(Minghui.org) To avoid being persecuted for her faith in Falun Gong, Ms. Quan Qiming spent 13 years on the run, moving frequently. Only two years after the Chongqing native returned home, she was arrested for possessing Falun Gong informational materials and was sentenced to five years in prison, where she was tortured for upholding her faith.
The following is Ms. Quan’s account of how she has been persecuted.
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Why I Practice Falun Gong
I used to have severe liver disease, hepatitis B, problems with my spleen, and a moderate concussion. In 1997, I became bedridden and I felt I’d rather die than live.
A Falun Gong practitioner told me that practicing Falun Gong might save my life. I decided to give it a try. I started to read the books, to do the five exercises, and follow the teachings to be a good person. Gradually, I got better and better. I was able to get up, cook for myself, and to work our family’s field. I felt fortunate to have encountered Falun Gong.
However, due to Falun Gong’s enormous popularity, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution of the practice on July 20, 1999. When I went to Beijing with a fellow practitioner to appeal, I was arrested, taken back to Chongqing, and held in Banan Detention Center for one month.
Thirteen Years of Displacement
At 2 a.m. on February 14, 2001, Liu Xianghai and 20 other police officers broke into my apartment. They confiscated my Falun Gong books and the cash I kept at home for my business. My two daughters, 15 and 11 at the time, were terrified and couldn’t stop crying.
I was detained in the police station for three days. They tortured and interrogated me. I was later taken to a detention center and held for two months. The police gave me two years of forced labor but allowed me to serve the time at home.
After I was released, I was told that my father had died of “depression” a few days after I was arrested.
Six months later on August 16, 2001, right after I returned home in the afternoon, my neighbor told me to leave because armed police officers had come several times earlier to look for me. They were going back and forth between my home and my mother’s home only 10 minutes away. The neighbor said, “They are probably at your mother’s looking for you. You’d better leave now.”
I was stunned and immediately had a flashback of how I was tortured six months before: To force me to renounce my faith, the police hit me with sticks and I was bruised all over. They handcuffed me and hung me up on the door. The handcuffs cut into my flesh. They made me stand in my bare feet in the winter and gave me nothing to eat.
To avoid being tortured again, I decided to leave my two young daughters and my 70-year-old bedridden mother.
It wasn’t until 2014, 13 years later, that I returned home. My daughters had endured indescribable difficulties during that time.
Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Possessing Falun Gong Materials
When I was on my way to deliver Falun Gong information materials to a fellow practitioner on July 21, 2016, I was arrested without a warrant. Without a warrant, the police officers ransacked my apartment and confiscated my personal belongings including six printers, two computers, one audio recorder, several thousand yuan in cash, and a cash card with a balance of 50,000 yuan (the balance was zero after I was released from prison five years later). They also took a watch valued at over 10,000 yuan and a new desktop computer.
I was taken to the basement of the police station, where the officers forced me to sit on a metal chair, blew cold air from an air conditioner on me all night, and didn’t let me sleep. They also collected a sample of my blood against my will.
I was later taken to a detention center. Because I refused to put on the prisoner uniform, guard Hu Xia instructed the inmates to torture me. I went on a hunger strike for four days to protest.
After one year and five months in the detention center, I was sentenced to five years in prison on December 28, 2017.
Tortured in Chongqing Women’s Prison
I was taken to Zouma Women’s Prison in Chongqing on March 6, 2018. When I shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” at the prison gate, ten guards rushed at me and slapped me in the face. I didn’t stop. They taped my mouth shut, handcuffed me, and took me to the hospital for an exam.
I was put in a cell on the second floor of Division 1. Several inmates were instructed to strip me and put the prison uniform on me. They hacked off my hair, then read out the “rules” for how I was to be handled:
1. Report all speech and actions to the inmates except for swallowing saliva;2. No talking or passing messages to other Falun Gong practitioners with eye contact;3. Write at least one thought report every day on time; otherwise no washing up or sleep;4. Sleep in the predefined position and not allowed to go to the bathroom at night;5. Watch videos or read books slandering Falun Gong, and answer all questions from the guards and inmates.
They handcuffed me for a whole day and only released me after dark. I felt unbearable pain, as if my arms were dislocated.
The next day the inmates ordered me to memorize the prison rules and admit I was a criminal. I refused, so they deprived me of sleep and did not allow me to go to the bathroom. Away from the surveillance cameras, inmate Gao Ying hit me in the head and pinched me. I was bruised all over.
