Mother of Melbourne Family Sexually Assaulted by “Torture Kit” Now Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison

On January 24, 2024, Ms. Jiang Yongqin, a beloved wife and mother of two from Jilin City, was secretly sentenced to five years in prison for refusing to renounce her faith in Falun Gong. Her sentence expires on June 11, 2027. Ms. Jiang’s lawyer and family members abroad, who currently reside in Melbourne, were not informed about her sentence.

Since the beginning of the persecution of Falun Gong nearly 25 years ago, female Falun Gong practitioners have been subjected to physical and sexual torture in custody. These horrific methods include forced abortion and gang-rape with foreign objects. Following her arrest on June 2022, reports emerged that personnel from the “Special Disciplinary Office” used a “torture kit” to sexually abuse Ms. Jiang.

Talented Professor Tried Without Representation

With a bachelor’s degree from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Jilin University and a master’s degree from Lanzhou University in Gansu Province, Ms. Jiang taught at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University upon her graduation. She was fired from her teaching position for practicing Falun Gong, despite having mentored her students to take second place in a national design competition and having herself won multiple distinctions during her tenure at the university. After serving her first prison sentence, Ms. Jiang moved back to her hometown of Jilin City, Jilin Province. 

Ms. Jiang’s husband, Mr. Xiong Qi, fled to Australia with their two daughters to avoid the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. In Australia, he has continually sought justice for his wife, but to no avail.

On June 14, 2023, Ms. Jiang was tried at the Changyi District Court. Her lawyer was not allowed to represent her during trial, because she previously filed complaints against Ms. Jiang’s perpetrators.

Local relatives and her lawyer attempted numerous times to expose the authorities for their illegal arrest of Ms. Jiang on June 12, 2022, and her ensuing torture and sexual assault at the hands of the police and a special “torture expert.” In response, CCP authorities involved with her case cut off communication with her lawyer and family.

Home Raid, Arrest, and Sexual Assault

On June 12, 2022, at 7:30 a.m., a group of police officers broke into Ms. Jiang’s home, arresting her, her 86-year-old mother, and her 8-year-old daughter. Her mother was terrified throughout the arrest and became confused (dementia) at the police station. The officers also confiscated Ms. Jiang’s computer and cellphone. Immediately thereafter, the officers then proceeded to arrest her relatives, raid their homes, and seize their computers and cellphones.

All of Ms. Jiang’s family members were released on the same day they were arrested, but Ms. Jiang herself was held and monitored by the police 24/7, first at the Xin’an Police Station and then at a hotel on the second day of her surveillance. During this period of surveillance, she was interrogated twice. After being monitored at the hotel, Ms. Jiang was brought to the Jilin City Detention Center. 

On the afternoon of either July 7 or July 8, 2022, police officers forced a black hood over Ms. Jiang’s head, plugged her ears, and brought her out of the Jilin City Detention Center to a facility in a secret location. For almost two hours, a torture expert from the Jilin Province Public Security Bureau, his assistant Li, and two men with the last names Tang and Lyu from the Jilin City Domestic Security Office, interrogated Ms. Jiang.

These four men handcuffed Ms. Jiang and ordered her to divulge the password to her hard drive. When she refused to give them an answer, the men then force-fed wasabi oil and drove lit cigarettes into her nose. One of the cigarettes broke as the men were thrusting it into her nostril. The men left half of the broken, lit cigarette in her nasal cavity, which she coughed out after a period of time. 

When Ms. Jiang refused to renounce her faith in Falun Gong or comply with the officers’ demands, the police sexually assaulted her, lifting her shirt and fondling her chest. When the police were done touching her chest, the torture expert brought in a massager to stimulate her chest and further humiliate her in front of the officers. The torture expert then forced Ms. Jiang to remove her pants, which revealed that she was on her menstrual period. Claiming that the torture was most effective during menstruation, the expert commanded the police to continue with their sexual molestation of Ms. Jiang. Close to collapse and in a state of despair, Ms. Jiang was forced to comply with the interrogation. 

The “trained torture expert” and his assistant were from the Special Disciplinary Office, a new secret agency within the Jilin Province Public Security Bureau that was established specifically to persecute and “re-educate” practitioners of Falun Gong. Before the torture expert left, he threatened Ms. Jiang daily with other devices in his “torture toolbox,” objects such as drug bottles, electrical wires, strange instruments, and toothpicks. He told Ms. Jiang that while he was conservative in torturing other suspects, he was unrestrained in his torture of Falun Gong practitioners: “There are certain restrictions on using the kit, but when it comes to Falun Dafa practitioners, we use it whenever we like.” 

