Unlawful Violations of the Human Rights of Falun Gong Practitioners

City Committee of the Party, City Government:

We are all practitioners of Falun Gong. From our personal experiences, we have truly realized that Falun Gong holds Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance as universal standards. It improves the Xinxing levels of practitioners who can take fame and profits lightly, eliminate all attachments, and cultivate to the "righteous realization of being unselfish, forgetting oneself, and putting others before oneself". It is indeed a virtuous practice that can benefit all of humanity and our entire society.

The constitution of our country has clear regulations regarding the rights and responsibilities of Chinese citizens . We visited Beijing to report to our government the truth about our situations. We have only good intentions, and in so doing, we should have been protected by the law. However, our lawful appeals were met with ruthless oppression by the police department, and this truly defies our understanding. Over the last year, facing the risk of death, Dafa practitioners went to Beijing time and time again to report the truth. Each time we went, we were stopped, arrested and hauled away by various levels of police. We were thrown into jails and faced inhumane tortures:

1) Each time, practitioners were searched, beaten, and electrically shocked. Some were hung up with a pair of handcuffs for several hours. Some were beaten with wooden rods or plastic rods to the point that their whole bodies were dark and purple in color. They couldn't move after being put down on the ground.

2) Some practitioners' hair was violently torn out, one strand after another. At times, the skin was pulled off, too. Some were locked up with dead-bolt handcuffs and shackles so they couldn't even change clothes, and were treated like prisoners sentenced to death. Some had their clothes ripped off, were shackled to iron chairs and left outside to freeze in the winter, a punishment normally only used for prisoners sentenced to death. During the summer, some were chained outdoors to iron posts. They were exposed to bright sunlight during the day, being burned by the hot iron posts, and they were left locked up in tall grassy areas at night to be bitten by mosquitoes and other insects.

3) The Associate Director of the Zhucheng City Public Security Brigade, Cao Jinghui often interrogated our practitioners while drunk. He pulled practitioners' hair and swung them around in circles, followed by a wave of slaps on the face. Practitioners' hair often came out in clumps. Cao would continue to tear out more hair after throwing those already in his hand to the ground. Sometimes, he would tear out pieces of scalp, as well. Cao Jinghui would use anything to beat practitioners: electric batons, plastic clubs, etc. He even put electric batons into their mouths and onto their faces and necks. Practitioners who received these electric shocks would develop a stream of burn blisters. Some practitioners were beaten nearly to death by him. Some had completely swollen bodies and were unable to move for a long time after being beaten by him.

4) After he got tired from beating people, he encouraged two young assistants to continue the beatings, one named Yuan and one named Zhu. He often viciously commented while beating people: "Our superiors have already told us that no matter what we do to you practitioners of Falun Gong, it is never considered too extreme. We will ruin your family, break your family, and make you die!" Because of his illegal brutality, two practitioners in Zhucheng have been persecuted to death, and many other families are being broken up.

The Public Security Bureau in Shandong Province has long had a written regulation: police are prohibited from drinking while on duty. Nevertheless,Cao Jinghui purposefully drinks and then beats people. Of all our practitioners who were arrested, no one was spared his ruthless torture.

5) Practitioners who went to Beijing to appeal were usually searched. Any cash found during the searches, ranging from a few dozen to a thousand yuan (Chinese dollars, the monthly salary of an average worker in cities of China is about 500 yuan), was confiscated without receipt. Cao Jinghui once took 200 Yuan from practitioner Zhang XX. Everyone who was arrested and detained had to pay anywhere from several hundred to thousands of yuan. Workplaces would make illegal deductions from practitioners' salaries or would simply fire them.

Since July 22 of 1999, there have been no human rights at all for Dafa practitioners. Without any legal procedures, practitioners can be summoned, interrogated, or have their homes searched. Practitioners' phones are monitored, movements are limited, and they can be detained anytime without justification. These evil acts of blatantly violating human rights and the constitution have forced many practitioners to use hunger strike to protest.

The following are several examples of the ruthless persecution:

1. Ms. Ma, Yanfang, a female worker in a china factory, walked for over ten days to appeal in Beijing. Afterwards, she was arrested and locked in her factory for several months where she suffered from all kinds of inhumane torture. Even though she was very healthy both physically and mentally, she was forced to enter a mental hospital where she ultimately was tortured to death.

