(Minghui.org) Ms. Cui Xuemin is filing a criminal complaint against former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who launched the brutal persecution against Falun Gong.
She began practicing Falun Gong in May of 1994. Shortly after that, many illnesses that tormented her for years were gone. She was named an Outstanding Teacher of the Year for several years afterwards.
Her personal and professional life came to a halt when the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999.
She was given three years of forced labor in July 2000 and got her term extended by one year when she refused to give up her belief in Falun Gong. She went on a five-month hunger strike to protest the illegal detention, and was brutally force-fed. The labor camp eventually released her in June 2002, when she was on the verge of death.
Her workplace terminated her job in 1999 and later denied her retirement benefits. Police confiscated her identification card, and she now has trouble finding full-time employment. She relies on the survivor benefits of her husband's pension to get by.
The following is an excerpt from her filing of what she went through.
When I first arrived in the labor camp because I did Falun Gong exercises, I was held in a small, dark room. It was 3 by 5 feet, and my hands were cuffed behind my back and fixed to a metal ring on the ground. I could not stand, stretch my legs, or lay down. I was forced to sit day and night.
A week later, both of my arms were terribly swollen. The largest cuff cut into my skin, and the pain was excruciating. Since it was summer, I was drenched in sweat. I was not allowed to bathe for a month.
The effects of the brutality were long lasting. My arms were not fully functional for close to 6 months thereafter, and I had thick callouses on my buttocks from the extended forced sitting.
The total time I spent in solitary confinement was nine months, which went from August of 2000 to May of 2001. When Falun Gong practitioners are held in solitary confinement, they are beaten, tortured, and monitored 24/7.
The detained practitioners endured intense forced labor. We were forced to make medicine boxes. The working conditions were dreadful: 18 practitioners worked in a room of only 60 square feet. Our drinking water and containers of food were placed near the garbage can, a chamber pot, and the glue bucket used to seal the boxes.
The air quality was so bad that it was hard to breathe at times. I attempted to talk to the warden to improve the working conditions, but was sent to solitary confinement as a result.
I held two hunger strikes while I was in the labor camp. During my first force-feeding in November of 2000, the camp's doctor named Chen mixed some kind of drug into the liquid that was forced down my throat. I was not able to sleep for 24 hours and felt exhausted afterwards.
I began a second hunger strike in January of 2002 to protest my extended imprisonment. I was sentenced to three years, but the term was extended for one more year. I was brutally force-fed with unknown drugs more than five months. I suffered two force-feedings twice a day.
After each forced feeding, I was so thirsty that I could not open my mouth. By chance, one inmate found out that the liquid food I got contained a high concentration of salt. In June of 2002, Chen again force-fed me. Soon after, I developed diarrhea. After five bouts of severe diarrhea, I passed out from dehydration and was in critical condition.
When I was released on June of 2002, my family broke down crying when they saw me. I was unrecognizable and emaciated, and my hair had turned completely white.
I was arrested by officers from Shuguang Police Station in Tiefeng District, Qiqihar City in May of 2005. They raided my rented home and confiscated many personal belongings.
I was tortured in the station by being tied down to an iron chair. Both of my hands were handcuffed through a hole in the back of the chair. I could not move at all and was bound in that position for four straight days and nights.
A month after I was sent to the detention center, I became ill. They diagnosed me with heart disease, hepatitis A, and low blood pressure. When they injected me with an unknown drug, I passed out and was sent to the emergency room. I did not recover until one week later.
The local police took my ID card and kept it at the station since October 1999. Not having valid identification has made my life very hard.
Around this time, my workplace also terminated my employment and denied my pension benefits.
My husband was a retiree from the Qiqihar Procuratorate. He suffered a stroke with complications and required my care. He could not handle the stress of my being arrested and imprisoned so often. His health declined quickly, and he passed away in June 2007. Without a regular income, I now rely on his meager survivor's benefits to get by.
In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.
The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners in the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their beliefs and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.
Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.