Name: Cao Fang (曹芳)
Gender: Female
Age: 57
Address: Jinchang City, Gansu Province
Occupation: Housewife

Date of Most Recent Arrest: June 5, 2007
Most Recent Place of Detention: Gansu Province Women's Prison (甘肃省女子监狱)
City: Lanzhou
Province: Gansu
Persecution Suffered: Detention, home ransacking, hung by handcuffs, interrogation, sleep deprivation, extortion, forced labor, brutal beatings, illegal sentencing, brainwashing, electric shocks

Key Persecutors: Li Xuhe, Li Xinhua, Liu Chengye, and Dai Baoji from Jinchang City Domestic Security Division

(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Cao Fang started practicing Falun Gong in August 1998. Prior to that she suffered from many ailments, including hyperostosis, rheumatic arthritis, and neurasthenia, and she also had problems with her shoulders. By the time she reached the age of 37, her physical problems had become severe. They disappeared however, after practicing Falun Gong for about one year.

Held in a Detention Center

Officers Li Xuhe and Li Xinhua from the Jinchang City Domestic Security Division, along with a female officer from Wuweilu Police Station, arrested Ms. Cao on the morning of October 31, 2003. They barged into her house and ransacked it. Although they found no Falun Gong-related materials, they still took her to the Jinchang Police Department.

Ms. Cao was taken to an interrogation room, where she was hung up off the ground with her hands cuffed behind her back. She was in extreme pain and started to scream. Li Xuhe then slapped her face.

Torture re-enactment: Hung up by handcuffs

Li Xinhua and Liu Chengye took Ms. Cao to another interrogation room, where Liu kicked her and handcuffed her to the table. She refused to cooperate with them and was left handcuffed to a heating pipe overnight. Ms. Cao was continually interrogated and was not allowed to close her eyes. Liu kept tightening her handcuffs until they cut into her wrists. When Ms. Cao screamed in pain, Li slapped her hard in the face. Under such brutal torture Ms. Cao lost a lot of weight in a short period of time, and her eyes became bloodshot.

Over half a dozen officers, including Li Xuhe, Li Xinhua, Liu Chengye, and Dai Baoji, threatened Ms. Cao's family and tried to extort 1,000 yuan from them in return for her release. Her family borrowed 1,000 yuan and took it to the police, but they were then told that the price for her release had been doubled.

Li Xinhua and others took Ms. Cao to Jinchang Detention Center, where she was detained for 55 days. The detention center head told Ms. Cao's family that they had to pay 180 yuan for her living expenses. Li Xuhe, Li Xinhua and Liu Chengye interrogated her every day for 20 days.

Li Xuhe, Li Xinhua, and Dai Baoji later drove Ms. Cao to Wang Yukang's home, and told her to knock on the door. She refused, so they got a neighbor to knock on the door instead. When the door was opened, they pushed their way in and arrested practitioners Wang Yukang and Wei Fengling.

Ms. Cao was constantly sworn at and brutally beaten in the detention center. The head of her cell also forced her to clean the yard many times by hand with buckets of ice-cold water. She was physically and mentally exhausted and began to vomit blood. Officials from the Jinchang Domestic Security Division forced Ms. Cao's family to pay another 2,000 yuan on December 23, 2003, before releasing her on bail.

At around 11 o'clock on February 4, 2004, Li Xuhe, Li Xinhua, Liu Chengye, Dai Baoji, and others broke into Ms. Cao Fang's home, demanding that she go with them to the police station to get her 2,000 yuan deposit back. When she refused to go, they told her that they needed her signature at the station. She still refused to go, so Li Xinhua and another two officers, including Li Yunsheng from Binhe Road Police Station, forcibly dragged her into the car and took her to Jinchang Detention Center. Three days later, Liu Chengye took Ms. Cao, Wang Yukang, Wei Fengling, and Ms. Gong Yuehua to Gansu Province Forced Labor Camp. Ms. Cao and Ms. Gong Yuehua were then detained in Gansu Province Women's Forced Labor Camp. Ms. Cao was held there for over two months as the guards tried to force her to renounce her belief. She was beaten, forced to stand for long periods of time, and deprived of sleep.

In May 2004, the Procuratorate of Jinchuan District took Ms. Cao back to Jinchang, where a court session was to be held for her and practitioners Li Dexiang and Zhao Fenglian. Since Ms. Cao was extremely weak, the Procuratorate allowed her to remain at home to await the trial date, and detained her son instead. Ms. Cao was still very weak on the day of the trial. She could not stand up and had to be held up by her family members. Ms. Cao fainted not long after the trial started.

