(Minghui.org) After going on a hunger strike to protest her illegal imprisonment, a woman in Hunan Provincial Women’s Prison was force-fed, confined in a straitjacket, and forbidden to wash herself or use the bathroom for two months. Her fingers were fractured, and half of her hair turned white from the torture.
Ms. Jin Fuwan, from Huaihua City, Hunan Province, was arrested on August 20, 2015, as she talked to people about Falun Gong and the communist regime’s persecution of the spiritual discipline.
During the joint trial of her and two other practitioners, one of their lawyers was temporarily removed from the court and threatened with arrest if he continued to demand an acquittal for his client. Ms. Jin was later sentenced to three years in prison in 2016.
Since the Chinese Communist Party began its persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, Ms. Jin had been repeatedly arrested for her faith. Her latest prison sentence was preceded by a one-year forced labor term in 2000.
On her way to the women's prison building on July 11, 2016, Ms. Jin shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” A guard kept slapping her face. Upon arrival, guards took her to an office and put confining clothing on her for a half day.
The clothing, which tightens whenever the wearer moves, is similar to straitjackets that have been used in mental hospitals in the West. They are made of canvas. The sleeves are about 25 cm long with a ribbon attached to each end. This form of torture, if applied for a long time, can fracture the spine, shoulders, wrists, and elbows, and it can even cause death.
The prison system in Hunan was the first to apply straitjacket torture to Falun Gong practitioners to force them to renounce their belief.
Ms. Jin was made to wear the straitjacket clothing for four hours a second time when she didn't respond to the lead guard's roll call.
Ms. Jin refused to recite the prison rules because she felt that she had not committed a crime and should not be in prison. Guards took her to the office, where the lead guard slapped her face with a notebook and kicked her. Then they called in several inmates to put the confining clothes on her. They tied her hands above her head, wrapped her arms with a bed sheet, and then left her hanging on the curtain frame, letting only her toes touch the ground.
The guards forced Falun Gong practitioners to memorize the Three Character Classic and other traditional Chinese teachings. When Ms. Jin pointed out that the authorities' act was against traditional Chinese culture, guards ordered several inmates to put the confining clothes on her again and hung her up with only her toes touching the ground for 13 hours. She could no longer stand the pain in her arms and said that she would not make these kinds of comments.
The guards ordered that she be brought down. At this point, an inmate told her to denounce Falun Gong. She refused and was hung up again. An hour later, a guard worried that the torture would paralyze her arms and let her down.
It took several days for the swelling in her arm to recede. However, the fingers of her right hand could no longer bend normally. She repeatedly asked for medical treatment, but guards did not take her to a hospital until two months later. It took another two months of treatment before her fingers returned to normal. During each treatment, the guards put handcuffs and shackles on her. After hearing that Ms. Jin wanted to sue them, guards ordered inmates to write fake statements and the doctor to write a fake diagnosis.
To force Ms. Jin to give up her belief, guards put her in solitary confinement on April 9, 2018, a few months before her release. They prohibited her from washing herself or using the bathroom, and they allowed her to sleep for only three hours a day.
Ms. Jin held a hunger strike in protest. Guards grabbed her hands, put their knees on her body, and then force-fed her. In the process, they fractured her right forefinger and middle fingers. At times, the guards would step on her legs and hit her legs with an electric baton.
Two weeks later, the guards took her to a clinic to insert a tube from her nose to stomach to conduct force-feeding.
As she was not allowed to wash or use the bathroom, she had to excrete in her pants. Guards took away her mattress and quilt, leaving her to sleep on just wooden boards in wet pants. The cold at night also made it difficult for her to sleep.
The torture and force-feeding lasted two months. Under Ms. Jin's insistence, the prison finally allowed her to wash herself and use the bathroom. Ms. Jin stopped her hunger strike.
She had lost a great deal of weight. Though she was just forty, half of her hair had turned white.
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