(Clearwisdom.net) After over two months of torture, Ms. Kong Xi is on the verge of death.
Ms. Kong Xi, approximately 30 years old, is a practitioner from Weifang City, Shandong Province. After she was arrested on July 9, 2008, she was detained at the Weifang City Detention Center. She held a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Once, the detention center officials tied her to a cross constructed with metal poles for seven consecutive days and nights with her arms fixed by long rubber bands and feet shackled together, causing excruciating pain.
After she was released from the metal cross, she was not able to walk and had to be carried. She remained in this condition for several days. She was tied to the cross every three days, each time she was forced to have an infusion or be forced-fed.
Ms. Kong used to have a happy family. Both of her parents are guards at the Weibei Prison. Her mother Li Xiyun used to suffer from heart disease, anemia, and several other ailments. After she started to practice Falun Gong in 1996, all of her physical problems were gone. After the persecution of Falun Gong started, Ms. Kong's father could not withstand the pressure and divorced her mother. On February 6, 2001, Ms. Gong and her mother were sent to the Weifang Industry School Brainwashing Center. Officials from Weibei Prison put wooden bars on the door to their home for 17 days and forcibly kept them there during Chinese New Year. They were detained in the brainwashing center for over a month. After they were released, they were forced to leave their home to avoid further persecution.
On the evening of April 25, 2004, ten days before Ms. Kong's wedding day, agents from the Weifang City State Security Division arrested her fiance Li Jiangang. Then a dozen agents went to Ms. Kong's home to arrest her and her mother. Ms. Kong and her mother managed to escape, but the agents confiscated the money they were going to use for the wedding. Mr. Li Jiangang was sentenced to three years of forced labor.
At approximately 4 a.m. on July 9, 2008, officers from the Weifang City Development District Police Department tricked Ms. Kong and her mother into opening the door by pretending that they were there to read the water meter. The police confiscated all of their Falun Gong books and valuables. Ms. Li Xiyun managed to escape. Between 7 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on the same day, section chief Ding from the Weifang City Police Department Criminal Division led over a dozen officers to break into Mr. Li Jiangang's home and arrested him and his mother Ms. Zhang Yufang.
Mr. Li Jiangang is the nephew of Ms. Chen Zixiu, a practitioner from Weifang City that died as a result of the persecution. Ian Johnson of The Wall Street Journal won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles on the persecution of Falun Gong, the first of which was focused on Ms. Chen.
We ask that the international community help end the persecution and secure the release of these practitioners.
Huang Weilian, Director of Weifang City Police Department: 86-536-8783123
Wang Wei, Director of State Security Division of the Weifang City Police Department
Li Xingming, Director of the Patrol Division of the Weifang City Development District Police Department, responsible for Ms. Kong's arrest
Wang Shuguo, Director of Weifang City Detention Center: 86-536-8911161