Inmate Guo Meijun verbally abused me and Falun Gong’s founder. I tried to stop her but she kicked me and used the tip of a pen to poke my hands. She forced me to stand still for a whole day. If I swayed even a little, she stepped on my toes.
Torture reenactment: Sitting on a small stool
Not Allowed to Use the Toilet
Inmate Liu Yan verbally abused me so much that she got hoarse. No matter what, I refused to write down that I was a criminal. Then she forced me to sit on a small stool for a whole night or stand for an entire day.
After standing still for a long time, my legs and feet became swollen. It was hard to put on shoes or walk. They didn’t let me go to the bathroom either. I had to drink less, which then made me constipated. They often cursed me because of my bad breath. Once Li Yan allowed me one minute to go to the toilet. Before I was finished, she pulled me up.
The inmates knew that I had constipation but they forced me to eat more. They gave me food or snacks they didn’t like and forced me to finish it. Once inmate Shi Yue dumped all her leftover food into my bowl. For 18 days straight I was forced to eat without being allowed to use the toilet. My stomach was as hard as a rock and almost exploded. My face became dark. When I finally was allowed to use the restroom on the 18th day, my stool was hard as a rock and I passed a lot of blood. I’ve had rectal prolapse since then. When I was examined in the prison hospital a few months before I was released, they found that I had also developed kidney stones.
It was extremely cold in the mornings and at night but it was warm during the day in March 2018. But I was only allowed to choose either a shirt or a winter jacket to wear for the whole day and wasn’t allowed to change.
Deprived of Sleep
I was deprived of sleep for 12 days in a row. As soon as I closed my eyes, the inmates would kick me. I was getting weaker and almost couldn’t stand on my own. I repeatedly told myself to hold on. If I fainted, I would be taken to the prison hospital to be injected with unknown drugs. When I felt that I couldn’t hold on any longer, I shouted “Falun Dafa is good” to protest. The inmates quickly held me down, grabbed my hair, punched and kicked me, and stuffed a dirty cloth into my mouth.
The next day, guard Tang Anzhi attempted to force me to apologize publicly. After I refused, Tang took me to a place without surveillance cameras. I told him that I shouted “Falun Dafa is good” because guards turned a blind eye when I was deprived of sleep and abused by inmates. Tang said I was shameless and started to slap me in the face. Guard Zhou Xiaoxiao shocked me with an electric baton while inmates Gaoying and Su Dongmei held my arms. I felt it was worse than being bitten by a poisonous snake.
Torture reenactment: Shocked with an electric baton
The next day when I showed my bruises to Tang and told him how inmate Gaoying tortured me, he said I deserved it. Not only that, the inmates were rewarded with a pair of new shoes and meat with their meal.
After that, I was allowed to go to bed half an hour before the inmates got up, meaning I only had 30 minutes to sleep. Gradually that was extended to one hour and then two hours. According to what the inmates said, when I lay down, I was like a dead person and did not move at all. Nevertheless, they still constantly woke me up, with the excuse that I put my hands on my stomach while I was sleeping. They only allowed me to sleep in one position—face up with my hands at my sides.
Mental Torment
When I was first incarcerated, I told guard Tang Anzhi why I practiced Falun Gong, how I benefited both physically and mentally, and how brutal the persecution was. When I talked about organ harvesting from living practitioners, he didn’t deny it and just smiled smugly.
The inmates spread the slanderous rumors about Falun Gong throughout the prison, trying to make everyone hostile to us practitioners. We were not allowed to speak out; if we did, we were tortured. Tang often ordered all the practitioners detained there to stand on the stage. Then he would humiliate Falun Gong, its founder, and us. He forced all of us to applaud when he was done. I didn’t applaud, so the inmates verbally abused me.
One day, inmate Shi Yue gnashed her teeth and cursed me, saying, “Why don’t you just die!” Confused, I asked her, “Why do you want me to die? Why do you hate me so much?” She couldn’t give me a reason but simply hated me. Guard Tang also threatened me with death if I didn’t give up my faith.
In the summer, I was not allowed to take a shower for many days. I itched so much that I couldn’t stop scratching. Soon, my feet were swollen, my skin was ulcerated, and the blood stained my pants. Despite this, the inmates continued to force me to watch videos or read books slandering Falun Gong, and attempted to force me to write reports slandering Falun Gong.
The inmates who actively participated in the persecution were rewarded with light labor work and even fruit and meat, which motivated them to torture the practitioners even more brutally.
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