AFP: Falun Gong Follower Thrown to Death by Police

October 1, 2001

BEIJING, Oct 1, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A female follower of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual [group] suffered a lengthy beating by police before being thrown to her death from a high window, the group's New York-based headquarters said Monday.

Yu Xiuling died on September 19 after a fall from the fourth story of a police station in the northeastern province of Liaoning, the Falun Dafa Information Center said in a statement.

A police official in the district of Longcheng where the incident reportedly took place denied any knowledge of the event. Other local officials could not be contacted because of the National Day public holiday.

According to the Information Center, 32-year-old Yu was arrested on September 14 for being a Falun Gong practitioner.

On September 19 she was taken to a police station in Longcheng district and beaten for a number of hours after she refused to renounce her beliefs in [Falun Gong] [...], the Center quoted unnamed sources as saying.

After the beating two police officers threw Yu, still alive, from the fourth-story window, the report added, saying her husband was then told she had jumped to her death.

The U.S.-based Falun Gong center says more than 280 followers have died in custody since the group was outlawed [...] just over two years ago.

Reports of such deaths have proved difficult to verify, but independent human rights groups have put the toll at more than 150.

[...]

During last year's National Day Falun Gong severely embarrassed authorities by staging a mass protest in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Around 1,000 people were rounded up by police, at times brutally, in front of shocked tourists. [...]

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