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The Inside Story of the Death of Ms. Dong Cui
By a Falun Dafa practitioner in China
(Clearwisdom.net) There have always been differing accounts of the death
of Dong Cui at the Beijing Women's Prison in Daxin County. Ms. Dong Cui (also
known as Dong Cuifang) died in March 2003 at the Beijing Women's Prison. The
government produced various documents to show that Dong Cui died from lung
thrombus. These documents include those written by Dong Cui denouncing Falun
Gong, patient care records from other inmates, testimonies from prison guards
claiming that Dong had self-inflicted injuries, and an autopsy report from
experts. It appears that Dong's death case can not be challenged. But are the
circumstances in the reported account what really happened? Ms. Dong Cui, 29, was a graduate student in a medical school. She was also a
Falun Dafa practitioner from the town of Xin'an of Gaocheng City, Hebei
Province. In 2001, Dong Cui was arrested while distributing
truth-clarifying materials about Falun Gong. She was illegally
detained at Shunyi Detention Center in Beijing for two years. Later, she was
transferred to the Beijing Women's Prison at Daxin County, where she was
severely tortured. As a result, she died on March 19, 2003. At the time of
death, her body was covered with bruises, and there was a hole in her head. On the evening of March 18, 2003, Ward 3 supervisor Tian Fengqing and
"collaborator" Li Xiaomei were trying to "transform" Falun
Dafa practitioner Xu Na. Li Xiaobing walked in and said to Tian, "Dong Cui
says she will not give up Falun Gong. What should we do?" Seeing that Tian
was hesitating, Li Xiaomei said, "That's no good. It looks like we need to
apply more pressure tomorrow." Tian immediately accepted this suggestion. On the morning of the following day, Tian ordered Xi Xuehui to torture Dong
Cui in the shower room. Afterward, Tian left the prison with the assistant
supervisor of Ward 3, Ying Cuilan, to get an outside contract for work. Dong Cui and another practitioner, Li Guanhua, were assigned to Ward 3 of the
prison at the same time. Ms. Li Guanhua is still incarcerated at the prison.
Chen Jing was in charge of transforming Li Guanhua, and Xi Xuehui was in charge
of transforming Dong Cui. And it was not easy to transform Dong Cui. On March
18, for the second and last time, Dong Cui wrote statements under pressure and
torture, denouncing Falun Gong. However, Tian Fengqing and Xi Xuehui believed
that Dong's transformation was not complete. At around noon the next day, Xi
Xuehui called together a group of people to a classroom, including Li Xiaobing
and Li Xiaomei, and told them, "Dong Cui's renunciation is not acceptable.
'Take her down' in a while." Then they went their separate ways to have
lunch. Dong Cui was having lunch alone in the Prison Psychological Consultation
Office. Ten minutes later, Xi Xuehui and another prison guard, Dong Xiaoqing,
led the group of people to take Dong Cui to the shower room of an old prison
facility, where she was viciously beaten. Unable to bear the beatings, Dong
begged for mercy while lying on the floor. One of the collaborators said,
"Don't believe her, she always lies!" They continued beating and
kicking her as she lay on the floor defenseless. Later, Dong held her abdomen
and said, "It hurts here." But the persecutors said, "Don't lie
to us," and they continued beating her. Later, Dong stopped making any
sounds. When Li Xiaobing stopped to check her pulse, she realized there was a
problem. It was 3:30 p.m. The prison guards and the inmates tried to take Dong
Cui back to the prison cell. As they were walking, Dong collapsed at the door of
the building. So they carried her back to the Prison Psychological Consultation
Office and put her on a small bed. Someone gave Dong some water. (Dong had
begged for water while she was being beaten in the shower room.) After a few
sips of water, Dong suddenly felt pain in her abdominal area. The guard summoned
prison doctor Zhang Xiao from Ward 3. Zhang immediately measured Dong Cui's
blood pressure, and was alarmed to see that Dong had no blood pressure. A few
minutes later, an ambulance came and Dong was taken to Prison Dispatch Hospital,
accompanied by a collaborator. Upon examination, the hospital declared that Dong
had already died. There was a dispute over the death certificate. The prison
wanted the hospital to state, "Dong died after rescue efforts failed"
on her death certificate. However the hospital refused. When warden Zhang Shushun saw Dong Cui's body, he reprimanded Tian Fengqing,
