(Minghui.org) Minghui.org previously reported on the March 2026 passing of a woman in Shulan, Jilin Province, after she endured years of persecution for her faith in Falun Gong. This report covers Ms. Sun Xiuhua’s personal account of her labor camp detention from 1999 to 2000.
Ms. Sun went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong in September 1999, two months after the persecution started. She was escorted back and given one year of forced labor at the Heizuizi Women’s Labor Camp.
Upon admission, Ms. Sun was given a physical exam, including blood and urine tests. After that, she was taken to the Fourth Team’s office. A group of inmates came to watch her. They forced her to squat for a long time before taking her to a cell. She learned from another practitioner that there were surveillance cameras everywhere and that Falun Gong practitioners were not allowed to do the Falun Gong exercises.
Ms. Sun still did the Falun Gong exercises the next morning. She was dragged to a room on the fifth floor. Two inmates kicked and punched her. They also slapped her in the face. In no time, she passed out. When she came to, she saw the two inmates kicking her head like a ball. She lost consciousness again. After she gained consciousness again, the two inmates ordered her to stand up and took her back to her cell on the fourth floor. They forced her to stand against a wall with her nose, abdomen, and toes pressed against the wall.
Despite the torture, Ms. Sun did the exercises and recited Falun Gong teachings whenever she could. Other detained practitioners joined her as well. One day, during a meeting, she led the recitation of the teachings and was reported to the guards.
Zhang Yumei, who was in charge of persecuting practitioners, Li Xiaohua, who oversaw the workshop, and team lead Guan soon arrived, each with an electric baton in hand. Guan asked who started the recitation, and Ms. Sun raised her hand. A few other practitioners also put up their hands. All of them were taken to an office and shocked with electric batons, barefoot.
Ms. Sun did the Falun Gong exercises during another meeting. The several dozen other practitioners detained in the fourth team joined her as well. Zhang ordered all of them to stand facing the wall in the hallway. She also shocked the practitioners on their hands. After she became exhausted, she made the practitioners stand on one foot with their arms raised behind their backs. Whoever had the other foot touch the ground would be beaten on the hands and head, and later shocked with electric batons as well.
Zhang did not allow the practitioners to return to their cells until midnight.
One winter night Ms. Sun did the Falun Gong exercises again. Li yanked her hair and dragged her to the water room. Li pressed her head under the faucet and turned on the cold water to soak her hair. Li then stripped her naked and forced her to squat by an open window.
Ms. Sun was not allowed to return to her cell until dawn. She asked to use the restroom, but Guan ordered her entire cell to clean up the kitchen as punishment. By the time they finished at noon, her feet had become extremely swollen, and she struggled to walk. Guan summoned her to the office and shocked her on the abdomen, armpits, palms, face, neck, and private parts with an electric baton. After that, she was made to squat, still naked (Guan removed her clothes before the shocks). She then heard two men talking. Guan asked her to grab her clothes and run back to her cell. That day, she was only allowed to go to the restroom at lunchtime. By then, she couldn’t urinate because of the electric shocks. She cried loudly in front of others and told them about her torture.
Her body parts that were shocked swelled. Her neck and face also became very stiff. As the swelling gradually subsided, the blisters from the shocks broke and oozed out pus and bloody fluid, which stuck to her clothes. She felt excruciating pain when she even touched the blisters by accident.
On February 4, 2000 (the Chinese New Year’s Eve), Ms. Sun and seven other practitioners wished the Falun Gong founder a happy holiday by sitting in meditation. Many more practitioners joined them. Section chief Lian led a few others to shock them with electric batons on the face and arms.
Lian asked who did the meditation. A total of 27 practitioners raised their hands. Lian forced them to sit straight. Any slight movement would invite beatings.
By the fifth day, only Ms. Sun and four other practitioners were still holding firm without succumbing to the pressure to renounce their faith against their will. They were taken to a corner. The other four practitioners were already unconscious at the time, but were still beaten.
The five of them were eventually returned to their cells. Ms. Sun was not deterred by the repeated torture and still did the Falun Gong exercises whenever she could. A guard once put an electric baton in her mouth to shock her. She still said she’d practice Falun Gong.
The guards eventually put her in solitary confinement and allowed her to do the Falun Gong exercises and study the teachings there. They even asked her to help tailor their clothes (she was once a seamstress).
Ms. Sun once spotted a few practitioners being led to the in-house clinic for force-feeding, so she went on a hunger strike to support those practitioners. She was then also force-fed corn flour mixed with saline water. She struggled to get away, and the paste shot out from her nose. She almost suffocated. The guards stopped the force-feeding.
Ms. Sun’s term was extended by three months after the Chinese New Year incident.