Ms. Zhu Xia

32-year-old Zhu Xia suffered rape and other abuses that resulted in a complete mental breakdown

Thirty-two-year-old Ms. Zhu Xia cries, laughs, and often bangs on doors and windows madly. She soils her clothing uncontrollably, and has frequent hallucinations, tossing and turning restlessly amidst unseen enemies. At night Zhu often throws her arms around her head defensively, screaming “Are you going to rape me?” She has removed her blankets to sleep in the cotton fibers of her mattress and often curses “those terrible men,” muttering she “can’t take it anymore.”

This is not the young woman her family members described as “healthy and vibrant” before the police took her away because she practices Falun Gong. Like hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of others in China, Zhu was detained by Chinese authorities and sent to brainwashing classes in order to force her to renounce Falun Gong.

She was held at the Pi County Brainwashing Center in Xinjin County, Sichuan Province. On April 2, 2004, Pi Country authorities released Zhu. According to her family, Zhu’s mental and physical well-being had been devastated, and she had suffered a complete mental breakdown. Zhu is no longer able to take care of herself, and is under the care of her mother. The exact details of what Zhu went through in the Pi Country Brainwashing Center are unknown, although family members say her mental state and behavior leave little doubt she suffered untold torture and was repeatedly raped.