"Is this how you transform practitioners? How can you beat someone into
this kind of shape?" Tian was called to the hospital from her home to see
the body. The same night, the assistant director of the Prison Administration
Bureau, Gao Jianguo, visited the Women's Prison. Tian Fengquing told Gao,
"It was all my fault." And Gao indicated that he himself also bore the
responsibility. Thus, the officials prepared three different plans for
inspection by the Procuratorate Office. Finally, the plan that they thought
would be the safest and most reasonable was selected. The plan was to have
prison guard Xi Xuehui and others testify that guards alone did the
transformation work on Dong Cui. They also claimed that Dong's injures were
self-inflicted. A few days later, Tian Fengqing and Xi Xuehui summoned
collaborator Li Xiaobing and others who were involved. They were told to create
a patient care record for Dong Cui. This so-called patient care record was
modified twice before being finalized, and after each modification, the brand
new notebook was intentionally made to look worn-out. The final autopsy of
Dong's body concluded that she had died from lung thrombus. With all the proper
documents prepared, Dong Cui's death was claimed to be the result of
"natural causes." Two months passed after March 19, the day Dong Cui died, to the day of her
cremation, May 17. Is this normal? Were they waiting for the family to see the
body? During this period of time, the Procuratorate Office sent people to
investigate the circumstances surrounding Dong's death. They talked with Li
Xiaobing and others. However, before their arrival, the people who fabricated
Dong's patient care records were repeatedly told, "You do not know Dong Cui
died. You only heard that she had anxiety, and was restless before March 19. She
thought about suicide." At the same time, the news about Dong Cui's death
was completely blocked. After the cremation of Dong Cui's body, the prison and
Prison Administration Bureau arranged for everyone to provide the same
fabricated story - "Dong Cui died of natural causes." But Dong's
family remained unconvinced. They filed an appeal with the Discipline Committee
of the Prison Administration Bureau, but got no results. When bureaucrats
protect one another, who can get justice? All the prison guards involved in this case were relieved afterwards. They
thought that the Prison Administration Bureau had protected them. After this
incident, Tian Fengqing was no longer trembling with fear, as she was on the
night of March 19. She became even more unscrupulous and insufferably arrogant.
During the SARS epidemic, she hysterically attempted to transform Falun Gong
practitioners Yuan Lin, Xu Na and Gong Ruiping. For Dong Cui's death, Tian
Fengqing had pushed all the responsibility onto Xi Xuehui. She reasoned that Xi
was getting anxious seeing that Li Guanhua had been transformed smoothly while
Dong Cui had not. In addition, Xi did not report the situation to her in a
timely fashion so Tian herself did not know what had happened. This may be why prison warden Zhang Shushun was relieved from his post, and
Xi Xuehui was transferred, but Tian Fengqing was not affected at all. What price
must a peasant pay to stand up to a government? His or her own flesh and blood?
When the police kill, treating human life as if it were not worth as much as a
piece of straw, and the bureaucrats protect each other by covering up the truth,
there is no justice. "To enforce the law with civility" are only empty words in the
Beijing Women's Prison. We cannot let the lies from these corrupt officials
deceive people any longer. The Prison Administration Bureau only protects the
killers and deceives both their superiors and subordinates. A beautiful life was
forfeited in their hands. Good is rewarded with good, and evil with retribution.
For those prison guards who have the blood of Falun Gong practitioners on their
hands, I want to ask, where are your consciences? And how can you sleep at
night? We want to tell everyone that the persecution still continues. Similar
tragedies still occur. Supervisors Guo Yingchun of Ward 4, Huang Qinghua of Ward
8, and Zheng Yumei of Ward 10 are the executioners of the tragedies. It is said
that such incidents also occurred at Qinghe Chading. The supervisor of Ward 9
there, Cao Lihua, has persecuted many Falun Dafa practitioners with various
torture methods. The death cases are being investigated. Zhou Ying, Deputy Warden of Beijing Women Prison, 86-13701383101 (Cell) March 22, 2005
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