(Clearwisdom.net) On August 10, 2005, officers from the Xhanhua Police Department illegally arrested Ms. Ding Shumei, a Falun Dafa practitioner from Xuanhua, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province. Without a warrant, they sent her directly to the Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp. Since Ms. Ding refused to cooperate after the arrest, they beat and tortured her with electric batons. To protest the persecution, Ms. Ding held a hunger strike. In return, the authorities brutally force-fed her. Currently Ms. Ding is in an extremely weak physical condition. We appeal to all kind-hearted people to pay attention to Ms. Ding's situation.

Ms. Ding Shumei, 44, is an elementary school teacher. On March 2, 2000, when she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, she was illegally detained for one month.

In October 2001, Ms. Ding tried to clarify the truth about the persecution to others. To punish her, the authorities sentenced her to three years of imprisonment at the Kaiping Forced Labor Camp in Tangshan City.

Before the local police finally managed to send her to Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp in Hebei Province, their attempts to imprison her in other labor camps failed because the authorities at these labor camps all refused to accept her. The authorities at Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp, however, agreed to admit her after the local police bribed them with a lot of money.

On August 12, three days after Ms. Ding began her hunger strike at Gaoyang Labor Camp, the authorities began to force feed her, but Ms. Ding threw up everything they fed her. A doctor's examination a few days later concluded that she was not suitable for force-feeding. Disregarding the doctor's conclusion, Li Xuejun, Wei Hongling, and a doctor surnamed Bai, continued to force-feed Ms. Ding every day. After ten days of such torture, they tied her to a hospital bed and administered an infusion against her will. Then they took her back and continued the force-feeding. On the fifteenth day, Ms. Ding was sent back to the hospital and persecuted in the same way. Following instructions from Li Xuejun, the nurse fed Ms. Ding simultaneously through her nostrils and mouth, nearly suffocating her to death.

At the time of writing, they continue to force feed her routinely. As a result, Ms. Ding is in a terribly weak condition.

On the evening of August 26, Li Xuejun, the head of the brigade, led Jing Guoping, the director of the labor camp; Ran Xuefeng, the political commissar of the labor camp; and Han Kexin, the associate director, to the women's building. They called the roll, but some of the practitioners refused to answer. These practitioners were punished. After these officials casually reduced some inmates' terms by eight days per month, they visited place where Ms. Ding was being held. Despite her critical physical condition, Ms. Ding continues to be imprisoned and is constantly under the intimidation of the brigade head and the prison doctors.

The hospital associated with the Gaoyang police is the Legal Hospital of Gaoyang Chinese Medicine Institute. This hospital has long been involved in treating patients from forced labor camps who have been beaten by police or are in a critical condition. They never report the abuse to higher levels of government. Moreover, they often issue false death certificates for people who die from police torture.

The police departments in the various counties and districts of Zhangjiakou City have also been cooperating with Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp by bribing them to imprison citizens they have illegally arrested without a warrant. According to the official regulations, labor camp detainees from Zhangjiakou City are supposed to be sent to Tangshan City, but as a Zhangjiakou resident, Wang Peiyi, the former director of the Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp, was very supportive of the local police. Wang himself was arrested back in 2004 for graft, but was released under pressure from the Judicial Department of Hebei Province. With his connections, Wang managed to retire from his post and escape punishments.

Since May of this year, authorities at Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp have started a layered administrative system that includes open, half-open, and closed governance. The inmates in the forced labor camp who are subject to the "open governance" (such as Jing Guoping) all have connections and have bribed the authorities. Not surprisingly, no Falun Gong practitioners are allowed to be in the "open governance" category.

The west wing on the second floor where Ms. Ding is imprisoned is where the guards torture people. There are various torture instruments on that floor. These instruments have been used to torture the imprisoned, including those who are still in the labor camp.

One of the rooms on the second floor is full of many ugly pictures and words slandering Falun Dafa and its founder. Whenever the authorities want to torture Falun Dafa practitioners, they always send them to that room.

Among the practitioners imprisoned in the Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp, a few were released when they were in a critical condition, but they died only days after they returned home. It is suspected that these practitioners died because the authorities at the labor camp injected them with nerve-damaging drugs. The doctors in this brigade, including the one surnamed Bai, Wang Guoyou, and Wei Hongling, have been directly involved in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. In particular, to further torture Ms. Ding, who was holding a hunger strike, they once purposely force-fed her every other day.