(Minghui.org) Ms. Gao Shuyan was illegally sent to a forced labor camp twice for practicing Falun Gong. During her incarceration, she was repeatedly tortured for refusing to denounce her belief.

In June 2001 at Wanjia Forced Labor Camp, she was tortured several dozen times within 36 hours, which left her unconscious and on the brink of death. During the same period, three Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death and seven others were also rendered unconscious.

Ms. Gao, 45, filed a criminal complaint with the Supreme People's Procuratorate against Jiang Zemin, former head of Chinese Communist Party, on August 27, 2015, for launching the persecution of Falun Gong.

Almost Died at Wanjia Forced Labor Camp

Ms. Gao was arrested and sentenced to one year at Wanjia Labor Camp for appealing for the right to practice Falun Gong in 2000. At the camp, Ms. Gao was forced to do heavy labor and given very little food.

She was placed in solitary confinement, forced to stand for a prolonged period of time, and forced to sleep on a pile of straw on the floor. When she went on a hunger strike to protest the ill-treatment, she was beaten and force-fed.

In June 2001, she was one of the 15 practitioners whose sentences were extended for refusing to renounce Falun Gong. One by one, they were taken to a room for torture, where others were hung on door frames by their hands and only the tiptoes of their feet touching the ground. Within 32 hours, three practitioners had died. Eight had lost consciousness and were sent to the hospital for emergency treatment.

“I was unconscious and incontinent,” Ms. Gao recalls, “I lost partial memory of what happened when I woke up. I couldn't lift my arms more than 45 degrees.”

Her sentence was extended by eight months.

Tortured at Heilongjiang Women's Prison

One month after being released from Wanjia, Ms. Gao was arrested again in Shenzhen and sent to Heilongjiang Women's Prison, after being illegally detained for over a month. She was given three years of forced labor.

“They tortured me with the tiger bench for seven days and seven nights straight,” said Ms. Gao, “The handcuffs bit into my flesh and I passed out from the pain.”

On many occasions, she was handcuffed for days at a time until she passed out. Beatings were common at the labor camp. Ms. Gao was released in early 2005.

Ms. Gao was illegally detained again for seven days in April 2005.

In August 2015, police broke into her home and illegally searched the place. Ms. Gao was arrested and illegally detained again for 15 days at Harbin No. 3 Detention Center.

Background

In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.

The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners in the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.

Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.

Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.

Related articles:Survivors Break Through Information Blockade and Expose the Atrocities at Wanjia Labor Camp on June 20, 2001, Part 2A Record of the Savage Atrocities in the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province (1999-2001) (Part 1)A Record of the Savage Atrocities in the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province (1999-2001) (Part 2)