Name: He Ximei (何喜梅)
Gender: Female
Age: 58
Address: Nanyang City, Henan Province
Occupation: Business Manager
Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 17, 2006
Most recent detention place: Zhengzhou City First Detention Center
City: Zhengzhou
Province: Henan
(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. He Ximei, 58, is a native of Nanyang, Henan Province. Prior to retirement, she was a business manager at Nanyang City Marsh Gas Utility Company (now Nanyang Gas under Zhengzhou Gas Co.). Because she refused to give up Falun Gong practice after the persecution began, she has been subjected to long-term persecution. Gaoxin District Police Department and Nanyang 610 Office agents still have her on their "wanted" list.
Below are the details of what Ms. He Ximei has endured over the past ten years.
Stripped of her Position, Salary Suspended, Arrested, Detained, and Money Extorted
After the persecution started, the Chinese Communist regime ordered everyone to promise "not to practice or support Falun Gong." Ms. He Ximei refused to comply. Under political pressure, her employer stripped her of her position as a business manager and laid her off. To prevent her and two other practitioners from visiting Beijing, employment officials confiscated their ID cards. They also coerced everyone to make a 1,000 yuan guarantee payment--with no receipt issued--to ensure they would not visit Beijing. Their ID and money have yet to be returned.
In March 2000, Ms. He and other practitioners planned to send a petition to the National People's Congress and Political Consultative Conference to appeal for Falun Gong. She went to a fellow practitioner's home, and more than twenty people present discussed the topic and shared their understandings. At 10:00 a.m., police officers Qu, Ji Yunxia, and Li broke into the room and found the signed petition.
All practitioners in the room were body-searched and their money was taken. Some lost more than a thousand yuan. Ms. Yin Shuang Mei (who later died as a result of persecution) had all of the 600 yuan she made from selling grain confiscated. She was later detained for three months.
All of the more than twenty women practitioners were taken to the police department and deprived of sleep for three days. Their families were told to pay 5000 yuan before they could be released. Police began to release people on the third day. Those who did not pay and those they targeted as key targets were sent to Nanyang City Second Detention Center. Ms. He was eventually compelled to pay a 1,000 yuan "fine."
A few days after she returned home, deputy police head Duan Xiancheng called her at home and ordered her to check in with the Security Division. She was arrested that evening and held at the Nanyang Second Detention Center.
All practitioners there had to work long hours making paper boxes. If their quota was not met, they were deprived of sleep. Practitioner Ms. Pan did the Falun Gong exercises one morning. To punish her, female guard Zhao handcuffed her hands behind her back for 24 hours, which made Ms. Pan's hands swell. Practitioner Ms. Xiao Yongzhen (who eventually died as a result of persecution) and four others also suffered from extended handcuffing. The primary food the center doled out was stale cabbage and cornmeal soup that contained sand. Rat dung and dead flies were often found in the food. Ms. He was released twenty days later, after her family paid a "fine" of 2,000 yuan to security division head Wang Taicheng.
In 2000, Ms. He went to the home of fellow practitioner Ms. Du Xu (who has since died as a result of the persecution). Several officers from Jianshe Road Police Station happened to be there, searching Ms. Du's home. They arrested Ms. He Ximei, Gao Yuqing, who had been released four days earlier from the First Detention Center, and Ms. Du Xu. They were taken to the police station. During interrogation that afternoon, policemen Zhang and Du Siwei hit Ms. He's face and head, to force her into revealing the source of the Falun Gong flyers. They also hit the back of her hands with a bamboo stick. She suffered badly, her face was disfigured from the beating, and her hands were swollen and bloody.
At 10:00 p.m., Ms. He and Gao Yuqing were taken to the Nanyang Second Detention Center. While there, they later learned that Du Xi was badly beaten and sent to a hospital for treatment. Ms. He and Gao Yuqing were detained for a month. Jianshe Road Police Station head Wang eventually demanded and collected 600 yuan from each of them before releasing them.
Appealed in Beijing, Force-fed, and Forced into Slave Labor
Ms. He Ximei went to Beijing in 2000 to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong. She went to Tiananmen with two other practitioners to express their opinions. Police arrested and took them to the Dongcheng District Detention, and then to the Beijing Police Department Thirteenth Division a few hours later. Because of the overwhelming number of practitioners visiting Beijing, early in the morning on December 30, 2000, the police forced many handcuffed women practitioners into police vans and transferred them to Northeastern China for further detention.
The vans stopped at Jinzhou on their way to the Northeast, where about one hundred practitioners were transferred into a bus belonging to the Anshan First Detention Center. They arrived there at about midnight. The practitioners refused to reveal their names and demanded unconditional release. When their demands were ignored they began a hunger strike. The police violently beat the women practitioners, and many ended up with badly swollen faces and bloody mouths. Guard Tang Minzong (in his 40s) kicked the practitioners with his hard boots. He and a female guard tied the practitioners to chairs and force-fed them with salty cornmeal soup using a plastic tube. Ms. He suffered bleeding from injuries to her trachea. Many practitioners were violently force-fed. Their painful cries could be heard everywhere in the detention building.
