Zhao Xin, female, 32, resident of Beijing, a faculty of the Beijing University of Business and Industry

Ms. Zhao was in critical condition.

Ms. Zhao Xin was arrested on June 19, 2000, when went to Zizhuyuan Park to do Falun Gong exercises. She was sent to the Qinghe Detention Center of the Haidian Police Department.

In the detention center, the officers, led by Bai Gang, severely beat and tortured Ms. Zhao because she refused to renounce Falun Gong. They kicked her and punched her face violently, injuring her head and left eye.

Ms. Zhao's students pay their last respects at her funeral.

Ms. Zhao went on a hunger strike to protest the maltreatment. Responding in violence, the police force-fed her and beat her with a heavy object. The beating fractured her neck vertebrae, and Ms. Zhao became paralyzed from the neck. On June 22, 2000, Ms. Zhao was sent to the Haidian Hospital while still in shackles and handcuffs. The police ordered the hospital to perform surgery on her without informing her family. Ms. Zhao remained paralyzed after the surgery.

Ms. Zhao died on December 11, 2000, after another six months of suffering.

On April 9, 2001, Ms. Li Mei was taken from her Xizhu Village home to the town government office by the local authorities. Because Ms. Li refused to renounce Falun Gong, she was sent to an anti-Falun Gong brainwashing class at the Communist Party School in Laiyang City and was severely tortured. The beatings injured her spinal cord and paralyzed her from the waist down. She was sent to the township hospital, then to the Laiyang Central Hospital's Urgent Care Unit, Building 13. The town government refused to pay for her hospitalization.

On May 28, 2001, Ms. Li died at Laiyang Central Hospital from the injury. In order to cover up their crimes, the town government forced her family to sign papers saying that the government was not responsible for Li Mei's death. Her husband refused to sign, and tried to hire a lawyer to investigate his wife's death, but no lawyer dared to take Li Mei's case because she practiced Falun Gong.

On May 30, 2001, police from the Public Security Bureau of Shijiazhuang City and the "610" Office suddenly appeared at Mr. Zuo Zhigang's workplace and took him to the Qiaoxi District Police Station for interrogation. Mr. Zuo died the same day. His entire body was covered with contusions and abrasions. There were two big square-shaped holes on his back. Marks on his neck indicated he had been strangled.

On November 6, 2000, Mr. Li Wenrui went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. He was arrested and sent to the Mentougou Police Station in Beijing. On November 9, 2000, his family was notified of his death. Mr. Li's wife went to Beijing and found his skull had a large hole and he was covered with bruises.

In January 2001, Mr. Ren Mengjun went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. He was arrested and detained at the Handan City Labor Camp.

In the labor camp, Mr. Ren was brutally beaten for refusing to renounce Falun Gong. It was only when he was in danger of losing his life that the labor camp asked his family to take Mr. Ren home. His family found Mr. Ren to have suffered unimaginable torture. He was completely deaf; he had deep bruises on his buttocks and legs; he had blood in his stool and urine resulting from severe internal injuries; and he was unable to eat or drink. He told his family that it was the unit captain Wang whose brutal beating to his head caused his deafness. Wang also incited criminals to beat Mr. Ren heavily with a wooden rod and torture him for long periods of time.

On October 29, 2001, several days after returning home, Mr. Ren passed away at 4 p.m..

On January 8, 2001, four guards from the Yinhe Company Security Department took Mr. Chen Guibin to the security office of the company, handcuffed him, and started beating him. They broke his neck and paralyzed him. However, they kept on beating him and then threw him outside through the window, and left him in the snow for more than an hour. When they saw that he was unable to move, they carried him back to the office, opened all the windows and left Mr. Chen exposed to the cold wind. Mr. Chen's wife was also detained at that time for being a Falun Gong practitioner. His mother and brother were not allowed to see him. Due to the injury,

Mr. Chen had difficulty breathing and could not urinate. He died the next day in excruciating pain

On December 25, 1999, Dr. Nan Chuyin was arrested and sent to the Xishui No.1 Detention Center where the police locked him in a cell and ordered the inmates to beat him. They hit him with extreme force in his lower abdomen, and he fell to the ground and lost consciousness for a long period of time. Afterwards he developed blood in his stool and spat up blood. He was skin and bone, but swelled up badly due to edema. He told other practitioners that he had been beaten almost daily and went through all kinds of torture in the detention center.

Despite his terrible condition, he was sentenced in May 2000 to one year in the Huangshi Labor Camp. Throughout the whole year, he had blood in his stool and his body was swollen from his lower abdomen to his feet. Yet the authorities refused to release him, and refused to give him any medical attention.

He was released after finishing the one-year labor camp term in Shayang Labor Camp. Even after his release, local authorities and police continued to threaten and pressure him to renounce Falun Gong. He continued to have blood in his stool and spit up a great deal of blood. Since he was a doctor, he knew he had sustained serious injury to his liver. On February 15, 2001, he died of a hemorrhaged liver. At the memorial service of Dr. Nan, the local police arrested many of his friends and relatives.

All five members of Dr. Nan family are Falun Gong practitioners. After Dr. Nan was detained, his wife was arrested and detained for over forty days because she practiced Falun Gong in public. His son was forced to withdraw from Xinan Petroleum College. His elder daughter was detained three times for a total of six months for practicing Falun Gong in public and appealing to the government to stop the persecution of Falun Gong. His younger daughter was sentenced to one and a half years of forced labor.

Lan Hongyu, male, 35, a resident of Sicun Village, Pingan Cheng Township, Zunhua City, Hebei Province

Because Mr. Lan Hongyu refused to renounce Falun Gong, he was arrested on June 2, 2001, and sent to the Zunhua City Detention Center. On June 12, Mr. Lan's family was notified that they should pick him up. When his wife arrived at the detention center, she saw Mr. Lan shackled to an iron bed, with four vicious guards surrounding him. She tried to speak to her husband, and cried over his body, but there was no reaction. He had already lost consciousness, and his lower body was wet with urine. The guards told her that Mr. Lan had not eaten for 10 days. When she asked, "Why weren't we notified sooner?" They did not answer her.

Mr. Lan remained unconscious after being returned home, and kept vomiting and convulsing. He was sent to the Beijing Paramedic Center, but the doctors could not save his life. The autopsy showed that Mr. Lan had been beaten and brutally tortured, resulting in encephalorrhagia [bleeding due to deformed blood vessels of the brain] and large-scale encephalosepsis [degeneration or death of the brain tissues]. His internal organs had all extravasated [the blood had been forced out into the surrounding tissue - a key symptom of severe trauma such as repeated beatings.]