My name is Yan Jingqiu. I'm a 49 year old woman and a Falun Gong practitioner from the North District in Qingdao City, Shandong Province. I was sentenced to forced labor and was brutally persecuted in a labor camp for persisting in my belief and insisting on my freedom of speech.

I went to Beijing to appeal in December 1999, and consequently was detained, imprisoned, and sent to a forced labor camp repeatedly. At Tiananmen Square in Beijing, police officers beated me, my face became deformed as a result and my mouth was so swollen that I could not drink anything. In the detention center and forced labor camp, I was force-fed many times, locked in a lavatory and not allow to sleep. Guards placed a stick over my legs and two men stepped on it. My hands and legs were bound and I could not walk or sleep. When my family picked me up, they could not undo the shackles for over two hours because of the rust on them. I was emaciated and extremely feeble.

On August 4, 2005, I noticed a banner smearing Falun Gong hung up by the Beizhong Liaison Office in Qingdao City. I took it down. For doing that, I was taken to Beizhong Police Station in the North District of Qingdao. The police hit my head with a board causing my head to bleed. Later they transferred me to the Qingdao Detention Center. Deputy Head of the detention center, Li handcuffed my hands and feet together with one set of handcuffs. I was unable to walk and lay on the concrete floor for five days. Half of my body was completely numb. I went on a hunger strike to protest. Deputy Li ordered the inmates to hold my feet, my hands, and my hair and force-fed me through a nasal tube.

On September 4, 2004, I was sent to Wangcun Forced Labor Camp. In the labor camp, I was tied to a wooden chair. My arms were tied to either side of the chair, and my feet were tied under the chair. I was tied like that day and night for one month. Sitting for a long time on the wooden chair made my bottom develop calluses. Every day I endured two or three force-feedings through the nose. The abusers left the tube inserted for five or six days before replacing it with a new tube. I was extremely uncomfortable. I became skinny. My nostrils kept bleeding. Swelling began in my feet, went up to my legs, and then to my waist.

At last, because my nose was so swollen that I could not breathe, they had to change the nasal feeding to an infusion. I was handcuffed to a metal bed and unable to move. The doctor said it was hard to find my veins. I was tortured this way for one month.

To force me to give up my belief in Falun Gong, the guards deprived me of sleep day and night. Guard Yan Yan (female, ID: 3734151) stabbed several of my fingers with a pen point, which made my fingers bleed. Li Ying and others dragged me to the restroom and poured cold water on my head and inside my clothing down my neck in the cold winter in November 2005. They soaked a hand towel in cold water and then put it on my head.

They wrote the name of the founder of Falun Dafa on a piece of paper with slanderous words. They forced me to sit on the paper and held my feet to step on it. They wrote on my face, my hands, and my neck the slanderous words. One of them slapped me so hard that I lost my hearing for six months.

In the end, they injected me with an unknown drug. Several guards held me on the couch in the guard’s office. The doctor gave me an injection in my arm. Later I felt dizzy, lost control, and kept grabbing things. They locked me in the restroom, and I almost had a mental breakdown.

In 2005, both my second older sister Ms. Yan Jingfen and I were detained in the labor camp. My father also suffered a great deal and died in 2005.

The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners was an enormous stress on my husband Mr. Li Wanjie. My husband was diagnosed with leukemia. On the night of September 24, 2007, he passed away at the age of forty-nine. Qingdao City 610 Office did not allow me to attend my husband’s funeral. My daughter was left alone without a father or mother to take care of her.

On February 18, 2008, my oldest sister, Ms. Yan Jinghua, was arrested for putting up a poster reading "Solemn Statement to Quit the CCP and its affiliated organizations," and her home was searched. She was sentenced to one and a half years of forced labor.

Posted on February 1, 2009