Ms. Cheng Ling, female, 20, resident of Goumenzi Town, Lingyuan City, Liaoning Province. In March 2001, at the age of 17, Ms. Ling was reported for copying Falun Gong materials. Policemen from the Goumenzi Town Police Station arrested her and sent her to the Lingyuan Second Detention Center where she was detained for four months. From September 2001 to November 2001, she was detained at the Lingyuan Second Detention Center three times. The third time she was sent to the Masanjia Labor Camp in Shenyang City for forced anti-Falun Gong brainwashing session. After she was released, in July 2003, she was reported again for making anti-persecution materials, so the police from the Shuangta Police Station in Chaoyang City arrested her and sent her to the Chaoyang City Detention Center. She went on a 25-day hunger strike to protest the detention; as a result she was tortured and force-fed. Recently, she was sentenced to seven years of forced labor.

Ms. Cheng’s older sister, Ms. Cheng Yun, 21. Because Ms. Cheng Yun practiced Falun Gong, policemen from the Goumenzi Town Police Station sent her to the Lingyuan Second Detention Center, when she was only 17 years old. She was released in one month. On December 27, 2000, because she went to Beijing to appeal to the government to stop the persecution of Falun Gong, the Lingyuan City Police Station sentenced her to two years of forced labor at the Masanjia Labor Camp, where she was detained and tortured for over two years.

Ms. Cheng’s mother, Ms. Zheng Lihua, 50, has been detained and subjected to forced brainwashing seven times since July 1999. In May 2003, she was sentenced to three years of forced labor at the Masanjia Labor Camp. She is still there.

Ms. Cheng’s father, Mr. Cheng Guanghui, 48, has been detained, tortured and subjected to forced brainwashing nine times since July 1999. On December 12, 2000, he went to Beijing to appeal to the government to stop the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. The police from the Tiananmen Square Police Station arrested him and sent him to the Chengguan Police Station in the Fangsan District in Beijing. There five policemen punched and kicked him, forced him to squat for hours, and shocked him with electric batons on his palms, back, neck, etc., for more than 20 hours. After he was escorted back to Lingyuan City, the Goumenzi Police Station officers, Li Guoqiang, Zhang Jinxiu and Zhang Yunbin, beat him on the back, shoulders and waist for over two hours with a plastic tube that was more than a meter long.

Ms. Cheng’s younger brother, 16, was a witness to the terrifying arrest of each family member. He has had no one to take care of him since he was 13 years old, and is emotionally devastated.