(Minghui.org) Ms. Dong Yanmei, a 54-year-old native of Liaoyang City, Liaoning Province faced about eight months of non-stop abuse at the Liaoning Province Second Women’s Prison for upholding her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Dong, a former assistant engineer at Liaohua Polyester Plant, was arrested at her rental apartment in Anshan City in the same province on September 14, 2022. Her family learned in February 2024 that the Dengta City Court had convicted her, but they still do not know her exact prison term.
Ms. Dong is currently held in the Fourth Team, Eighth Ward, where nine other Falun Gong practitioners are also detained. According to an insider, the abuse of Ms. Dong began in August 2023 (it is unclear, however, whether she was admitted to prison that month or earlier). All practitioners who refused to renounce Falun Gong are also barred from writing to, calling, or meeting with their families.
It’s known that Ms. Dong has suffered the following tortures:
1. Denied showers and laundry – Ms. Dong wasn’t allowed to take showers or do laundry for eight months. The guards finally allowed her to briefly wash herself in early April 2024.
2. Denied purchasing of daily necessities – Ms. Dong wasn’t allowed to buy daily necessities. The guards also withheld the daily necessities given out to the inmates each month. She didn’t even have toilet paper to use.
3. Long hours of standing – Ms. Dong was forced to stand from early morning to 9:30 p.m. every day, without being allowed to sit down even once, whether she was working in the sweatshop or staying in her cell. Beginning on April 22, 2024, the guards allowed her to sit while working during the day. But she was still forced to squat after coming back to the cell at night. During the weekends or holidays, she also had to stand for the entire day.
4. No winter clothes or shoes – Ms. Dong wasn’t allowed to wear warm clothes or shoes in the winter. The guards also ordered the inmates to take away her bedding and comforter. She slept on a wood board with only a bed sheet and was given a duvet cover without the insert.
5. Disrupted sleep – the guards ordered the inmates on the night shift to wake up Ms. Dong every hour. Since early April 2024, inmate heads Zhou Xiaoli and Tan Jing instructed those on duty to awaken Ms. Dong every twenty minutes or even every ten minutes.
6. Savage beating – inmates Gao Yanyan, Liu Xiaohuan and Tan Jing often beat Ms. Dong and inmate Li Fang verbally abused her.
Ms. Dong held two hunger strikes to protest the abuse. The first hunger strike started in October 2023 and lasted six days until she was taken to the prison hospital and put on IV drips for two days. The second hunger strike was in April 2024. Due to the hunger strike and long term torture, Ms. Dong is now emaciated, haggard and much of her hair has turned gray.
Following Ms. Dong’s latest hunger strike, the director of the Eighth Ward has instructed the inmates not to beat her. She also gave her a comforter and allowed her to buy daily necessities.
Prior to Ms. Dong’s latest sentencing, she served two additional prison terms, including a 7-year term given in 2002 and a 4.5-year term given in 2013, for practicing Falun Gong. She suffered a severe heart condition due to torture in her first term and then suffered a mental breakdown as a result of torture during her second term.
Related Reports:
Liaoning Woman Jailed a Third Time for Her Faith in Falun Gong, Tortured in Prison
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Category: Torture of Women