When Ms. Cao returned home, officials from the Jinchang Domestic Security Division, Jinchuan District Procuratorate, Jinchuan District Court, Binhe Road Police Station, neighborhood administration office, and Longquanli officials Liu Hu and Wei Dongmei frequently went to Ms. Cao's home to harass and threaten her family. Ms. Cao was forced to leave home for over a month to avoid further persecution.

Sentenced to Prison

Ms. Cao was arrested on June 5, 2007 by Li Xinhua and officers from the Jinchang 610 Office and the Xinhua Road Police Station. She was detained for two days and interrogated by the head of Jinchang Domestic Security Division Shang Kewu, Li Xinhua, Zhou Junguo, and Yongchang County Police Department Domestic Security Division officers Yan Zhengwu and Li Guoyu. Ms. Cao was taken to the Jinchang Detention Center, where she was detained for almost ten months, and secretly put on trial twice. The head of the inmates Gao Yunxia, 57, often instigated other inmates to abuse and torture her. Ms. Cao became very weak. She often vomited blood and had stomach problems. She was sentenced to a four-year term, and was transferred to Gansu Province Women's Prison on March 24, 2008.

Ms. Cao was the eldest person in her cell, as the other inmates were 20-30 years old. Gao told other inmates to make their cells very dirty and messy, and then ordered Ms. Cao to clean them. In October, Gao forced Ms. Cao to dry the shower room with a piece of cloth when the inmates had finished taking their showers. Gao also ordered inmate Li Na to pour water on Ms. Cao's bed.

When Ms. Cao did the Falun Gong exercises, Gao ordered Wang Xia and Liu Li to monitor her. They then pushed her outside on the cold concrete floor. Gao ordered all the inmates in the cell to verbally abuse and beat Ms. Cao at every moment. When Ms. Cao was sleeping at night, Zhao Ying, 19, threw bottles at her to wake her up. Despite Ms. Cao's age, Gao and Zhao would only allow her to drink cold water in the winter. The actions of Gao and other inmates against Ms. Cao were encouraged by the guards.

The guards forced Ms. Cao to watch videos slandering Falun Gong every morning and afternoon. She also forced her to write her thoughts of what she had seen. Li Yan from Jiayuguan was ordered to monitor her. Section head Zhu Hong and police officer Dong Shangheng ordered Li and Meng Haihong to try and get Ms. Cao to say bad words about the Teacher of Falun Gong, but she refused.

Practitioners are forced to memorize the prison rules, which are more than ten pages long. Ms. Cao was not able to memorize them, so Li beat and cursed at her, and forced her to stand for long periods of time. When she fell down, guards Zhu Hong and Dong Shangheng shocked her arms and hands with electric batons. Ms. Cao fell unconscious for more than three hours. Inmates Xian Daiying and Huang Yaqin then continued torturing her.

Li deprived Ms. Cao of sleep and forced her to stand for an entire night. At about 3:00 a.m. Li opened the window to let in the cold air. Ms. Cao was then forced to stand next to the window, wearing only a single layer of clothing. Li once prevented Ms. Cao from leaving the room and beat her to the ground. Li did it again several days later. Li always picked on Ms. Cao and used every opportunity to brutally punch and kick her. Li also stole money and personal belongings from Ms. Cao, and threatened her not to tell anyone.

Other practitioners in the same cell also suffered the same kind of persecution. One night, inmate Huang Yaqin, who is in her forties, from Tianshui, forced Ms. Lu Guiqin, in her seventies, from Lanzhou, to continually drink water, and didn't allow her to use the restroom for the entire night. Ms. Lu's stomach was swollen and her body was shivering. Huang continued to beat and shout at her, and wouldn't let her use the restroom. Ms. Lu was screaming from the agonizing pain. Huang also beat Ms. Yan Ping from Lanzhou many times.

In March 2008, Ms. Cao was put in the First Prison District to do forced labor. She was forced to make embroidered caps. It was an assembly line and each person had to do about one thousand caps per day. The workload was extremely heavy. They didn't have time to drink water or use the restroom, and were often shouted at. Elderly practitioners were forced to shear threads. At first it was 400 per person per day, and then it increased to 600. The month before Ms. Cao was released, inspector Xian Guifang, who is over 50 and from Lanzhou, made her sort over 4000 caps each day. There were 12 people in each cell and the rule was to take turns to clean it, but Xian forced Ms. Cao to clean it on her own every day.