Ms. Qie Lili, 31, is currently being held in the First Detention Center of Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province. She has spent almost five of the past ten years in prisons and detention centers. Her family has also been persecuted and much of the income she has been able to make under these circumstances confiscated.
A family is arrested after a raid on their home and the confiscation of many of their possessions.
The Stolen Life of Ms. Qie Lili, an Elementary School Teacher from Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province
Life between the age of 21 and 31 is a golden time for many people, but things were much different for Ms. Qie Lili, a Falun Gong practitioner. The following is how she has spent those ten "golden" years of her life.
Ms. Qie Lili, born in 1978, was a teacher at Xili Elementary School in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province. Her mother's family suffered from genetic heart disease, from which her elder aunt and the daughter of her younger uncle died. Lili had the same disease. She also suffered from a serious gastric condition, sinus inflammation, and neurasthenia, which had even caused her to fall into a coma at one point. After she began to practice Falun Gong in1998, all these diseases disappeared, and she experienced the miracle of Falun Gong. She became energetic, worked conscientiously, and was loved by her students and praised by them.
Like most girls Lili dreamed of a happy family, with a husband who loved her and took care of her. Before she could realize her dream, disaster befell her in1999. She was only 21 years old at the time.
Over the past 10 years Lili has been cruelly persecuted. She was forced into homelessness for three years in total and suffered great economic losses since the extortion money that she paid to authorities amounted to nearly 20,000 yuan. She has been detained seven times--four and a half years in all--and cruelly tortured. Her elderly father died as a result of police harassment and intimidation, and her mother was imprisoned for eight months because of her efforts to seek justice for her daughter.
Lili is still being held in the First Detention Center of Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province.
For details about the mistreatment that Lili suffered during July 1999 and August 2002, please see /emh/articles/2008/8/28/100186.html.
On February 28, 2004, Lili was arrested again by officers from the Xinhua Police Station (also known as the Weiming Street Police Station) of Shijiazhuang City. In the detention center she was unable to eat or drink for a month. On March 27, when policeman Wei Pingshan took her to the hospital affiliated with the Judiciary System of Shijiazhuang City, her blood pressure did not even register. She was already in a coma when doctors tried to check her heart with an electrocardiogram. The doctors concluded that she had blood shortage in the cardiac muscle, and she was in critical condition. However, instead of releasing her for medical treatment, the police took her back to the detention center. Claiming that she might escape, Li Rongqi assigned 24 people to watch her, although she was already in critical condition. They made up four shifts, six people per shift. Lili went on a hunger strike and demanded her release for medical treatment. The next day Wei Pingshan, two nurses from the Hospital of Chinese Medicine of Shijiazhuang City, and several officers from the Weiming Street Police Station tried to force feed her by stepping on her to prevent her from moving. They simply dumped her on the ground as if she were a lifeless package each time they finished force feeding her. They did this to her three times.
Then the police took Lili to a forced labor camp. Despite the fact that she was in critical condition after the force feeding, the Shijiazhuang City Forced Labor Camp still accepted her. In the labor camp she went on a hunger strike--no food or drink--for 20 days. Lu Hongguo, a female prison guard from the 5th Squadron of the labor camp, and Xu, a doctor from the camp hospital, cruelly force fed her. Lu stuck chopsticks through her teeth, pried her mouth open, pressed her against a chair, pinched her nose shut, and fed her with porridge with a large dose of salt, a little milk, and corn gruel. To make her suffer more, they deliberately wiggled the feeding tube when they stuck it through her nose into her stomach. The tube dripped with blood each time they pulled it out. Seven days later they started to infuse her with drugs. They handcuffed her and bound her arms and legs. She was infused with 2,500 ml of drugs nonstop for 10 days. Her whole body swelled up, and her skin looked bright because of the edema. Even in these circumstances the perpetrators stabbed needles through her fingernails while continuing to ask her whether she would give up Falun Gong.
Because Lili refused to cooperate with the labor camp's brainwashing, the prison guards tried to "transform" her into giving up Falun Gong with sleep derivation on April 27. She was not allowed to sleep for 24 hours. She usually fell to the ground unconscious. From October 8 to 18, 2004, at the order of squadron leader Di Manli, and deputy leader Wang, Lili was again tortured with sleep deprivation. She was also cruelly beaten by the guards until she showed symptoms of heart disease.
Lili was also forced to sit cross-legged for long periods. She was hung up by her handcuffs and forced to stand for a long time. Under orders from Qiao Xiaoxia, the deputy chief of the 5th Squadron, she was subjected to violent brainwashing and was forced to sit cross-legged for 18 hours, from which her legs almost became paralyzed.
During the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Lili was arrested again. On August 1, 2008, when she was waiting for one of her insurance clients in the 2nd region of the Shifu District, Shijiazhuang City, she was arrested by Zhang Xianli, a policeman from the Domestic Security Group of Shijiazhuang City Police Department.
On May 12, 2009, Lili received the verdict document that she had been sentenced to four years of imprisonment. She refused to accept the verdict and submitted her appeal to the Intermediate Court of Shijiazhuang City with the assistance of a lawyer who is providing her legal defense. Lili has now been held in custody for nearly 11 months.
Four People in One Family Arrested, Young Child Left Homeless
More than ten police officers from the Hengshan District in Jixi City rushed into the home of senior citizen Mr. Xiang Hongfu on May 14, 2009, at 4:00 a.m. Mr. Xiang is a Falun Gong practitioner who lives with his wife in the Dahengshan residential area. The police ransacked his home, making a mess, and illegally arrested him; his wife, Yu Shuqin; son, Xiang Bin; and daughter-in-law, Huang Yingjie. The police also confiscated a number of family possessions.
The four adults are being held at the Jixi Detention Center. Mr. Xiang's young grandson, with no one at home to take care of him, became homeless.
Xiang Hongfu's wife, Ms. Yu Shuqin, is 62 years old. She was in poor health before she started practicing Falun Gong and suffered from multiple illnesses. She also had a nasty temper. When she was in a bad mood, she would fight with her husband and his parents. Once she began practicing Falun Gong, however, she understood the purpose of life and became a much kinder person. Ms. Yu apologized to others for her past behavior and began to enjoy good relationships with family members and neighbors. She also became much healthier. Her husband suffered from severe life-threatening illnesses for years. After becoming healthy through practicing Falun Gong, Mr. Xiang often told others, "Falun Gong has given me a new lease on life. I would have died long ago had I not practiced it." Living by the principles of Falun Gong, the couple enjoyed a happy family life.
Prior to the arrests of Mr. Xiang and Ms. Yu, their youngest son informed them of his plan to get married at home. He had been away in Hainan Province for five years and had not returned home once during that time. The old couple was very happy and began to prepare for their son's wedding. But suddenly they were arrested and could not participate in the wedding. Their relatives are saddened by the arrests.