Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Zheng Youmei was imprisoned in the Nanmusi Women's Forced Labor Camp for 23 months from 1999 through 2001. Then local CCP authorities locked and tortured her in a brainwashing center for over 5 months. She was arrested again in November 2007, and died in the same forced labor camp on November 2, 2008.
Ms. Zheng Youmei Dies in Sichuan Province Labor Camp
Ms. Zheng Youmei, 61, a retired employee of the Vinyl Factory in Sichuan Province, lived in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province. She used to have heart disease, a vertebral body compression fracture at T-12 (VBF), arthritis, and other ailments. After she started to practice Falun Gong at the end of 1996, all her illnesses went away.
In July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party began persecuting Falun Gong. Ms. Zheng went to Beijing to speak out for the practice, and she was arrested, taken back to Chongqing City, and detained in Changshou Detention Center. After being detained for one month, she was held at Jitou Police Station in Wuhou District, Chengdu City for 15 days.
Ms. Zheng was later sentenced to 18 months of forced labor and detained in the Nanmusi Women's Forced Labor Camp in Zizhong City, Sichuan Province. More than a dozen practitioners, including Ms. Zheng, were tortured by being locked in a water dungeon.(1) She was released on October 31, 2001 after her term was extended five months.
On December 26, 2001, only two months after she returned home, Jinyang Community CCP Secretary Li Bohua and officer Zeng Fengming led four people to forcibly take Ms. Zheng to Jinhua brainwashing center. She was tortured by being locked in a "small cell" under constant surveillance by people and watchdogs (trained huskies). Officer Liu Xiaokang punched Ms. Zheng's head in this class, resulting in her seeing dark spots and becoming absent minded. She was deeply injured both mentally and physically under the huge pressure. Around June 10, 2002, she suddenly saw darkness, and passed out on the floor, bleeding severely from her broken upper lip with a huge bump on her forehead. She was rushed to the hospital. The doctor said it was caused by heart failure.
Ms. Zheng Youmei escaped police custody at the hospital, and she was forced to flee to avoid being arrested. The police were trying to track her down. Her relatives' homes and phones were all placed under surveillance. She was arrested again in November 2007. They took her back to the Nanmusi Women's Labor Camp. She died in custody on November 2, 2008. The Camp Administration notified her son three days later on November 5, 2008 and said she died of a stroke. They forced her son to sign paperwork and quickly cremated her body.
Ms. Zheng's death is the fourteenth death case directly related to the Sichuan Province (Nanmusi) Women's Labor Camp in Zizhong City.
(1) Based on reports from across China, different detention centers use the idea of the water dungeon in different ways. Some water dungeons submerge the Falun Gong practitioner in chest-deep, filthy water; in others, the water is too deep to stand in. Some have sharp spikes protruding on the inside of cramped cages. Usually, the water dungeons are well-hidden rooms or cells where practitioners are forced to stay for days and nights on end in total darkness. The water is most often extremely filthy, containing garbage and sewage that leaves the victim with festering skin.