Ms. Xu Hongmei tortured to death

Ms. Shen Zili tortured to death

Mr. Sun Weimin still imprisoned

Tiantian, daughter of Ms. Xu & Mr. Sun

Ms. Xu Hongmei was born in 1971 and started practicing Falun Gong in 1995. She married another practitioner, Mr. Sun Weimin from the No. 2 Machine Factory in Qiqihar City. They had a daughter named Tiantian. Ms. Shen Zili was another practitioner from Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province.

Ms. Xu had been arrested and detained five times since the persecution started on 1999. She was once held and tortured in the Shuanghe Women's Forced Labor Camp in Qiqihar City for three years. Her husband, Mr. Sun was sentenced to 13 years in prison and is now held at the Tailai Prison in Qiqihar City.

On January 13, 2007, Ms. Xu and Ms. Shen were arrested at a friend’s home, and sent to Qingyun Police Station.

In order to force Ms. Xu to give up her belief in Falun Gong, officer Yi Zhanhui of Qingyun Police Station used all kinds of cruel torture methods on Ms. Xu, such as tying her to a bed with her legs and arms stretched far apart; tying her up like a stick; hung her upside down four times and upright once. They beat her until she lost consciousness, then they woke her up with cold water and continued torturing her. Office Yi Zhanhui locked her in a metal cage. They also tied the other practitioner Ms. Shen to a chair with adhesive tape and knocked her head against the wall until she lost consciousness. They continued beating her after she regained consciousness.

Ms. Shen and Ms. Xu had been on a hunger strike (no food or water) for more than ten days to protest against their illegal imprisonment. The police then took the dying Ms. Xu and Ms. Shen to the Qiqihar City Detention Center. Their bodies were covered with injuries.

In the afternoon on February 13, 2007, police officers put ankle shackles on the practitioners and took them to Rooms 423 and 424 of the Internal Medicine Department in the Qiqihar City Second Hospital.

Ms. Shen and Ms. Xu, who were at the brink of death, told their families that the officers at the Qinglong Street Police Station including Yi Zhanhui had beaten them for five days. Both had severe internal injuries. They had blood coming from their mouths and were coughing blood. They later went into convulsions. Their bodies swelled and then they lapsed into deep comas. While in a deep coma, Ms. Xu sobbed constantly, and tears streamed down her face despite her lack of response to external stimuli.

The Qiqihar City 610 Office, the Qiqihar City Police Department, the Qiqihar City CCP Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs, the Longsha District 610 Office, the Longsha District Police Department, the Longsha District CCP Committee of Political and Legislative Affairs and the Qingyun Street Police Station demanded 20,000 yuan from the two practitioners’ family members in order to release them. The Longsha District Police Department Deputy Chief Zhang Hang went to the hospital every day to try to get the money. Hearing that the families had no money to pay, the officials said that they would rather see the two practitioners die than release them.

After both women were injected with "bovine serum albumin," they appeared to be dying and remained in a deep coma. On February 27, 2007, Ms. Xu Hongmei and Ms. Shen Zili passed away at 4:30 p.m. and 8:50 p.m. respectively. Zhang Hang, Longsha District Police Department deputy head in Qiqihar City leading a large group of plainclothes police officers, drove to the crematorium on the morning of March 1, 2007. The practitioners’ bodies were hastily cremated between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m.

Ms. Xu Hongmei’s daughter Tiantian was discriminated against as she grew up, and suffered from being separated from her parents. Her father, Mr. Sun Weimin, is still detained in Tailai Prison. Tiantian has to live with her grandparents. She cannot understand why her Mom and Dad were detained for being good people, and why her Mom was tortured to death.

Before she was lately arrested and tortured to death, Ms. Shen Zili was also suffered multiple times of arrest and torture. On April 2, 2006, officers from the Tiefeng Police Department arrested her. She was taken to the Shuguang Police Station where she they used a number of torture methods on her, including the tiger bench, "five horses split the body," bamboo sticks, and metal pipes. The guards hit her thighs with hammers. Guard Sheng Tao whipped the soles of her feet with a bamboo plank about five inches wide until Ms. Shen lost consciousness from the pain. She lost consciousness many times during the torture. The guards also poured cold water on her and burned her with cigarettes. Officers from Tiefeng Police Department and from the Shuguang Police Station extorted more than 23,000 yuan from Ms. Shen's family before they released her.

Posted on December 1, 2007