(Minghui.org) A woman in her 60s spent four years in prison after being arrested in July 2018 for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been targeted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. She was subjected to inhumane torture in prison and at one point suffered a heart attack as a result.
Background Information
Ms. Xu Guixian, a resident of Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province, was arrested at home on October 11, 2017, by an officer of Tiexin Police Station who claimed to be named Li Jindong. She was taken to Jinzhou Women’s Detention Center and was released after 36 days. When she and her husband went to the police station to get back her cell phone confiscated by Li, they found out from the police officer’s roster on the wall that Li’s real name is Wang Cheng. He has never returned her phone.
The police arrested Ms. Xu again at home eight months later, on July 17, 2018. She was taken back to Jinzhou Women’s Detention Center, where a police officer brought in stacks of CDs and snapped pictures of Ms. Xu, after ordering her to point her finger at the CDs. The police used these pictures along with the fabricated confession statements as prosecution evidence and filed her case at the Linghe District Procuratorate. The Linghe District Court later sentenced her to four years in prison without notifying her family.
Ms. Xu was taken to Liaoning Women’s Prison in March 2019. She recounts the details of her ordeal in the prison below.
***
Freezing and Sleep Deprivation
I was assigned to the 6th Unit of the 5th Ward of the prison. I was given a mattress pad and a quilt but had to sign a statement saying that I borrowed the items from them.
Two days after my admission, the head guard of the 6th Unit, Gao Xiaohang, along with some guards and inmates attempted to force me to give up my belief. I refused to do it and they began to torture me.
The inmates took me to the workshop and forced me to stand there all day. They did not allow me to go to the toilet, so I had to pee in my pants. They opened the window on chilly winter nights and made me stand by the window without a coat to freeze me. Once I was forced to stand under the opened window in the corridor with only a single layer of a prison uniform.
The prison guards instigated the inmates to take away my mattress pad and quilt during early spring days, leaving me to sleep on the bare wood board. They poured water on the board before bedtime and had me lay on the wet board with the door open. They did not allow me to close my eyes either.
Later, Gao punished me to stand around the clock. She ordered more than 60 inmates in the 6th Unit to team up in two-person shifts to take turns watching me. After 13 days, I had a heart attack and was taken to the prison hospital, where they continued to deprive me of sleep by forcing me to sit on the bed. As long as I closed my eyes, the inmates on duty would beat me, pinch me, slam my head against the wall, and flick or press on my eyes. They also poured water over me.
One day, the inmates dragged me to the laundry room, where no surveillance camera was installed, to beat me. I shouted for help. The guard on duty, Chen Tianlei, came but quickly left without intervening.
At another time, several inmates beat me up in Cell 403. They kicked and stomped on my legs. I was crippled for more than three months.
Beating and Scalding
When Gao took maternity leave five months later, guard Niu Jingjing took her position and continued to persecute me. She once ordered Zhang Xiaomeng, the head inmate of the 6th Unit, to abuse me. Zhang did not allow me to wash, or give me toilet paper. She poured water onto my clothes but didn’t allow me to dry them, causing all my clothes to become moldy and smelly. Zhang confessed to me that she wouldn’t do all these things without Niu’s backing. I urged Niu to stop the persecution, but she ignored me. The mistreatment lasted nine days.
The chief of the 5th Ward, Wang Hongyun, summoned me around the end of May 2020, and said to me, “All Falun Gong practitioners in the 5th ward gave up their faith, except you. My ward ranked number one on goods production, and I want it to be number one on transforming Falun Gong practitioners too. So go and record a video of renouncing Falun Gong.” I didn’t respond to her. She made me stand for more than an hour and threatened retaliation against me.
Later, Niu Jingjing transferred two inmates, Lou Shuang and Li Jingchun, from other units to the 6th Unit to assist her in transforming me. The two of them and I were assigned to work in the storage room on June 1, 2020. There they could easily find a blind spot from the surveillance camera and beat me. They also didn’t allow me to go to the toilet. I protested by having a hunger strike.
I complained to Niu the next day about the beating, but she said that I had to give up my faith first. They tortured me for three days.
On the third night, inmate Xiao Miao filled a big Sprite bottle with boiling water. She and three other inmates, including Song Lanjie and Lou Shuang, then placed the bottle on my back to burn me, until the boiling water cooled down. My back was scalded with large blisters and pus oozed out. Niu had to take me to the prison hospital for treatment three days later. The wound was infected and took more than three months to heal. To cover up the crime, the guards ordered the inmates to take me separately to wash and shower alone. The guards did not give me an opportunity to report this crime to prison authorities.
Other practitioners weren’t spared from torture either. Ms. Zhang Yuhong was once slapped on the head by three inmates with their shoes in April 2020. She suffered a stroke a few days later and was taken to the prison hospital. I heard that she had two open-heart surgeries and was paralyzed. Another practitioner, Ms. Wang Jinfeng, was beaten on July 13, 2021.
Related reports:
Three Practitioners Abused at Liaoning Women’s Prison for Not Renouncing Their Faith
Woman in Her 60s Tortured in Liaoning Prison: Soaked in Cold Water and Beaten
Ms. Xu Guixian Tortured in Liaoning Province Women’s Prison
Liaoning Women's Prison Scalds Woman With Boiling Water for Refusing to Renounce Her Faith
All content published on this website is copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
Category: Torture of Women
