(Minghui.org) Despite very little news coverage, the persecution of Falun Gong rages on in China. At least 240 arrests, 20 illegal sentences, and 30 brainwashing center detentions of Falun Gong practitioners have been reported during the first two months of 2014. Over 300 homes have been ransacked. Over 10 practitioners have been held in detention centers. Untold numbers have died recently as a result of long-term persecution.

Prior to the March National People's Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) meetings, harassment and threats were commonplace, especially in Liaoning, Shandong, Heilongjiang, Sichuan, and Hebei provinces and Chongqing, one of the PRC's four direct-controlled municipalities.

Below is a small sampling of persecution cases reported in January and February 2014.

Psychiatric Abuse

The US State Department 2013 Country Human Rights Report on China stated that involuntarily psychiatric treatment was commonly used on prisoners of conscience. Falun Gong practitioners currently make up the largest percentage of prisoners of conscience in China.

One of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) lies, frequently used to justify the persecution, is that the practice of Falun Gong causes practitioners to become mentally ill. The facts are quite the opposite: countless healthy and sane practitioners have become psychotic or have even lost their lives as a result of being tortured with psychiatric drugs in CCP mental institutions.

Ms. Xiang Xiaobo

Ms. Xiang Xiaobo passed away on February 20, 2014, at the age of 55. She was emaciated and suffered a mental collapse before being released on medical parole from the Heilongjiang Province Rehabilitation Forced Labor Camp on June 5, 2013. It is believed that during her eight months in the labor camp, she was given drugs that damaged her central nervous system.

Ms. Xiang was dull-eyed and unresponsive on her return home. She ate very little and mumbled to herself. She often tried to run out of the house or stood or sat in one spot for hours without moving. She could not sleep. During the last two months of her life, Mr. Xiang was bedridden, curled up in a ball, and consumed barely any food or water.

Mr. Luo Jiangping and his family

Mr. Luo Jiangping was in critical condition when he was released on medical parole from the Yunnan No. 1 Prison on December 23, 2013. He passed away five days later at the age of 51.

Prior to his death, Mr. Luo told his family that he had been injected with unknown drugs. There were hard, dark bumps the size of grapes on his hands. His teeth and gums were all black, and his teeth were covered with dried blood. The inside of his mouth was rotting.

Mr. Wang Haitian

After Mr. Wang Haitian was released from the Shahezi Brainwashing Center in Jilin Province on December 5, 2013, his health deteriorated rapidly. He had difficulty breathing, and suffered from a severely swollen abdomen and constipation. He died within two months of his release, on February 2, 2014, at the age of 45. Family members suspect that he had been injected with harmful drugs.

Brainwashing centers organized by local 610 Offices are usually referred to as “short-term labor camps.” There, methods of torture beyond the limits of human forbearance are used on practitioners to try to force them to abandon their belief.

Mr. Liu Xifeng

Mr. Liu Xifeng , a high school teacher in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, has become disabled as a result of 10 years of abuse in prison, including torture. He has been held in Xili Brainwashing Center in Shenzhen since September 2013. His food has been laced with nerve-damaging drugs, and he shows symptoms of being on the brink of a mental collapse.

Mr. Liu's wife, Ms. Wang Xiaodong, also a Falun Gong practitioner, was tortured to death in July 2003 at the Nanshan Detention Center. Mr. Liu was sentenced to 10 years in prison at about the same time. Their son, Liu Xiang, was sent to an orphanage.

Death as a Result of Long-Term Persecution

The nationwide persecution has had a long-lasting impact on countless practitioners, many of whom have been forced into a life of homelessness and poverty in an attempt to escape relentless harassment and the threat of arrest. Stress due to anxiety, fear, and family losses have eventually claimed their lives, even though they were perfectly healthy as a result of practicing Falun Gong before the persecution began.

Dr. Gao Jie

Dr. Gao Jie in emergency care

After suffering complications from a stroke and being bedridden for over two years, Dr. Gao Jie , a Falun Gong practitioner from Dadianzi Township in Tieling County, Liaoning Province, passed away on January 15, 2014, at the age of 45. The stroke was stress-induced.

To avoid frequent arrests and harassment, Dr. Gao had to leave home and was constantly trying to evade the police. Such stress really took a toll on her health, and she had a relapse of stroke in May 2010, two and half years after a first episode.

While she was seeking medical care at Yinzhou District Hospital on June 12, 2010, presiding judge Li Zhong of the Yinzhou District Court had Dr. Gao seized. She was then sentenced to four and a half years in prison. She was released on November18, 2010, but became paralyzed and lost her memory and ability to speak. She passed away in 2014.

