Beijing Detainee Beaten into Coma; Husband Had Met Secretly with European Parliament VP

 

The Falun Dafa Information Centre has learned that 46-year-old Ms Zhang Lianying
was beaten into a coma on March 20, 2007 while detained at the Beijing Women’s
Labour Camp. Ms Zhang required emergency surgery to treat a massive brain haemorrhage
and has since regained consciousness, but police have hand-cuffed her to the
hospital bed and she remains under threat of further torture and abuse.

According to sources familiar with her case, Ms Zhang was first abducted by
Chinese police on June 14, 2005, when she was taken from her home and sent to
a forced labour camp for 2 1/2 years simply because she is an adherent of Falun
Gong. While imprisoned, Ms Zhang repeatedly suffered beatings that left her
unable to walk properly and with her face disfigured, according to these sources.
In one instance on February 27, 2006, Ms Zhang was beaten so severely she was
hospitalised for 50 days. From that point on, authorities cut off all contact
between her and her husband, Mr Niu Jinping.

Officials’ abuse of wife escalates after husband meets with Vice-President
of the European Parliament, Mr Edward McMillan-Scott

Mr Niu kept working to free Ms Zhang and in May 2006, when Mr Edward McMillan-Scott
visited China to investigate human rights abuses, he met with Mr McMillan-Scott.
Mr Niu briefed him on the plight of his wife and other Falun Gong practitioners
that were being held and often tortured in custody throughout China.

Chinese authorities did not let up in their treatment of Ms Zhang, and following
Mr McMillan-Scott’s visit, it was discovered that abuse against Ms Zhang had
actually escalated. While detained at the Beijing Women’s Labour Camp, officials
repeatedly instigated inmates to torture Ms Zhang by wrapping a rope around
her neck, tightening it until she was nearly unconscious and then proceeding
to violently beat her face and head. Reliable sources say she was subjected
to this torture over a period of several months until, on the morning of March
20, 2007, while being tortured in this manner Ms Zhang collapsed. She was rushed
to a nearby hospital and fell into a coma.

Mr Cao also abducted by Chinese police and imprisoned after meeting with
Mr Edward McMillan-Scott

Another Falun Gong practitioner who met with Mr McMillan-Scott last May also
suffered clear retaliation from Chinese officials for having done so. Along
with Mr Niu, Mr Cao Dong had further briefed Mr McMillan-Scott on the abuses
and torture of Falun Gong practitioners, and provided evidence of how labour
camps supply living, healthy Falun Gong practitioners to hospitals where they
are killed for their vital organs. (report) According to a written statement
from Mr McMillan-Scott, Mr Cao "said he definitely knew of [organ harvesting
camps] and knew people who had been sent to these camps. He had seen the cadaver
of one of his friends, a Falun Gong practitioner, with holes in his body where
the organs had been removed."

Shortly after leaving the meeting with Mr McMillan-Scott, Mr Cao was abducted
by Chinese police, his whereabouts unknown for several months. Mr Cao was later
sentenced to 5 years in prison for taking part in the meeting. He was officially
charged with "disrupting social order" and "propagating Falun
Gong".

"These cases are a horrific reminder that the Chinese Communist authorities
have no genuine interest in improving human rights," stated New York Falun
Dafa Information Centre spokesperson Levi Browde. "Nearly beating one man’s
wife to death and throwing the other man in prison for 5 years is not the way
you reward your citizenry for identifying injustices." Mr Browde adds,
"We applaud the work of McMillan-Scott and call on the international community
to follow his lead by investigating the atrocities against Falun Gong and maintaining
pressure on the Chinese regime to uphold human rights."

Background
Founded in 1999, the Falun Dafa Information Centre is a New York-based organisation
that documents the rights violations of adherents of Falun Gong (or "Falun
Dafa") taking place in the People’s Republic of China. In July of 1999
China’s autocratic Communist Party launched an unlawful campaign of arrests,
violence, and propaganda with the intent of "eradicating" the apolitical
practice; it is believed certain leaders feared the influence of the practice’s
100 million adherents. The campaign has since grown in violence and scope, with
millions having been detained or sent to forced labour camps. The Centre has
verified details of over 3,000 deaths and over 63,000 cases of torture in custody
(reports / sources). Falun Gong is a traditional-style Buddha School "qigong"
practice, with roots in the Chinese heritage of cultivating the mind/body for
health and spiritual growth.

Posting date: 5/April/2007
Original article date: 3/April/2007
Category: Media Release

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