Name: Qi Lijun (祁丽君)
Gender: Female
Age: 61 (born in 1951)
Address: Chengguan District, Lanzhou City, Gansu Province
Occupation: Former employee of the Medicine & Health Products Import & Export Corporation, Gansu Province
Date of Most Recent Arrest: September 24, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Gansu Province Forced Labor Camp (甘肃省女子劳教所)
City: Lanzhou
Province: Gansu
Persecution Suffered: Detention, interrogation, illegal sentencing, forced labor, torture, hang up, force-feedings, extortion, home ransacked

(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Qi Lijun is a Falun Gong practitioner from Lanzhou City, Gansu Province. She used to suffer from postpartum complications and had to wear an extra warm hat in the winter to alleviate her symptoms. After she started to practice Falun Gong at the end of 1995, all of her health problems disappeared.

Ms. Qi was illegally arrested while she was talking to people about Falun Gong on Caochang Street in Chengguan District on September 24, 2011. The police kept her at the Caochang Street Police Station overnight before transferring her to the Chengguan District Detention Center the next day. She was sentenced to one year of forced labor two weeks later and sent to the Gansu Province Women’s Forced Labor Camp (a.k.a. Yuzhong Women’s Forced Labor Camp) on October 10, 2011.

When her family visited her on January 18, 2012, a female guard told them to persuade Ms. Qi to give up her belief. Ms. Qi told her family that the labor camp doctor had claimed that she had high blood pressure and a heart ailment and forced her to take unknown pills every day.

Imprisoned and Tortured for Her Belief

Ms. Qi was also incarcerated for more than 7 years for her belief in Falun Gong prior to this most recent arrest. Below is a summary of the previous persecution she had suffered.

Ms. Qi was about to leave Kuangdeng Factory residential area around 9 p.m. on May 2, 2002, when a plainclothes policeman knocked her down and took her to Lanzhou City First Detention Center. In late September 2002, she was transferred to Lanzhou City Second Detention Center, where she and four other practitioners were severely tortured.

One torture imposed on them was called “handcuffing behind the back.” The guards pulled one hand of the victim over her shoulder and twisted the other hand up behind her back, cuffing both hands together. They then shackled her and linked the handcuffs and the shackles with wire. In this position, the victim can’t stand up straight or squat. Going to sleep or using the restroom is also impossible. Ms. Qi and her fellow practitioners were tortured like this for a month. When the guards finally decided to remove the handcuffs and shackles, the practitioners' hands and feet were so swollen that it took a long time to remove the restraints. Ms. Qi didn’t regain her ability to walk until a week later.

Torture Reenactment: Handcuffing behind the back

Chengguan District Court secretly tried Ms. Qi on July 20, 2003, and sentenced her to 10 years in prison.

She was sent to the No. 6 Division of Gansu Province Women’s Prison on March 19, 2004. There, she was forced to do all kinds of hard labor, including making paper bags, chopstick cases, napkins, toothpicks and holders. Sometimes she also had to peel garlic; the smell in the workshop was unbearable.

Ms. Qi was released in August 2009, but Jiayuguan Street Committee officials often sent people to harass her at home. In late September 2009, they stationed their staff at her home to monitor her around the clock.

In May 2010, Fan Ming from the Jiayuguan Street Committee threatened to send her back to prison if she ever went out to speak to people about Falun Gong. He dispatched two people to shadow her.

Parties involved in the persecution:

Gansu Province Women’s Forced Labor Camp: +86-931-8797866, +86-931-8797088
Li Xiao and Li Guoyuan, labor camp heads
Liu Junchang, political head
Caochang Street Police Station: +86-13399313885, +86-13399317652
Jin Xiaodong, police station head
Luo Yibo, political head

Related article:

“Ms. Qi Lijun Recounts Ten Years of Persecution (Photo)”