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Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been routinely beaten while in police custody for refusing to renounce Falun Gong. Police frequently beat practitioners with plastic truncheons, wooden boards, belts, and spiked batons, to name just a few. Many practitioners have had their bones broken or have incurred internal bleeding as a result of these beatings, and dozens – if not hundreds – have died. In most cases, their bodies are hurriedly cremated to destroy evidence of abuse in custody.
On December 1, 2000, Ms. Chu went to Beijing to appeal to the government to stop persecuting Falun Gong. She was arrested and detained at the Haidian District Police Substation, where she died on December 13, 2000.
Four days later, the Haidian District Police notified Ms. Chu’s family to come and claim her body. The police claimed that Ms. Chu had died from fasting, but a doctor disagreed. The doctor who examined her body told Ms. Chu’s family that her nose was broken, her face and lips were severely swollen, her body was bloody all over, and both ears were plugged with blood-soaked cotton swabs. These signs indicated that Ms. Chu had suffered horrific pain before she died. On December 18, 2000, she was cremated in Changping County in Beijing.
When Ms. Chu’s fiancé and mother returned to Shulan City from Beijing, the local police tried to arrest them simply because they knew the truth of Ms. Chu’s death. In order to avoid arrest by the local police, they have both been forced to flee their homes and go into hiding.
Ms. Zhao was an instructor from the Beijing University of Industry and Commerce. She was arrested in 2000 for practicing Falun Gong meditation in a park. While being detained at the Haidian Police Substation in Beijing, the police beat her severely, fracturing three of the vertebrae in her neck. She was taken to the hospital still in handcuffs. After six months of suffering extreme pain in the hospital, she died on the evening of December 11, 2000.
BEIJING, April 25 2000 (AFP) – A [practitioner] of the outlawed Falungong spiritual movement has been beaten to death in police custody in eastern China, the 16th death of a group follower in detention in nine months, a Hong Kong-based rights group said Tuesday.
Li Huixi, 40, was detained earlier this month in Beijing after protesting against the ban on the group.
He was placed in a detention center in Houzhen village in Shandong province where he was beaten to death by police on April 21, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said in a faxed report.
Police cremated Li’s body before family members could pay their last respects. The family was given 45,000 yuan (5,400 dollars) in compensation by the village government and told to keep silent, the center said.
Police in Houzhen village refused to comment on the case, only saying they were “unclear” both about Li’s case and how he died.
Li’s death is the 16th known case of a Falungong [practitioner] dying in police custody since the group was outlawed on July 22, the center said.
It was also the third time police had attempted to cover up the death by cremating the body before family members could investigate the cause of death.
Last month, Zhang Zhenggang fell into a coma after he was beaten by police in Huaian, Jiangsu province, the center said.
He was hospitalized for five days before 60 police surrounded the hospital and cremated Zhang before he was officially pronounced dead, it added.
Late last year, Zhao Jinhua, 42, was allegedly beaten to death by police in Zhangxing, again in Shandong province. She was also quickly cremated...