Epoch Times Staff
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/41799/
The Falun Dafa Information Center released a statement on Aug. 27 reporting that the Chinese police abducted a woman who died eight days later while in police custody.
Yan Pingjun of Heibei, China is a 45-year-old Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) practitioner. According to the center, “Falun Gong is a traditional-style “qigong” practice, with roots in the Chinese heritage of cultivating the mind/body for health and spiritual growth.” It is now practiced in over 100 countries.
In 1999, the Chinese communist regime launched a persecution targeting Falun Gong practitioners, it was reported to have been practiced by 70 million to 100 million people in China at that time. To date, over 3,000 deaths and over 63,000 cases of torture of Falun Gong practitioners while in police custody have been verified by the center.
On Aug. 1, Yan visited the relatives of Xia Junjing, a Falun Gong practitioner who had been arrested on July 15. Yan was later followed home by the police.
Around 9 a.m. on Aug. 2 officers from the Ning’an Police Station ransacked Yan’s home and took her Falun Dafa books, her son’s computer, and 550 yuan (about $80) and arrested her. Yan was detained at the Hebei Province Legal Education Training Center, which is known to be a brainwashing facility that uses torture to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their belief.
A week and a half later, Yan’s family was told by guards at the center that Yan died around Aug. 10, eight days after her arrest, from falling from the third floor of the building. The police forbid Yan’s family from arranging a funeral to mourn her death.
A similar case happened in April of 2009, when another Falun Gong practitioner Sun Min’s family was notified by the police that she fell from her apartment and was found dead. Sun had been arrested by the police that same day. Sources who saw Sun’s body said the body bore marks from electric batons and blows with a heavy object.
"The death of Pingjun Yan in custody is a clear reminder that the life of each and every Falun Gong practitioner, who number in the tens of millions in China, remains at risk under the communist regime's campaign against us," the center's spokesperson Gail Rachlin said in a statement.
Fifteen percent of the Falun Gong practitioners verified dead in 2009 died within two months of their detention.