Melbourne Press Conference Calling for Her Release

On August 15, 2022, Australian Falun Dafa practitioners, including Ms. Jiang’s children and husband, held a press conference in front of the Chinese Consulate in Melbourne, calling for her release. The purpose of the press conference was to denounce the crimes of the Chinese Communist Party agents who had sexually abused Ms. Jiang with a torture kit when she refused to renounce her faith in Falun Dafa. 

At the press conference in Melbourne, Mr. Xiong Qi, Ms. Jiang’s husband, described how the CCP had tortured his wife in great detail: “As her husband, when an insider told me how my wife was tortured, it felt like someone stabbed me in the chest. The Chinese regime has repeatedly harassed, arrested, detained, and tortured this good teacher, good wife, and good mother. Our family never had one day of peace.”

“They abused my wife with a torture kit, which had toothpicks, strange instruments, drug bottles, aphrodisiacs, and electrical wires. These are all horrific torture instruments that will make the victim rather be dead than alive. Four men participated in my wife’s torture. Two of them were special agents from the Jilin Province Department of Public Security: one of them was a torture expert and the other his assistant. The other two were officers from Jilin City National Security. The police force-fed mustard water into her nose and inserted lit cigarettes into her nose. One broke half way in and they left part of the cigarette in her nasal cavity, which she later coughed out. Seeing that she wouldn’t yield, the police began to sexually assault her with a special instrument. After they found that she was menstruating, the so-called expert ordered the police to continue. They tortured her for two hours, and she collapsed. That night the police took her to the Xin’an Police Station and took her deposition. They transferred her to the Shulan Detention Center on July 21. The expert told her that they would leave the kit at the interrogation site just for her until she gave them the information they wanted. There are certain restrictions on using the kit, but when it comes to Falun Dafa practitioners, they can use it whenever they like.” 

Mr. Marc Bateman, an Australian Falun Dafa practitioner who was present at the press conference in Melbourne, called upon the Australian government to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for its human rights violations, specifically sexual violence as a means of torture that targets female practitioners. Additionally, Mr. Hu Zhongnan, the deputy secretary of the Melbourne Democracy Alliance, was also present at the press conference and condemned the CCP’s cruel persecution of Falun Gong.

Lawyer Barred from Trial

Ms. Wang Shengsheng, Ms. Jiang’s trial lawyer, has been frequently blocked from considering Ms. Jiang’s case file since her arrest. In early 2023, when Ms. Jiang was indicted, Ms. Wang was told that her law license did not meet her local judicial bureau’s requirements and thus that she was not eligible to represent a client in court. Ms. Wang suspects that they changed her information and credentials without her permission or knowledge. The Changyi District Court told Ms. Jiang’s family that it had until May 31, 2023 to find her a qualified lawyer, or else they would arrange a lawyer to represent her and enter a guilty plea on her behalf. 

Ms. Jiang continued to insist that Ms. Wang represent her. However, on June 14, 2023, the day of the trial, Ms. Wang was barred from entering the courtroom. Taking her complaint to the front desk of the court, Ms. Wang protested the refusal of her legal right to defend her client in court. She never received a response from the court. 

Jilin Province courts have a long history of barring legal representation of practitioners of Falun Gong, either by denying out-of-area lawyers or requiring the lawyers to present documents attesting that they are not themselves practitioners of Falun Dafa. 

Husband Unrelentingly Calls for Wife’s Release

Ms. Jiang’s husband has been working relentlessly from Australia to secure his wife’s release. On August 19, 2023, Mr. Xiong gathered several human rights lawyers in China to file a joint complaint against the four men who sexually abused and tortured Ms. Jiang. The Jilin City Police Department and the Jilin Province Public Security Bureau were both named as defendants in the filed complaint. The human rights lawyers submitted the joint complaint to the Jilin City Supervisory Committee, the Political and Legal Affairs Committee, the People’s Congress, the Women’s Federations, and the Jilin Municipal Procuratorate. However, most of these agencies denied the complaint or maintained excuses to not process it.

Organizations such as Minghui, Weiquanwang (Rights Protection Network), and The Epoch Times have also reported on her case.