Yang Mei, female, 23, an employee of the Credit Corporation of Xiaowang Village, Cangzhou City, Hebei Province

In July 2001, Ms. Yang Mei was arrested for distributing Falun Gong literature. She was detained in the Cangzhou No. 2 Detention Center in Cangzhou City. At the detention center, the guards repeatedly tortured Ms. Yang to force her to reveal the source of her Falun Gong literature. They shackled Ms. Yang to the “death bed” for one month (the “death bed” is a metal board with handcuffs and shackles to stretch and lock the victim’s four limbs. As the victim cannot move any part of the body, prolonged torture on the board will lead to painful muscular atrophy in the whole body, often with the loss of control of bladder and bowel movement. For this reason, the victim is

usually stripped naked before being shackled to the board so as to let urine and feces flow out by gravity). As a result, Ms. Yang lost control of her bladder and bowel movements. Her legs and feet were so severely swollen that her legs became thick and her feet deformed. Several layers of her skin peeled away.

On October 10, 2001, Ms. Yang and ten other Falun Gong practitioners started a hunger strike to protest the inhumane torture at the detention center. The police ordered an elderly cook with no medical knowledge to force-feed the practitioners. A tube was inserted into Ms. Yang’s nose and left in place for many days. Icy cold salt water mixed with flour paste or diluted milk was poured through the tube. Often times, the tube was repeatedly inserted and pulled out to inflict pain. Such violent jabbing of feeding tubes often leads to internal injuries.

Ms. Yang suffered tremendously from the force feeding. On October 19, after one more round of violent force feeding, Ms. Yang lapsed into a coma She passed away around 6 a.m. on October 20, 2001.

The appearance of Ms. Yang’s body was grotesque. Her whole body was swollen, with all four limbs being most conspicuous. Red spots of scabies infection covered her entire body, with deep bruises in many areas, including her chest. An autopsy showed massive necrosis in her lungs with food deposit rotting there, apparently from the force-feeding.

The police informed Ms. Yang’s parents of her death late in the afternoon. The authorities forced the family to settle the matter privately and not reveal it to the public. In order to keep her from revealing anything about her daughter’s death, the police put Ms. Yang’s mother under house arrest, and did not allow her to have any outside contact. Plain-clothes policemen monitored her house around the clock. Ms. Yang ’ s mother was not even allowed to see her daughter’s body before the cremation.

type=Case,Death; type=Detention Center, Cangzhou No. 2 Detention Center; type=Case,Women; location=Hebei,Cangzhou