Woman Beaten to Death 16 Days after Arrest for Her Faith in Falun Gong

A woman in Dazhangjia Village, Penglai City, Shandong Province, was seized by a village official and a group of paramilitary soldiers on June 28, 2020, after being reported for possessing Falun Gong literature.

Ms. Li Ling was taken to an empty house in a mountainous area and viciously beaten and tortured. She died on July 13 as a result of her injuries. The village authorities forced her family to cremate her remains on the same day. According to her family, her face was deformed and she was covered in bruises.

Ms. Li brought home dozens of Falun Gong booklets on the morning of June 28. A fellow villager who happened to see what she was carrying reported her to the village authorities. Xiang Demao, the village’s CCP secretary, and several paramilitary soldiers soon descended on her home and confiscated her booklets.

They took her to an empty house for interrogation. Ms. Li refused to reveal from whom she got the booklets. Yu Desheng and Yu Deshui, two of the paramilitary soldiers, tried to beat her into submission. Some of her teeth fell out and her mouth ruptured as a result of the brutal beatings. There was a contusion in her left rib cage and she had bruises all over. According to an elderly villager who was asked to watch over her, one of the soldiers also poked Ms. Li hard on the chest with a stick.

Ms. Li still refused to give up her practice or answer questions. One of her perpetrators brought her outside the house to “fix her up.” He kicked her so hard that she lost her balance and hit her hip on a rock outside the door. It later started to rain, and he forced her to stand in the rain for a long period of time. She went on a hunger strike to protest the abuse.

Around July 6, 2020, Ms. Li’s husband died and the authorities brought her home to take care of the funeral. She did not talk to her son when they hugged. According to her son, her mouth was ruptured and several of her teeth were missing. She was quickly taken away, and the authorities refused to disclose the location where she was taken. After her son’s repeated requests, the authorities agreed to cover up his head and take him to see his mother at the undisclosed location. That was the last time they saw each other.

Ms. Li was rushed to a private clinic on July 13 for “resuscitation” and pronounced dead. The authorities took her remains to her family immediately afterwards. Paramilitary soldiers were stationed outside her house and said they would not leave unless her family had her remains cremated that day. Her loved ones had no option but to comply with the demand.

While changing her clothes, her relatives noted that Ms. Li’s eyeballs appeared protruding and looked unusually large.

On the day of Ms. Li’s funeral, the two paramilitary soldiers who beat her during interrogation showed up in plainclothes to harass her friends and relatives, and attempted to stop them from attending the memorial service. When asked who they were, the two soldiers lied, and said they were relatives of Ms. Li’s.

By a Minghui correspondent in Shandong Province, China