NEW YORK—In a bittersweet moment for Crystal Chen, the man who signed away five years of her life to a forced labor camp was served with a lawsuit in Manhattan on Oct. 22.
Shi Honghui, director of forced labor camps in China’s Guangdong province, is responsible for torture, genocide, and other gross human rights violations, according to the complaint. He was approached by a professional process server while visiting Pier 16 in lower Manhattan.
Upon being served, Shi threw the documents to the ground. He later fled the scene in a chartered bus, leaving other members of his party stranded at the pier, according to Wang Zhiyuan, spokesperson for the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong and witness to the scene.
Wang was part of the team that tracked Shi to New York and ensured the papers were served.
“All those criminals who actively participate in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners have been documented, and in the end they will find it hard to escape the dragnet of the law,” Wang said.
Beginning in August 2000, Chen was sent without trial twice to Chatou Women’s “Re-education Through Labor” Camp in Guangdong’s capital city of Guangzhou for her belief in Falun Gong, where she spent a total of over five years. Among the documents committing her to the camp were ones signed personally by Shi, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.
For 36-year-old Chen, a Queens resident since May and United Nations refugee, the lawsuit is significant, but cold comfort when she knows countless other Falun Gong practitioners are still being detained and tortured in Guangdong.
“It was an opportunistic moment,” she said of Shi being served. “It’s a good chance for him to know that the international community will hold him responsible for all the bad things he has done.”
Her own experience of severe beatings, forced-feeding, and prolonged sleep deprivation included one incident that remains stark in her memory.
Room 212 in the Tianhe District Detention Center, Guangzhou City, China, was the scene of Chen’s first experience of torture. She was thrown on the floor of her cell and four large males from China’s notorious 610 Office held her limbs down.
A water bottle was cut in half to be used as a funnel. A one-pound bag of salt was poured inside the bottle, a small amount of water added. Chen’s eyes were covered with a dirty towel. Guards shoved the opening of the bottle against Chen’s teeth and tried to pry her mouth open with a used toothbrush. She was obstinate—she knew the salt could kill her.
“The salt went everywhere into my mouth and up my nose,” Chen said in a previous interview. “I vomited salt and blood for the following days and could not eat. My gums were full of blood, I could hardly talk. They still handcuffed me.”
Six days after her release from this detention center, a male practitioner, Gao Xianmin, died after being subjected to the same high-density salt torture.
Shi Honghui, director of forced labor camps in China’s Guangdong province, is responsible for torture, genocide, and other gross human rights violations, according to the complaint. He was approached by a professional process server while visiting Pier 16 in lower Manhattan.
Upon being served, Shi threw the documents to the ground. He later fled the scene in a chartered bus, leaving other members of his party stranded at the pier, according to Wang Zhiyuan, spokesperson for the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong and witness to the scene.
Wang was part of the team that tracked Shi to New York and ensured the papers were served.
“All those criminals who actively participate in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners have been documented, and in the end they will find it hard to escape the dragnet of the law,” Wang said.
Beginning in August 2000, Chen was sent without trial twice to Chatou Women’s “Re-education Through Labor” Camp in Guangdong’s capital city of Guangzhou for her belief in Falun Gong, where she spent a total of over five years. Among the documents committing her to the camp were ones signed personally by Shi, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.
For 36-year-old Chen, a Queens resident since May and United Nations refugee, the lawsuit is significant, but cold comfort when she knows countless other Falun Gong practitioners are still being detained and tortured in Guangdong.
“It was an opportunistic moment,” she said of Shi being served. “It’s a good chance for him to know that the international community will hold him responsible for all the bad things he has done.”
Her own experience of severe beatings, forced-feeding, and prolonged sleep deprivation included one incident that remains stark in her memory.
Room 212 in the Tianhe District Detention Center, Guangzhou City, China, was the scene of Chen’s first experience of torture. She was thrown on the floor of her cell and four large males from China’s notorious 610 Office held her limbs down.
A water bottle was cut in half to be used as a funnel. A one-pound bag of salt was poured inside the bottle, a small amount of water added. Chen’s eyes were covered with a dirty towel. Guards shoved the opening of the bottle against Chen’s teeth and tried to pry her mouth open with a used toothbrush. She was obstinate—she knew the salt could kill her.
“The salt went everywhere into my mouth and up my nose,” Chen said in a previous interview. “I vomited salt and blood for the following days and could not eat. My gums were full of blood, I could hardly talk. They still handcuffed me.”
Six days after her release from this detention center, a male practitioner, Gao Xianmin, died after being subjected to the same high-density salt torture.
