(Minghui.org)
Name: Liu ShengzhiChinese Name: 刘胜志Gender: MaleAge: 70City: N/AProvince: BeijingOccupation: N/ADate of Death: July 17, 2024Date of Most Recent Arrest: April 26, 2021Most Recent Place of Detention: N/A
Name: Liu FengxiaChinese Name: 刘凤霞Gender: FemaleAge: N/ACity: N/AProvince: BeijingOccupation: N/ADate of Death: 2020Date of Most Recent Arrest: November 10, 2016Most Recent Place of Detention: N/A
For practicing Falun Gong, Mr. Liu Shengzhi and his wife and sister, all Beijing residents, endured decades of incarceration and torture. Mr. Liu was shocked with electric baton on his private part and became incontinent. He struggled with systemic edema for years and passed away on July 17, 2024. He was 70. His sister, after serving two labor camp terms and a prison term, died in 2020. His wife, who was almost beaten to death in custody, once heard a guard say, “We are the police. The higher-up have said that we bear no responsibility if we beat you to death. And no one would know if you indeed died.”
In early December 1999, five months after the persecution of Falun Gong started, Mr. Liu, his wife Ms. Su Xiurong, and sister Ms. Liu Fengxia were arrested and taken to the Zhoukoudian Psychiatric Hospital along with 65 other Falun Gong practitioners. Despite the freezing weather, the authorities forced them to take cold showers in rooms without heat. After 48 days, they were transferred to the Huangshandian Drug Rehabilitation Center and forced to watch propaganda videos smearing Falun Gong every day. Each of them was fined 1,000 yuan when they were released in early 2000.
Ms. Su was soon arrested again and given a one-year labor camp term in July 2000. Mr. Liu went to Beijing to appeal. Upon returning home, he, his teenage daughter, and several local practitioners were summoned by village official Liu Shicheng. Each of them was held in a separate room with closed window curtains. The officials asked them if they still practiced Falun Gong. Because the practitioners said they did, the officials tortured them, including shocking them with electric batons from head to toe and whipping them. The officials specifically shocked Mr. Liu on his private part, feet, and armpits. As a result, he was incontinent, on top of other injuries.
Mr. Liu’s daughter was covered with bruises from the beating and electric shocks. She fainted three times and couldn’t walk. To cover up the torture, the officials held her in custody and left her lying on her stomach for over three weeks, releasing her only after she was better.
Ms. Su was arrested again in February 2006 and sentenced to 5.5 years. She was beaten, shocked with electric batons and injected with unknown drugs while in prison. She almost died several times. Once while she was half conscious during a torture session, she heard someone say, “We are the police. The higher-up have said that we bear no responsibility if we beat you to death. And no one would know if you indeed died.”
Over the next few years, Mr. Liu was arrested a few more times and had his home ransacked. He served two labor camp terms and was detained many times in brainwashing centers and psychiatric hospitals. Because he refused to give up Falun Gong, he was held in solitary confinement, starved, deprived of sleep, not allowed to take showers, denied family visits, and still forced to work without pay. The guards often arranged inmates to watch him around the clock and they were given free rein to beat and verbally abuse him at will.
The couple’s next arrest was on November 17, 2016. Mr. Liu was released the same day due to his extremely high blood pressure. Ms. Su was held in the Tiangezhuang Detention Center in the Fangshan District for an unknown amount of time.
They were reported for talking to people about Falun Gong in March 2021 and arrested on April 26, 2021. The police confiscated a box of CDs and a few brochures with information about Falun Gong. The items were later used as prosecution evidence. The police kept harassing the couple after releasing them on bail.
The Fangshan District Court sentenced Mr. Liu to two years with a 2,000-yuan fine and Ms. Su to three and a half years with a 4,000-yuan fine in 2022. They appealed to the Superior Court in Beijing but lost the case. Due to their physical conditions, they weren’t taken into custody to serve time immediately after their convictions.
Several officers showed up at the couple’s home on November 24, 2023, and ordered them to have physical exams. The officers said the order came from the Fangshan District Court: If the two were found to be fit for imprisonment, they’d be taken into custody; otherwise the court would order them to serve time at home. It is unclear whether the couple had physical exams as ordered.
Due to the stress of being prosecuted, Mr. Liu’s health quickly declined. He was hospitalized four times between 2021 and 2023, before eventually passing away on July 17, 2024.
The Persecution of Ms. Liu Fengxia
After the initial arrest in 1999, Ms. Liu was arrested again in January 2002, three days before the Chinese New Year. After she was released, the police often harassed her and her family. Her father was so terrified that he developed a heart condition and died in 2003. Her son suffered a mental breakdown.
Ms. Liu was arrested again on October 29, 2004. She was first held in the Fangshan Detention Center and later transferred to the Daxing Women’s Forced Labor Camp to serve an unknown term. She was forced to do hard labor without pay. She once fell and broke her left hip.
In 2008, Ms. Liu was transferred to the Hohhot Women’s Forced Labor Camp in Inner Mongolia and still forced to work for more than ten hours a day. Without proper personal protective equipment, she was poisoned by the materials she worked with. Her body was swollen and oozed pus. She was also force-fed and her teeth became loose as a result. Despite her physical condition, she still had to work.
Ms. Liu later found white substances in her food, and the inmate assigned to watch her admitted that it was the guards who instructed the inmates to lace her food with toxic drugs. She also reported having two large tubes of blood taken from her once and she felt dizzy afterwards.
Ms. Liu was arrested twice more, in 2007 and 2014. She was held in brainwashing centers both times, for 17 days and 32 days, respectively. She was later sentenced to four years for the 2014 arrest and taken back into custody to serve time on November 10, 2016. She died in 2020.
Related Report in Chinese:
Related Reports:
Mr. Zhang Jiguo and Ms. Liu Fengxia Still in Custody in Beijing
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