After Ten Years of Brutal Torture, Shandong Woman Suffers Mental Breakdown Following Latest Arrest and Dies Three Years Later

(Minghui.org)

Name: Yang WenjieChinese Name: 杨文杰Gender: FemaleAge: 61City: ZhaoyuanProvince: ShandongOccupation: N/ADate of Death: February 1, 2023Date of Most Recent Arrest: March 8, 2018Most Recent Place of Detention: Fushan Detention Center

A Zhaoyuan City, Shandong Province resident passed away on February 1, 2023, three years after she suffered a mental breakdown following her latest arrest for practicing Falun Gong. She was 61.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Yang Wenjie was arrested on March 8, 2018 for hanging up a banner that said “Falun Dafa is good.” During the first three months she was held at the Fushan Detention Center, the guards denied her family visits. She wasn’t given any daily necessities, including toilet paper. She was wearing a thick jacket when she was arrested. As the weather warmed up, she wasn’t given any thinner clothes to change into.

According to people who were released from the detention center, Ms. Yang was held in solitary confinement there and no one knew what torture she suffered. But people in the nearby cells heard her desperate screams many times.

The police didn’t inform Ms. Yang’s family of her arrest. It took them over ten days to confirm that she had been arrested. When they went to the Domestic Security Office to demand her release, the police said they would release her in two weeks. Two weeks passed, and the police said they would detain her for three months. About 50 days after Ms. Yang’s arrest, the police called her family and said that her arrest had been approved and they had submitted her case to the procuratorate.

Her family went to the procuratorate to inquire about her case. The receptionist told them that her case was still with the police, who were given one and a half months to collect evidence against her. The family returned to the Domestic Security Office, but security didn’t let them in and the officer in charge refused to answer their call.

A few days later, the police suddenly ordered Ms. Yang’s family to pick her up. Her family was saddened to see that she had become mentally disoriented and behaving strangely. They suspected that she was given toxic drugs in the detention center. The family took her to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. Her condition didn’t improve much after three years. She passed away three days after her family transferred her to a local hospital on January 29, 2023.

Previous Persecution

Ms. Yang took up Falun Gong in 1996. In just two weeks, the stomach condition and frozen shoulder that had tormented her for years disappeared.

After the communist regime began to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, Ms. Yang went to Beijing six times to appeal for the right to practice her faith, only to be arrested each time and taken back to Zhaoyuan for detention. The police once handcuffed and shackled her because she did the Falun Gong exercises in custody. After the last time she went to Beijing, she was fired by her workplace after one month of detention.

Two Consecutive Labor Camp Terms of Six Years

Ms. Yang was arrested again in March 2002 for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. She was given three years at the Wangcun Women’s Forced Labor Camp.

Because she refused to renounce Falun Gong, the guards rotated her in different wards for different teams to torture her. Her legs were injured and her teeth became loose from the beatings.

At the third ward, she was once beaten by six guards at the same time. Then the guards dragged her to solitary confinement, tied her to a wooden board and starved her for nine days. The torture caused her to have blood in her urine. When she still refused to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong, the guards held her in an isolated office for another 15 days, during which time she was monitored by two guards around the clock and only allowed to sleep for two or three hours each day.

After 15 days, Ms. Yang was taken back to solitary confinement and cuffed to the bed in a spread eagle position. Her torso was also tied tightly to the bed. She couldn’t move and the pain was excruciating.

A guard slapped Ms. Yang in the face, while another one stuffed her mouth with a sanitary napkin and taped her mouth shut. Much of her hair was torn off when they removed the tape. The guards kept her tied up for 44 days.

As Ms. Yang remained fast to Falun Gong, the guards tied one hand of hers to the top frame of the window and then her other hand to the heating pipe. Her legs were also tied up. She was unable to stand straight or squat. No restroom use was allowed. The handcuffs on her wrists were so tight that her wrists became severely swollen, and she lost feeling around her wrists. Her left wrist had two deep cuts and the scars were still visible years later.

Fifteen days later, the guards tortured her again by forcing her to sit on the ground. They tied up her legs and her hands behind her back to a chair. Then the guards forced her to sit on a photo of Falun Gong’s founder. Not allowed to use the restroom, she had to relieve herself in her pants.

In November 2002, the guards took off her jacket and opened the window to let the freezing wind blow on her. Meanwhile, they played videos smearing Falun Gong and forced her to watch them. After 15 days of torture, she lost feeling in her hands and feet, and was unable to stand without support.

For a month, the guards didn’t provide Ms. Yang with water and only occasionally fed her pieces of steamed buns to prevent her from starving to death.

Ms. Yang was held in the tiny solitary confinement cell for more than seven months. The winter was freezing cold and the summer was extremely hot and suffocating.

Torture reenactment: Hung up

When Ms. Yang’s labor camp term expired in 2005, the Zhaoyuan City 610 Office didn’t release her, but took her to a brainwashing center for further persecution, with the excuse that she didn’t renounce Falun Gong.

She was hung up several times by the wrists, with her toes barely touching the ground. She wasn’t allowed to sleep in a bed for over 40 days, but was hung up or tied up in excruciating positions.

The guards once dragged her to the basement, forced her to squat with her hands on her ankles and cuffed her hands and ankles together. Then the guards hung her up upside down, while still keeping her cuffed. Six guards took turns shocking her with electric batons on her face, ears, mouth and hands. She fainted after one hour of torture. Only then did the guards take her down and back to solitary confinement.

During that time, her father, who was in his 80s, fell ill and was hospitalized. She wasn’t allowed to visit him or attend his funeral. After eight months at the brainwashing center, the police gave her another three years at the Wangcun Forced Labor Camp and took her back there, without allowing her to return home once.

Four-Year Prison Sentence

Ms. Yang was arrested again in late July 2010. After cuffing her hands and feet to a metal chair, the police grabbed her hair, pulled her head backward, and inserted a thick tube into her nostril to force feed her. They tortured her with much force, causing severe bleeding in her nose and stomach.

Due to the non-stop torture, Ms. Yang was emaciated and her heart rate was more than 120 times per minute. After briefly detaining her at a local brainwashing center, the police took her to a detention center, but had to take her back after she was denied admission.

The Zhaoyuan City Court sentenced Ms. Yang to four years in early 2011. She was taken to the Shandong Province Women’s Prison in April 2011.

As Ms. Yang persisted in doing Falun Gong exercises, the guards and inmates beat her and didn’t allow her to go to the restroom. They gave her a basin if she had to relieve herself and then arranged the inmates to empty it for her. As she didn’t want to cause trouble for the inmates, she held a hunger strike.

Because she refused to wear the inmate’s uniform, the guards tied her up. Several of them sat on her and beat her. She was also deprived of sleep, not allowed to brush her teeth and was prohibited from buying toilet paper for three months. Another egregious torture she suffered was being force-fed urine.

The guards held Ms. Yang in a 5 square-meter room for four years. The room didn’t have any windows, but a small opening on the door for the guards to deliver food and water to her. There wasn’t a bed inside and she slept on the ground all the time, including during the freezing winter. During the hot summer, the room was steaming inside without any ventilation. The toilet didn’t have water to flush. Whenever she finished using it, the inmate gave her a small bowl of water to flush it.