SYDNEY—When Falun Gong practitioner Yue Changzhi was taken to the No.10 Ward in the Beijing Women’s Prison in 2004, she said she stood tall and proud. The authorities had arrested her in order to force her to renounce her belief in Falun Gong. One week later, she was bent and limping. One month later, her body had buckled to a hunchback position.
“They tried to brainwash me. They punched me, dragged me and kicked me; they tried to break my fingers, then fold my wrists back,” she told The Epoch Times through a translator.
She repeatedly refused to sign their renunciation forms or to agree that Falun Gong was not good. They then upped the ante and moved her into the notorious torture position known as “The Stretch”, reserved for practitioners that did not respond to the more routine pummelling.
“They separated my legs as one line on the floor and then they grabbed me by the collar and pressed down. My spine went ‘boom!’ My back cracked in three sections. At that time, I nearly died. They asked me: ‘Will you still practise FG?’ I said: ‘Yes, I will.’ Suddenly, they pressed my body onto my lap; my spine bone, especially the waist part, was excruciating so now I can’t straighten my back.”