2. Ms. Zhang, Mengzhen, an unmarried female youth and the owner of a clothing business, went to appeal in Beijing three times. After being arrested and sent back, her father died out of shock and fear. Ms. Zhang was beaten many times by Cao Jinghui. When she spoke the truth with reason and explained things kindly, she was beaten even more ruthlessly by Cao and his accomplices, hovering between life and death. Later, she was secretly transferred to a cave prison in Shangdong. To this day, it is unclear whether she is still alive or not.

3. Because he went to appeal in Beijing, Mr. Wang XX from Zhonghuangtong, was locked up in a courtyard in his village that was also used for raising dogs. The Party Secretary of his village used lit cigarettes to burn his hands, and the scars are still visible today. Mr. Wang was beaten frequently and was forced to pay money before he could be released. He was locked up for over four months.

4. Two female workers from the Foreign Trade Company, Ms. Wang and Ms. Li, were locked up on company premises because they had gone to Beijing to appeal. Under the coordination of a Mr. Wang, the director of the company's Security Group, they were force-fed human urine and excrement, and were later hung up. The ladies were later fired by the company.

5. Ms. Xie from the same company went to appeal twice. Each time, she was arrested, locked up in the company dormitory, not allowed to use the restroom and was not given enough food. During interrogations, the police used electric batons and plastic clubs. She was beaten and kicked. Her nose was bleeding and her face became swollen. She was detained for over a month, and meanwhile, her home was searched twice without any reason. Because she protested using a hunger strike, she was punished with a longer sentence. She was even handcuffed to an iron chair that is only used for those sentenced to death. She was exposed to the intensely strong sun during the day and the bites of countless mosquitoes overnight, for seven days and nights. During this time, she was twice sent to the Chinese Medicine Hospital to be force-fed with a meter-long tube inserted through her nose into her stomach. She experienced inhumane tortures. In addition to refusing to pay her salary, the company fired her.

6. Mr. Zeng is from the Village of Yuejiazhuang. He went to Beijing to appeal in 1999 and was detained for a month. During the cold winter, the police threw water onto the floor, ordered him to lie on the floor with his shoes off, and beat his face using wooden paddles. The police also wrapped his fingers with copper wire and then ran electricity through them. When he was detained for his second appeal, he was beaten, kicked, and slapped on his face with shoes. His ears could not hear and his face became swollen. The police also said ferociously: "No measure is extreme for practitioners of Falun Gong, as long as you are not beaten to death. Go and appeal!"

7. Ms. Zhang went to Beijing to appeal on February 10, 2000. She was pushed into a police car in Tiananmen Square and was sent to the Beijing Office of Tanfang City. She was stripped of all her clothes, and all her money was confiscated. After being returned to Zhucheng, she was beaten up again by Cao Jinghui. Hair was torn out, her face swelled up, and her eyes bled. She was detained for a month and fined 5,000 Yuan.

8. Ms. Wang is 62 years old and from the Village of Zangjietiegou. She was detained for 22 days because she went to appeal. After she got back to her village, she was illegally confined in a wet little room, in which she had to drink, eat, and use as a restroom. She was fined 7,000 Yuan.

9. Mr. Wang is from the Village of Chengguangtieshui. Because he went to appeal, he was arrested and detained. He was beaten to the point he could not stand up. His body was beaten until purple and dark in color, and his hair was torn out in strands. His head was left with an obvious scar from the beatings. His legs were swollen so much that he could not remove his pants.

10. Ms. Cui is from the Xinhua Township, and was arrested when she went to appeal. After she had no food or water for an entire day and night, the Party Secretary of the township arrived and started to beat her right away. In the afternoon, Cao the bandit got drunk and used an electric baton to approach Ms. Cui's face and then used a rod to beat her entire body. Her face became swollen, and her body turned dark purple. They didn't let practitioners speak out, so practitioners used hunger strikes to validate that Dafa is truth. The Party Secretary employed the method of force-feeding. They held practitioners down on a table and force-fed them through the nose. Practitioners' noses bled heavily.

There are many many cases like these in our city, more than we can enumerate here. It is worth mentioning that no matter how many mistreatments the practitioners suffer, they don't have complaints or regrets in their hearts, and firmly believe in Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. We hope that learning the truth about these cases will help the kind-hearted people of our city have a better understanding of, sympathy for, and support for practitioners of Falun Gong.

Practitioners in the Zhucheng City

September 2000