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”Typical Cases of Abuse and Violence Against Women,” Women of Conscience. A Report on the Persecution of Female Practitioners of Falun Gong in the People’s Republic of China. July 2001.
The atrocities being committed against women who practice Falun Gong are escalating. The accounts below are just a small sample of typical examples of torture being endured by these women in detention centers and forced labor camps throughout China.:
• Shi Yingchun was arrested for practicing Falun Gong in a local park on October 5, 2000. While in custody at the Huludao Detention Center, she continued to practice the Falun Gong exercises in her cell. Because of this, two guards beat her buttocks using nail-studded clubs and plastic hoses. When she would not renounce her belief, she was beaten again even though her buttocks were already lacerated and bleeding. Meanwhile, she was forced to wear handcuffs and shackles for several days.
• Chen Lihua (pseudonym used to protect the victim,) 36, female, a farmer in Dawangzhuang Township. She was detained in an office of the township government on January 4, 2000, for going to Beijing to appeal. Dozens of young male officials led by Li (an official in the office of the communist party committee,) came to the office and forced her to take off all her clothes. Official Bo thrust an electric baton into her vagina, shocking her to the floor. Then, one man held her arm and electrically shocked her body and then handcuffed one of her hands to the window. Official Wang held her other hand while Bo grabbed her breasts and shocked her upper body repeatedly.
• A 14-year old girl was forced to walk with a heavy brick on top of her head and her feet were bound to heavy rocks. While she walked, guards repeatedly slapped her in the face. At night the officer ordered her to hold a position touching her toes with knees straight. When she could not maintain the position, the guards beat her with clubs. After being tortured like this for an entire night, she could not walk without being assisted by someone. In a similar incident, guards forced some practitioners to stand bent over with their hands pressed to the ground. Anyone unable to hold this position was whipped. One female practitioner was whipped for several hours because she was too fatigued to continue. Another was whipped until she collapsed and the guards continued to beat her as she lay on the ground. Guards threatened practitioners who protested the mistreatment saying they would stuff their mouths with used sanitary napkins.
• On November 15, 2000, at the Futian Detention Center (Shenzhen, Guangdong Province), six female practitioners, including a 60 year-old elderly woman, were stripped naked, dragged out and forced to stand in public. One female practitioner was forced to stand naked in the courtyard.
”Rape and Sexual Abuse by Police and Government Officials,” Women of Conscience. A Report on the Persecution of Female Practitioners of Falun Gong in the People’s Republic of China. July 2001.
Raped and Beaten in Beijing by a Policeman
On the evening of May 14 in Beijing, a female Falun Gong practitioner was beaten and raped in the street when she was posting Falun Gong fliers. According to this woman's account [name withheld to protect her identity], she was stopped by a plainclothes policeman when she was posting Falun Gong fliers along the city canal from Dabeiyao to Yonganli. After being beaten for more than one hour, she was pulled under a bridge, her pants ripped off and then she was raped and sexually assaulted with a police baton. The policeman claimed: ilthere are commands from the top to beat Falun Gong practitioners to death when catching them.ln The practitioner lost two front teeth during the beating, and several places on her head were severely injured.
The woman gave the following account: "A little bit after 9:00 pm on May 14 evening, I was stopped by a patrolling plainclothes policeman when I was posting Falun Gong fliers. This policeman appeared to be about 30 years old, 1.65 meters tall. He was very strong. He beat me for more than one hour until I felt I was on the verge of dying. During that period more than ten onlookers came to see what was going on. The policeman shouted at them: "She is a Falun Gong practitioner, currently anti-revolutionary. Her being beaten to death will be counted as null". No one dared to stay, and everyone went away in a hurry.
"I was beaten to the ground and was not able to get up, and soon lost consciousness. At this moment he pulled me under a bridge, tore my pants apart and raped me. After that, he inserted a police baton forcefully into my vagina, and rode on my body. When I regained my strength and was able to shout, I shouted with all the strength I had: "Help! Catch this hooligan!" The man seemed to have no fear. Finally, he got on his bicycle and rode away in a hurry, leaving me behind.l! I had heard from police that Jiang Zemin ordered that Falun Gong practitioners being beaten to death will be counted as null and reported as a suicide. I didn't dare to believe at that time. From my experience today, this is a cruel reality.
