53-year-old Ms. Wang Huilan from China’s north-eastern Hebei Province has died
in police custody six days after being taken from her home.
According to Minghui reporters in Hebei Province, Ms. Wang was taken away by
police on September 1, 2009 by Zhouzhou City Domestic Security officers. Sources
familiar with her case say Ms. Wang was force fed on September 7, 2009 and died
that afternoon from injuries sustained during the force-feeding.
Unlike force-feeding performed by medical personnel to provide vital nutrients
to a patient who will not or cannot feed themselves, force-feeding inside Chinese
prisons, labour camps or detention centres is often performed as a torture method
and is frequently used on Falun Gong detainees. Force-feeding has been the cause
of death in approximately 10 percent of all known death cases of Falun Gong
practitioners inside China. The force-feeding is most often carried out by labour
camp staff with no medical training, or by criminal inmates who are coerced
to assist. Unsanitary rubber tubes are shoved into an adherent’s nose and down
the stomach, often rupturing or damaging tissue; sometimes the tube enters the
lungs. Detainees are often fed irritants such as highly concentrated salt water,
hot pepper oil, boiling water, detergent, or even human faeces.
Ms. Wang had been detained at least once before in March, 2006. Her home was
ransacked by police at the time of her arrest and she was held for seven days
before being released.
Throughout China, practitioners of Falun Gong are subject to arbitrary arrest,
imprisonment and often torture as part of a systematic campaign waged by the
Chinese Communist Party to "eradicate" the traditional Chinese exercise
and meditation practice.
Posting date: 15/Sep/2009
Original article date: 15/Sep/2008
Category: News from China
