(Minghui.org) The Deyang City Detention Center in Sichuan Province in recent years has been used as a non-prison facility to jail locals sentenced for their faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
To force detained Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith, the detention center subjected them to involuntary drug administration and other forms of torture.
Upon admission to the detention center, the practitioners had their blood pressure taken and then forced to take hypertension drugs, even when their blood pressure level was normal.
Doctor Hu, in his 50s, has been in charge of prescribing medicines. He never told the practitioners the exact names of the “hypertension” drugs except one named Oryzanol (a mixture of lipids derived from rice). He claimed that Oryzanol could treat hypertension when in fact it made the practitioners extremely drowsy and muddle-headed. Some practitioners learned later that Oryzanol is a supplement that may be used as a sleep aid.
At the time of writing, at least seven practitioners are still serving time at the detention center. Six others finished their prison sentences in the past couple of years.
7 Still Serving Prison Sentences Ranging from 1.5 Years to 8 Years
1. Ms. Zhao Jie, 52, is serving eight years. She was arrested on March 25, 2020, and also fined 100,000 yuan when she was convicted on February 17, 2023.
2. Mr. Tang Lirong is serving a 4.5-year term. He was arrested at work on April 2, 2020, and released on bail the following day. He was taken back into custody on February 8, 2023, and convicted not long afterward.
3. Mr. Yang Zhipeng is serving four years. He was arrested on March 26, 2020, and convicted on November 22, 2022. His mother was so devastated that she passed away the day after his conviction.
4. Ms. Ni Ying is serving four years following her arrest in 2021.
5. Ms. Zhang Shufeng, 70, is serving a three-year-eight-month term. She was arrested on June 27, 2022, and released on bail hours later. She was taken back into custody on November 23, 2023, and convicted at an unknown date.
6. Ms. Jiang Xiaorong (also known as Jiang Junxian) is serving 3.5 years. She was arrested on June 21, 2021, and convicted on October 30, 2023. She was forced to take unknown pills at the detention center. Guard Zhang Dan, in her 30s, also forced her to wear shackles weighing 11 pounds for seven straight days.
7. Ms. Cai Shangyu, 77, is serving a 1.5-year term. Below are details of her persecution not previously reported.
Ms. Cai was arrested at home at around 11 a.m. on May 11, 2020. The arresting officers from the Shengyang District Domestic Security Office forced her to press fingerprints and give blood samples. They also took her pictures and interrogated her until 2 a.m. before releasing her on bail.
She was taken back into custody on February 8, 2023, and soon sentenced to one and a half years by the Shengyang District Court. Her appeal case is still pending at the Deyang City Intermediate Court.
Guard Tang Lizhi and doctor Hu forced Ms. Cai to take Oryzanol every day to treat her “hypertension” even though she was completely healthy.
Six Released After Completing Prison Sentences
1. Ms. Yan Shulan, in her 60s, was arrested on June 30, 2020, and sentenced to two years and four months with an 8,000-yuan fine on November 21, 2022. She served her entire prison term at the Deyang City Detention Center and was released on October 30, 2022.
While she was in detention, doctor Hu and guard Tang forced Ms. Yan to take a white pill every day before adding a yellow pill to her daily doses. They claimed the yellow pill was Oryzanol to treat her non-existing hypertension. She felt weak after taking the pills. She then managed to spit them out in the days that followed. The guards found out about it and watched her closely to make sure she had swallowed all the pills.
2. Ms. Qian Shuju was arrested between March and July 2020 and was soon released on bail. She was taken back into custody on February 8, 2023, and sentenced to one year in prison. She was released from the detention center on August 18, 2023.
3. Ms. Yang Zhengru, 59, was arrested on September 28, 2022, and sentenced to one year on September 28, 2023. She was released the day after her conviction. Below are details of her persecution not previously reported.
A man in his 30s surnamed Wu from the Xiangshanxiang Community and a plainclothes woman officer led more than a dozen officers from the Deyang City Police Department, the Shengdong District Police Station, and the Xinzhong Police Station broke into Ms. Yang’s home on September 28, 2022. They took her to the Deyang City Detention Center.
The Shengyang District Court sentenced Ms. Yang to one year with a 2,000-yuan fine on September 28, 2023. She was released the day after.
During her first six months of detention at the Deyang City Detention Center, doctor Hu and the aforementioned guard Zhang forced her to take unknown drugs every day. They initially gave her two white oval-shaped pills plus half of a white round pill every day. As soon as she took the pills, she felt her head became heavy and her blood vessels were expanding. She was drowsy, couldn’t think straight, and was slow to talk. When she appeared in court in June 2023, she couldn’t even testify in her own defense as she was extremely muddle-headed from the unknown drugs.
After a few months, Ms. Yang’s blood pressure reading was normal and doctor Hu bragged that his medicine had helped her. He removed the half pill from her daily medication but still forced her to take the two white oval-shaped pills. Ms. Yang knew that she never had hypertension to begin with and requested to stop taking the pills. Doctor Hu then said he’d be fine as long as guard Zhang agreed. Zhang, however, still forced Ms. Yang to take the pills every day until she was assigned to another cell.
Zhang also abused Ms. Yang in other ways. She barred Ms. Yang from writing her family, showering, or purchasing daily necessities when the latter refused to sign anti-Falun Gong materials as ordered one day. Zhang also only gave her rice to eat with no vegetables or meat.
A few days later, Zhang put shackles weighing 33 pounds on Ms. Yang and forced her to spin with the shackles on. The shackles rubbed against her skin and caused excruciating pain. Later that day, detention center director Chen Jia moved Ms. Yang to a different cell, where guard Duan Yuanyuan was in charge. During the transfer, Zhang asked Duan to keep Ms. Yang shackled for seven days as she had initially planned. Duan, however, removed the shackles three days later and also agreed to not force Ms. Yang to take the unknown drugs again. Duan though warned that Ms. Yang may be ordered to take pills again if she didn’t “behave.”
After Ms. Yang was released on September 29, 2023, the Xiangshanxiang Community ordered her to sign statements to renounce Falun Gong and she firmly refused to comply.
4. Ms. Bao Shuhua, in her 50s, was sentenced to two and a half years with a 10,000 yuan fine at an unknown date. It is unclear when she was released from the detention center. While she was in detention, guard Zhang forced her to wear shackles weighing 11 pounds for seven straight days.
5. Ms. Li Anying, whose prison sentence was unknown, was released at an unknown date.
6. Ms. Zhu Chaobing, around 75, was sentenced to one year at an unknown date. It is unclear when she completed her prison sentence.
Related Reports:
Two Sichuan Residents Sentenced to Prison for Distributing Falun Gong Materials
Sichuan Man Sentenced to Prison for His Faith, US-resident Daughter Calls for His Release
70-Year-Old Sichuan Woman Sentenced to 3 Years and 8 Months for Talking to People about Falun Gong
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