Mr. Qu Hui

Mr. Qu Hui , who was tortured until he became paralyzed 13 years ago in the Dalian City Forced Labor Camp, passed away quietly on February 19, 2014, at the age of 45. He was finally relieved of the tremendous pain he endured over the last decade of his life.

In the labor camp, Mr. Qu's genitals were shocked with electric batons, causing festering wounds. He became paralyzed after his tormentors fractured his cervical vertebrae.

Mr. Qu was bedridden, unable to even turn over by himself. The persecution had devastated his body, and he endured immense pain.

Mr. Zheng Zongye and his family were forced to be homeless for over 10 years. Due to long-term stress, Mr. Zheng died on January 7, 2014, at the age of 61. He used to live in the Xicheng District in Beijing and worked at the Sewage Treatment Plant in Fangzhuang, Beijing.

Mr. Du Zhiying from Jianchang County, Huludao City, Liaoning Province, died on January 16, 2014, eight months after he was released from the county detention center in July 2013.

After just a month in the detention center, he was unable to speak and could no longer take care of himself as a result of torture. His over 80-year-old mother had to take care of him after his release. Mr. Du's most recent arrest occurred in July 2013 in Jianchang Township in Jianchang County.

After being homeless for five years, Mr. Liu Shujun from Inner Mongolia died on December 28, 2013, at the age of 50. He had been arrested and illegally sentenced multiple times. Cooperating with the local 610 Office, his employer fired him in March 2004, causing his family to lose their sole source of income.

Ms. Zhao Zhiyun, a Chinese farmer from Baoding City, Hebei Province, died on December 26, 2013, as a result of repeated arrest, torture, forced labor, surveillance, and harassment.

Ms. Zhao became sick with an irregular heartbeat in 2012 and eventually died at the end of 2013. Her heart problem started in 2001 during her detention at the Pinggu Detention Center in Beijing. She was brutally beaten and had cold water poured on her after she lost consciousness.

Ms. Wang Meifang from Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, was skin and bones when she was released from a labor camp in 2013. Her hair had turned completely white. She trembled uncontrollably and couldn't take care of herself. Over the years, she was arrested five times and held in labor camps three times.

Mr. Zhou Xueliang languished in pain after he was released from Xishanping Labor Camp in Chongqing in April 2013. He passed away on January 14, 2014. His entire body, especially his hands, was swollen right before his death. His family paid over 120,000 yuan in medical expenses, but the treatments could not save his life.

Brutal Methods of Torture Used in Brainwashing Centers, Detention Centers, and Prisons

During the first two months of 2014, at least 10 practitioners were reported to have been taken to brainwashing centers. These apprehensions took place in Huangmei County and Wuhan City, Hubei Province; Lanzhou City, Gansu Province; Lianjiang City, Guangdong Province; Kaifeng City, Henan Province; Shenzhen and Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province; and other areas.

Most of the detained practitioners were severely tortured. Many families with loved ones incarcerated in Sihui Prison in Guangdong Province have noted that practitioners there were extremely fearful and couldn't express themselves in clear sentences.

Mr. Xu Hongbin, 21, began to practice Falun Gong in May 2013. Police arrested him in Shanghai for talking to people about Falun Gong and the persecution.

Mr. Xu was incarcerated and tortured in Pudong Detention Center for five months. He went on a hunger strike to protest the illegal detention. In retaliation the guards brutally force-fed him until he vomited and coughed up blood.

Mr. Hua Lianyou

Mr. Hua Lianyou from the Beichen District in Tianjin has been on a hunger strike for nearly 600 days, protesting the persecution. In critical condition, he was released on January 28, 2014 because the guards didn't want him to die in the prison. He was carried home from Binhai Prison on a stretcher.

Extortion

Mr. Cui Jinfeng of Binzhou City, Shandong Province, was arrested on January 14 by the local Domestic Security Division and police station. His family had 10,000 yuan extorted from them. They were told that the money would go to the two people who turned Mr. Cui in.

Police officer Bai Ning from the Jinzhou City Police Department, Liaoning Province, has extorted over 2 million yuan from practitioners' families over the years. He has openly stated that the price tag now for release is 100,000 yuan per person.

Li Hailong, a Domestic Security Division police officer in the Daxing'anling area of Heilongjiang Province, arrested Ms. Yang Mingyue and held her in the Jiagedaqi Detention Center. To justify his confiscating the 100,000 yuan in personal cash he found in Ms. Yang's home, he said it was part of a “Falun Gong fund” and threatened her husband, accusing him of “hiding evidence.” He further threatened, “You are on bail right now; we can arrest you at any time!”