(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Gong practitioners Zhang Jingyan and Wang Yaling are from Bailaowu Village, Shoushang Township, Liaoyang County, Liaoning Province. Their repeated arrests and subsequent sentencing at the hands of police has led to all manner of excruciating tortures for them.
Ms. Wang Yaling suffered from several illnesses prior to beginning the practice of Falun Gong. She frequently felt dizzy, and had headaches, trouble falling asleep, and adnexitis [inflammation of the female reproductive organs], appendicitis, lumbago [sciatica] and leg pain. She was unable to stand up straight after bending, or turn over after lying down when lumbago hit. When her leg pain was at its worst, she could barely raise her right leg when walking and pulled it along. It was very painful. She spent a lot of money on this but nothing changed.
In 1997, someone gave her a copy of the book Zhuan Falun and told her that cultivation can eliminate illnesses and improve her health. She didn't believe this until the end of 1998. The pain from different illnesses tortured her, and Ms. Wang awoke almost daily from nightmares. She felt desperate and helpless and went to a fortune-teller, but it was in vain. It was then that she remembered the book Zhuan Falun.
This time, the teachings really resonated with her. The book asks practitioners to be kind, abandon all bad thoughts and desires to fight with others for one's own interests, and to align with the characteristics of the universe as contained in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She was able to accept and follow these principles. Less than three months later, all of her illnesses disappeared. Falun Gong brought her unprecedented joy and happiness.
In 2000, she went to appeal to the Liaoyang County government and local police station with another practitioner Zhang Jingyan. They hoped that the government might give the practitioners a normal study and exercise environment to cultivate Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Instead, on December 24, 2000, local government officials sentenced her to one and a half years of forced labor. She was sent to the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp.
Wang Yaling suffered all kinds of inhuman torture at the Masanjia Labor Camp, including beatings, electric shocking, sleep deprivation and other forms of abuse. The guards tried to force each practitioner to give up his or her belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She witnessed another practitioner, Yang Chunfang from Jinzhou City, who was beaten to disability for refusing to give up her belief. Yang couldn't walk by herself due to the torture.
Ms. Wang Yaling was also subjected to beatings that ended in her falling unconscious. Camp officials also extended her term by another three months. Wang Yaling's brother eventually paid a bribe demanded by camp officials to secure her release.
When she was arrested this time, Wang Yaling's son was less than three years old. He cried all the way along the road, "I want Mom! I want Mom!"
In February 2003, Wang Yaling and Zhang Jingyan went to a city to tell people about Falun Gong. They were reported, and local police arrested and sent them to the Liaoyang County Police Department, and from there to the Liaoyang Detention Center. The women were transferred to the Baita District Domestic Security Division in Liaoyang City on the second day of their detention. While in that facility, agents from the Domestic Security Division physically abused them.
The police took Zhang Jingyan and Wang Yaling into two vacant rooms, where the abusers attempted to extort their confession under torture. Because Zhang Jingyan and Wang Yaling refused to answer any of their questions, a police officer grabbed Zhang Jingyan's hair and threw her hard toward a wall and the floor. This went on for quite a while. When he noticed that she was silent, he touched her head and was too afraid to continue because of the bumps he found all over her head. At that moment another plainclothes officer arrived. These two men tied her hands behind her back and forced her to kneel on the floor. Two plainclothes officers held her tied arms and together lifted her up, breaking her left arm in the process. Then they released her. A medical staff member stopped by and examined her. He grabbed her arm and swung it, insisting that her arm was not broken.
By then, several plainclothes officers had arrived and threatened the women, "Will you or will you not speak? If you don't confess, you will be tortured to death, like a worm. You will be tossed away and we will tell people you committed suicide."
When the abusers found that their threats were useless, they tied Ms. Zhang's good arm and leg together, and then she was thrown to the ground. They brought two bottles of cold water. One held her nose, while others stomped on her face and body and poured water into her mouth until the two bottles were empty. Then they dragged her back and forth on the ground.
It was about midnight when they took her back to the detention center. She went on a protest hunger strike and petitioned for unconditional release. One week later, the beatings and the result of the hunger strike gave her a deformed appearance. The persecutors called her husband to pick her up. The Domestic Security Division leader who was in charge of persecuting Falun Gong threatened her husband not to post her story on the Internet. He added that it would not help, no matter where they appealed.
After Zhang Jingyan was taken away, agents at Baita Domestic Security Division tried to come up with ideas to reach their goal through Ms. Wang Yaling. One day, the coldest in winter, they took off Wang Yaling's coat and left her out only in underclothing. Then they pushed Wang Yaling onto the floor. Several officers sat on her body, while another knelt on her body. That division leader yelled obscenities at her during the abuse. When they saw that it wasn't working, they kicked Wang Yaling viciously on her head, face and body. Immediately, her face swelled up.
Later, they pulled Wang Yaling up from the floor and forced her to kneel. They put tables on each side of her and put a stick between the two tables. They put her arms backward on the stick. Because the tables were higher while Ms. Wang knelt, her arms hurt terribly. She clenched her teeth and did not cooperate with the police. The police took out a squared wooden bar and put it on Wang Yaling's calves. They shouted, "Start!" Then they stepped on the bar and rolled it over Wang Yaling's legs. She screamed in agony and fell unconscious.
The officers then brought in a barrel of cold water and poured it on Wang Yaling's face. Despite being clad only in undergarments, she had to lie on the wet, ice-cold concrete floor. The cold coupled with the pain woke her up, but she couldn't sit up. Both legs were grotesquely swollen. Her ankles had swollen up as well. Still, the police didn't give up. They rolled the bar over her legs until she fainted from the pain again.
When Ms. Wang woke up, the Security Division officer told her, "Many Falun Gong practitioners who were beaten to death were thrown into Taizi River. If you die tonight, we will do the same to you."
From 4:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., Baita Domestic Security Division agents intensified their abuse. Eventually they took her back to the detention center without having achieved their goal. Wang Yaling could no longer walk on her own at that point, and two officers carried her back.
Back at the detention center, she went on another protest hunger strike. During that period of time, Liaoyang County Police Department officials and those from the court extorted a lot of money from her family, but she was still detained for seven months.
On July 15, 2005 at around 5:30 a.m., 610 Office head Yan Hongwei from the Domestic Security Division of the Liaoyang County Police Department, and political head Miao Zhensheng led several police officers to break into Wang Yaling's home. They claimed that the police department head wanted to talk with Wang Yaling. They promised that they would let her go when the talk was finished.
Wang Yaling and her husband got into one of the three police cars. The cars went directly to the Liaoyang Brainwashing Center, where they locked her up. Later, because she refused to give up her faith, Yan Hongwei took her to a detention center.
Because Wang Yaling refused to give up her belief, Liaoyang County Court sentenced Ms. Wang to three years in prison on October 12, 2005. She was then sent to the Dabei Prison.
