Ms. Yuan Hezhen, female, 42, was a practitioner from Hua-Nan County, Heilongjiang Province. She worked for the Hua-Nan Forest Bureau, a branch of Heilongjiang Forestry.  In January 2000 Hua-Nan County police arrested a large number of Falun Gong practitioners. Ms. Yuan Hezhen and her husband decided to go to Beijing to appeal to the central government to stop the crackdown on Falun Gong. In May 2000, Ms. Yuan was arrested in Beijing and sent to a detention center. She began a hunger strike to protest the illegal treatment; for this, she was brutally beaten, handcuffed in a painful position, and force-fed. This treatment continued until she vomited blood, had bloody stools, and became extremely weak. When she was eventually able to escape from the detention center, she had to live on the streets to avoid further persecution. Because of the severity of her injuries while in police custody, and her unstable living conditions, Ms. Yuan's health deteriorated quickly. In July 2003, she passed away.

On the night of September 25, 2002, Ms. Yuan’s husband, Mr. Sun Jihong, was arrested at the Yuquanying Multi-Level Cross Roads in the Fengtai District of Beijing. On September 29, Mr. Sun was beaten to death while in police custody. When Mr. Sun’s relatives were examining his body, they found his face covered with thick white powder and hardly recognized him. Because of their strong requests, the police wiped away the powder. They saw a hole between Mr. Sun’s eyebrows, and two deep holes on Mr. Sun’s cheeks. His entire body was injured and covered with bruises. On October 2, the police secretly cremated his body.