hall sent two groups of people to the police station to work on Li Shuming. The first group had thirteen people, the second fifteen. In the second group, there was one person called Li Yunshan. While they were talking to Li Shuming, he suddenly slapped Li Shuming in her right ear heavily. Li Shuming was stunned by the heavy stroke. She felt her ear was suddenly stuffed by something and so was her head. She had an unspeakable feeling of misery. After quite some time, she came to her senses. Then Li Yunshan grabbed Li Shuming's hair and pulled her head to the side. Li Shuming's hands were still cuffed to the steel ring on the wall. The handcuffs cut into the flesh of her left hand. Li Yunshan also kicked her in her shins.

At the same time, Liu Guoying pulled the other handcuff while pulling her wrist to the opposite direction. They blamed Li Shuming for going to Beijing to appeal on October 1, saying that National Celebration Day (October 1), New Year's Day, and Lunar Chinese New Year's Day were all sensitive times to the authorities. Her trip to Beijing brought trouble to a lot of officials in the Police Bureau of Liaoning Province, the Police Department of Chaoyang City, and the Police Department of Lingyuan. As a result, many officials were removed from their posts, or lost their jobs. In fact, they were using this as an excuse. (People who go to appeal in Beijing at other times have also been tortured, extorted money, detained, or even sent to labor camps.) On the evening of October 5, Li Xinhua and Li Xinhai sent Li Shuming to the detention center. In the detention center, Li Shuming held a hunger strike for 18 days to protest the persecution.

During that period, she found it hard to hear people talking. People would yell at her, "Why? You are so deaf!" Li Shuming felt surprised to see people moving their mouths without producing any sound. One day, the doctor at the detention center, Zhou Ping, went to the Ms. Li's cell with deputy director Li Jun and guard Li Junjie, to talk to Li Shuming. She saw that Zhou Ping's mouth was moving with a weak sound. She couldn't hear what he was saying and wondered what he was doing there. The practitioner by her side was anxious for her. She touched Li Shuming and said loudly, "The doctor is talking to you. He asked if you have a headache. Why don't you answer him?" Only then did Li Shuming realize that she couldn't hear. She told Doctor Zhou that she had a headache.

She felt her ears were stuffed and she was very uncomfortable. There was a black swollen bruise under her left knee joint, which was too painful to touch. Her left wrist had cuts. Her left thumb and palm felt numb. She found that she could only see people's mouths moving, but couldn't hear their voices. Others were impatient talking to her. In the end, Li Shuming stopped talking to people. In the detention center, Li Shuming was forced to attend two brainwashing class sessions, yet no one could make her give up Falun Dafa. On January 19, 2002, the detention center held the third session of the brainwashing class. Li's husband was forced to attend too.

Li Shuming was illegally detained at the Detention Center of Lingyuan City (also called the No. 2 Custody Center) for three months and 17 days. She was sent to Masanjia Labor Camp on January 22, 2002.

Li Shuming was detained in Masanjia Labor Camp for 14 days. She only knew that her cell was on the third floor and she was on the Second Team, but she didn't know which sub-team she was in, neither did she know the name of the person in charge of the team, but that person had three talks with her on the 23^rd, 25^th, and the 27^th of January respectively. He wrote down words on a piece of paper to communicate, while Li spoke to him directly. Usually, he wrote a lot of things, such as Falun Gong was determined to be a cult and people were forbidden to practice it. It was violating the law to keep on practicing, and so on. Li, however, just replied with one or two simple sentences: "I think Falun Dafa is a righteous way. It teaches people to value virtue and morality, to cultivate one's heart, and be good. There is absolutely nothing wrong in it." Then the man would write a lot of other stuff. Li would respond with one simple sentence: "Why are other countries not against it, only the Chinese government?" On January 30, the man took Li Shuming to have a physical exam in Shenyang Hospital and decided to send her back home on that afternoon. They didn't let her family know the result of the exam. On February 5, Li's family brought her home.

It's been four years since Li Shuming lost her hearing due to the physical abuse of the police tormentors. She has still not recovered at this time.

Written on October 29, 2005

Posting date: 11/25/2005
Original article date: 11/24/2005
Category: Eyewitness Accounts
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/10/30/113426.html

 Yearly Archive  Printer Version