Government Officials Sexually Assault Two Female Practitioners
Chen Lihua (pseudonym, real name can be provided upon request,) 36, female, a farmer from Dawangzhuang Township. She was detained in an office of the township government on January 4, 2000, for going to Beijing to appeal. Dozens of young male officials led by Li (an official in the office of the communist party committee,) came to the office and forced her to take off all her clothes. Official Bo thrust an electric baton into her vagina, shocking her to the floor. Then, one man held her arm and electrically shocked her body and handcuffed one of her hands to the window. Official Wang held her other hand while Bo grabbed her breasts and shocked her upper body repeatedly. She was tortured this way for quite a while, and then was told to put on her shirt and sit on the floor. Dozens of men kicked her so hard that she rolled around on the floor screaming in agony.
Later, after they left, a correspondent of the township government, whose surname is also Wang, picked up the electric baton and shocked her vagina again. He touched her breasts, and pressed against her buttocks several times in a sexual manner with his genitals. By then she was unable to move at all because of the torture.
Fang Qingliang (pseudonym, real name can be provided upon request,) 35, female, a farmer from Dawangzhuang Township, suffered similar humiliation and torture directed by the same group of officials in an office in the township government building on the evening of January 4, 2000.
A Practitioner is Gang-raped in Fuyu County Detention Center
In October 1999, several practitioners from Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province went to Beijing to appeal. The female practitioners were detained at the Fuyu County Detention Center in Qiqihar city. One of the practitioners was stripped and put into the male cells. She was then gang-raped by the male prisoners. This practitioner is currently being guarded by her family out of fear and is not allowed to contact anybody, especially other practitioners. Her family fears even more cruel and inhumane treatment if they were to make public what happened.
Labor Camp Officers in Wuhan City Burn Genital Areas of Practitioners
Many practitioners who had been forced to write a pledge renouncing their beliefs due to torture and severe abuse at the Hewan Labor Camp, later recanted these ihpledgesle and returned to practicing Falun Dafa. The policemen in the labor camp immediately targeted these practitioners for torture. After stripping the practitioners naked, the policemen burned the genital areas of the practitioners and hammered nails into their toes.
Deputy Mayor Silently Permits Sexual Abuse against a Woman Practitioner
Since late July 2000, the Police station in Xitiange Village in Miyun County, Beijing has employed two local thugs at a cost of 20 Yuan each per day, and four security people to set up a secret interrogation center at the Shudi Middle School. One female practitioner went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and was forcibly taken to the transformation class [Note: where practitioners are forced to give up their belief.] Once, she was beaten and abused three times within 5 hours in a single night. Shortly after she returned to the cell, she was interrogated again and forced to write a pledge to give up practicing Falun Gong. This practitioner declared that appealing is the legal right of every citizen. One of the thugs immediately beat her on her buttocks with a birch tree branch and kicked her genitals. At around 5:00AM, this practitioner was pulled out for the third time. Those thugs grabbed her breasts and verbally abused her with obscenities. This female practitioner shouted loudly for help and the deputy mayor of the town came and watched, but he didn't stop the thugs. With the silent permission of this deputy mayor, the brutal man (Chai Liang, a student at Tong County Railway Equipment School of Beijing) became more brazenŠhe shoved his hands inside the clothes of this female practitioner and grabbed her breasts, he then stripped off her skirt and underpants claiming he wanted to examine the bruises on her buttocks.
Public Humiliation at the Changchun Railway Station
In mid-December 2000, several female practitioners were waiting for a train to Beijing at the Changchun Railway Station. When some policemen found out they were headed to Beijing, they took them to an office on the second floor. After they found out that they were Falun Gong practitioners, two plain-clothes policemen began to kick one practitioner back and forth like a soccer ball, while grabbing her hair and hitting her in the face. They also stripped seven or eight female practitioners, and forced them to stand naked in the public hallway of the railway station, while policemen watched and laughed at them.
Torture and Rape in the Town of Houji in Zhenping County, Henan Province
Since December 2, 2000 (in the lunar calendar), county officials from Houji Town in Zhenping County, Henan Province, arrested 12 Falun Dafa practitioners including elderly women. During their detention in a "reform class," these Dafa practitioners have been verbally abused, beaten and kicked almost everyday. In particular, every night from about 11:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m., the county officials and thugs, whom they hired, turned off the lights and then wantonly beat up Dafa practitioners either in the small yard, where all the practitioners were forcibly dragged, or in the rooms. Some Dafa practitioners were dragged to the yard before they had a chance to put on their clothes.
