On September 24, 2003, Ms. Li Shuhua was forcibly taken away from her family’s home by the Peiying Street Police Station in Yushu City and put in jail. When she had not returned home as the police had promised, her father appealed to the Yushu City Public Security Bureau for her release. She died thirteen days later on October 7. Later on, the security officer spoke up about the following circumstances leading to her death: Li Shuhua was tortured because during the interrogation she refused to provide information about her Falun Gong contacts and source of Falun Gong reading materials. The jail police covered her head with plastic bags and then stabbed her fingertips, arms, back and chest with big needles. After sealing her lips with tape, they struck her eyes so hard that the force dislodged one of her eyeballs out of the socket making her pass out. Then they asked for instructions from their superior. The conclusion was that a dead person would be silent and that is why she was murdered.

Upon viewing Li Shuhua’s body at the hospital, the family saw needle marks and bruising around her fingertips, back, arms, and chest, broken skin on two places on her face, and one side of her head was caved in, which later confirmed what the security officer told the family. When the family questioned the medical examiner, who was brought in by the police, about the needle marks and the bloody fluid that soaked towels underneath her, he replied they were due to rescue efforts and the blood in her stomach was menstrual blood. Li Shuhua’s family doubted the reasons given for her death, so they wanted to take pictures of the body. The Public Security Bureau refused their request and had the police guard her body until it could be cremated.

Li Shuhua leaves two young children, her husband, Mr. Yang Zhanjiu, her mother Ms. Cui Zhanyun, and her elderly father. Both her husband and mother, at the time her death, were still being held in a detention center for practicing Falun Dafa.