The guards stretched practitioners' hands apart, tied them to a wooden rod so they formed a human cross, and restrained them on the stairways. The guards dragged practitioners outdoors in winter temperatures of less than -200 C (about -40 F) and compelled them to ingest unknown substances. The returning practitioners were so cold that they could barely talk. Ms. He went to see detention center head Li, and asked him to release all the practitioners. He said, "If you tell your names, we will send you home." Ms. He and two other practitioners told him their names.
Finally, Nanyang City police officer Wang Tengyong, her colleague Wang, and Xinhua Street Committee member Gu escorted Ms. He Ximei and the two others back to Nanyang City.
Wang Tengyong extorted 5,000 yuan from Ms. He' family before he went to Anshan Detention Center. Then he sent her to the Second Detention Center. Three months after she was detained in cell No. 13, Wancheng District Security Division head Wang Taicheng sent her and several other practitioners to two years of forced labor.
On the morning of April 6, 2001, Wancheng District police officers Ji Yunxia and Du Siwei (in her 40s) attempted to push Ms. He and three other practitioners into a police van. The officers dragged them by the hair, beat them and handcuffed them, and forced them into the police van. They took them to Shibalihe Forced Labor Camp.
While in the labor camp, Ms. He's employer stopped her salary. The 5,000 yuan Wang Tengyong had extorted came from her son's paycheck and the employer proportionately deducted it monthly. This made for a tremendous financial burden on her family, especially her two sons. Her second son was so frightened that he could not sleep well and had cold sweats.
Arrested, Sentenced, and Forced to Perform Hard Labor
Ms. He Ximei and her husband, Tie Linfeng, traveled to Zhengzhou City in August 2004 to visit her first son. On the way back at the Zhengzhou Railway Station, railway station staff found Falun Gong books and one of Master's lecture videotapes in Mr. Tie's bag. They confiscated them and detained him. Railway station staff then notified Nanyang City police. Mr. Tie was transferred to the Nanyang First Detention Center and detained for 18 days. Police then extorted 2,000 yuan from his workplace before releasing him.
On August 17, 2006, Ms. He and Mr. Tie traveled to Zhengzhou City again to visit their first son's family. Jinshui Police Department officer Zou Haitao in Zhengzhou City, with others, arrested her. One policeman and a policewoman from the Dongfeng Road Police Station first deceived Mr. Tie Linfeng into going with them. They then covered Ms. He's eyes and mouth and carried her into a police van. At Dongfenglu Police Station, police handcuffed her to her chair for 24 hours. They took turns interrogating her. The next morning, officer Guo Dong said fiercely, "Whether you speak or not, whether you sign your name or not, we will detain you anyway." Ms. He said, "There is nothing I can do if you choose to do bad things. Since I remember your name, if in the future there is something wrong with my health, you will be held accountable for it." When Ms. He and her husband were sent to the detention center, Guo Dong crept away unnoticed.
Before Ms. He Ximei was sent to the Zhengzhou First Detention Center, she was twitching and could not raise her legs, so the detention center doctor refused to accept her. Police then took them to the Dongfeng Road Hospital where police falsified documents. Ms. He Ximei and her husband were thus held at the Zhengzhou First Detention Center. Then the formal arrest order was issued and they were tried. Ms. He Ximei was sentenced to one year and her husband to three years. Ms. He Ximei wrote a five-page self-defense statement. But Jinshui District judge Bai Guangmin and Jinshui District Procuratorial officer Sun Gang did not listen to her statement at all.
While Ms. He was at the Zhengzhou First Detention Center, female division head Zhang Hui forced practitioners to recite detention center rules, call numbers, and perform slave labor. Because Ms. He did not cooperate, Zhang Hui often punished her. She was forced to make over 1000 cigarette lighter heads per day. If she didn't finish, she and the inmates had to finish them in bed during sleep time. They usually had to work 14-15 hours each day. When she was released, she weighed 50 kilograms (110 lbs.), compared to her former 70 kilograms (154 lbs.).
In mid-January 2008, within four months after her release, Ms. He and another practitioner clarified the truth to a vendor when shopping in a mall, and someone reported them to the police. Gaoxin Police Department agents stopped them on the road and took them to the police department for interrogation. Ms. He clarified truth to them and later walked away.
Because she decided to leave home, Liu Tianliang and other officers from the Gaoxin Police Department often went to her home to harass her children. The police even once took her grandson and his babysitter to the police department for interrogation. The police also told her neighbors that whoever reported Ms. He's whereabouts would receive 2,000 yuan. Ms. He Ximei cannot return home. Her husband, Tie Linfeng, is now in the Xinmi City Prison.
During the 2008 Olympic Games, Nanyang City 610 Office agents forced Ms. He's employer to look for her everywhere, and even sent many people near her home or to nearby road intersections to search for her.