Among these practitioners was a female practitioner approximately 25 years old, a university graduate, working as an English teacher at a county middle school. She suffered all kinds of humiliation and torture after she and her husband, who graduated from the same college she attended and also a Falun Gong practitioner, were detained in the ihreforming class. At about 1:00 a.m., after all the lights had been turned off, she was forcibly pulled outside. A thug raped her while other Dafa practitioners were being beaten.
” Teenage Students Abused and Tortured,” Women of Conscience. A Report on the Persecution of Female Practitioners of Falun Gong in the People’s Republic of China. July 2001.
18-Year-Old Dies In Police Custody
In August 1999, Chen Ying was being escorted back to her home town after appealing for Falun Gong in Beijing. During the trip she was threatened, beaten, and verbally abused by the police. Reports indicate she died after falling off a moving train. It is unknown whether she jumped or was pushed.
A 19-Year-Old College Student Tortured with Electric Stun Batons in a Labor Camp
Chen Lili, age 19, was expelled from Qingdao University and sentenced to forced labor at the Women's Labor Camp of Jinan, Shandong Province, for going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. Whenever the police found out that someone was practicing Falun Gong exercises, they would come over with electric batons and shock them until the electric batons ran out of power. Chen Lili's arms were full of blisters caused by the electric shocks but the policemen still persisted in torturing her using this heinous method.
14-year-Old Girl Beaten by Police in Beijing
Xin Ran, female, 14, freshman student of a middle school in Sanhe, Hebei Province, and Xin Fei, female, 13, are sisters. They went to Beijing with their mother, Gao Shuying, to appeal for Falun Dafa on December 16, 2000, and were detained at Fangshan County [Beijing]. Xin Ran was slapped, pinched on her face, and beaten on her buttocks with a stick by the Fangshan police. They tried to force her to tell them her address. Three days later, the sisters were brought back to their school by the local policemen from Sanhe City. The principal sent someone to watch them and forced them to write the "pledge" to renounce Falun Gong. Later, their aunt wrote a pledge for them and took them home. The school claimed that it was not yet done. Their mother, Gao Shuying, was on a hunger strike and was released on December 22, 2000.
A 16-Year-Old Girl Detained and Humiliated in Beijing
Gao Shanshan went to Beijing to meet her mother on September 20 and stayed in a hotel that night. The owner of the hotel saw her Falun Gong book and turned her in to the police station. She was given only a piece of dry bread to eat after being detained for seven hours. During that time, a policeman verbally abused her and later added some unknown foul substance to a plate of cooked meat.
The police officer then grabbed her hair and forced the food into her mouth. Other policemen on the side commented sarcastically that the food was very good and roared with laughter. The police officers also threatened her that they would arrest her mother if she still would not give up her belief in Falun Gong.
A 15-Year-Old Girl Beaten Because Her Parents Practice Falun Gong
In mid-July 2000, a practitioner and his daughter (15 years old) from Fangshan District, Beijing, were taken from their home by Secretary Zhou of the Chengguan Street Administration Office. This girl's mother had already been sent to a labor camp. The practitioner and his daughter were beaten and electrically shocked by brutal men under Zhou's orders. The girl rolled on the ground in pain from the beating. Because her body was dirty due to the torture, the men forced her to take a bath and then continued to mistreat her for one entire week.
“Open Letter from Female Falun Gong Practitioners in China,” Falun Dafa Information Center, 6 Jan. 2001.
In labor re-education camps, the guards are more debased and unbridled than savage beasts. They have taunted us: "Don't you say you practice tolerance? I will see if you can tolerate it when I rape you!" They have ripped off women's clothes in public and shocked them with electric batons; they have used iron wire to pierce their nipples; they have sexually assaulted women with various objects. At Masanjia Labor Re-education Camp in Liaoning Province, 18 female practitioners were stripped of their clothes and forced into male prisoners' cells. At the Female Labor Re-education Camp in Jilin Province, the police put hot pepper powder into female practitioners' vaginal area and forced them to write "repenting letters" [letters that "repent" for practicing Falun Dafa and promise to no longer practice]. These same guards even inserted electric batons into women practitioners' vaginal areas to shock them. In Beijing, several policemen stripped a female practitioner and sexually harassed her in public.
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The Global Persecution of Women
Glossary
