The persecution of Falun Gong targeted 100 million people in China, and decimated countless families and communities across China. Below, we offer a glimpse into the human cost of this persecution with up-close and personal stories of those who were killed, those who survived, and those struggling to the freedom of others. These are their stories…
A 38 year-old man from Central China died in police custody four days after being abducted, the Falun Dafa Information Center recently learned. Mr. Yang Zhonggeng’s corpse was covered in extensive bruises but the local Domestic Security Office claimed he committed suicide, his family reported.
During one raid on the home of Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Yang Yinqiao on August 7, Yang mysteriously “fell” from the window of her fifth floor apartment. Police immediately fled the scene, only to return with riot gear when Ms. Yangs husband came home and found her on the street. He called for emergency medical care, but she was pronounced dead at the scene. Police subsequently cordoned off the street, beating those seeking to get closer, including Yangs own son.
A healthy, middle-aged woman from southern China who practiced Falun Gong died under mysterious circumstances within hours of being abducted off the street by police. With public support from neighbors and friends, family members are attempting to hire an independent pathologist to determine the cause of her death.
On October 7, 2011, two men heard Ms. Zhang Jinghua talking about Falun Gong to someone. They intimidated and then chased her to the fourth story of a building from which she then fell under mysterious circumstances. She died several hours later.
Ms. Wang Chunxiang was abducted in October 2006 after a plainclothes police officer followed her home and then found Falun Gong related materials and a printer in her home, after he entered and searched it without a warrant. Soon after, she was sentenced in a sham trial to eight years in a prison camp and was sent to Liaoning Province Women’s Prison. Over the next five years, her health deteriorated badly due to torture and being denied medical attention. On September 25, 2011, prison authorities alerted her family members that she had died.
Arrested on September 7, 2011, Ms. Wang Mingrong died from severe physical abuse around September 17, only ten days after being taken into custody. She passed away at the Xinjin Brainwashing Center (euphemistically referred to as the Chengdu City Law Education Center), an institution known to lace food with psychotropic drugs meant to severely damage the central nervous system.
Mr. Fan was abducted in July 2008 after being seen with other practitioners handing out materials that exposed human rights abuses about Falun Gong in Kazuo County. The director of the local police substation and another officer, armed with guns and electric batons, forced the practitioners car open, searched it, and after finding materials related to Falun Gong, took those present into custody. Fan managed to run away, but police later came and detained him from his home. He was then sentenced to eight years in prison without a trial. He was tortured for three years and died on September 11, 2011.
In July 2008, Ms. Ding Zhenfang was sentenced after a sham trial to an eight-year prison term for talking about Falun Gong. Emaciated and covered with disfiguring wounds, she died on August 1, 2011.
Mr. Pan Benyu was first arrested soon after the persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999. He spent most of the next twelve years either in prison, re-education through labor camps or on the run to avoid persecution. Overcome by torture-induced medical problems, he died on July 17, 2011.
