Personal Accounts

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.

In February 2009, the 24th Winter Universiade, an international college sporting event was held in Harbin. Ahead of the event, the persecution and abduction of local Falun Gong practitioners increased. Therefore, Mr. Yu Yungang and several other practitioners tried to use small loudspeakers to inform attendees of these abuses. Police detained him along with over 20 practitioners and in July, he was “sentenced” to 8 years in prison. At approximately 3 p.m. on March 1, 2011, Yu reportedly passed out due to torture, and was rushed to the No. 2 hospital affiliated with Jiamusi University. He underwent surgery on his skull, but never recovered and died on March 5, 2011, as police sought to cover-up his case. Yu was 48 years old when he died. He was the second practitioner from Jiamusi prison to die within a span of two weeks.

A 42-year-old owner of a dumpling restaurant in Northeast China died in his home at the end of February, unable to recover from one and half years of physical and mental torture in a Re-education Through Labor (RTL) camp, the Falun Dafa Information Center has learned. His is one of over 400 documented Falun Gong deaths in Liaoning province since 1999.

Mr. Qin Yueming was abducted from his home in April 2002. He was severely beaten and tortured on a tiger bench, to the point that his ribs and legs were broken and he was unable to walk. Nevertheless, he was later sentenced to ten years in prison in proceedings whose results were pre-determined by Communist Party officials. He was taken to Jiamusi Prison. On the evening of February 26, 2011, Qin’s wife received a phone call from Jiamusi Prison informing her that Qin had died.

Two middle-aged women, from Hunan and Henan provinces, died in late November, within weeks of being abducted by the authorities for practicing Falun Gong, the Falun Dafa Information Center has recently learned.