(Minghui.org) Ms. Deng Fangchen, a 38-year-old Guangzhou City Falun Gong practitioner, was illegally arrested by the Panyu District Police Department in Guangzhou City on January 7, 2013. She is currently being detained at the Panyu District Detention Center. Ms. Deng has been on hunger strike for 100 days and was scheduled to face trial by the Panyu District Court on May 17.
When Ms. Deng was arrested, 10 plainclothes officers ransacked her apartment and confiscated Falun Gong books and DVDs. The landlord was pressured into ordering her family to move out. After experiencing Ms. Deng's arrest and home ransacking for the second time since 2009, her elderly father, despite ill health, was forced to leave and live alone in the countryside.
Fellow practitioners Mr. Lin Jianping and Ms. Zhang Juan were also arrested on the same day as Ms. Deng. Mr. Lin, 48 years old, is a Tianhe District teacher in Guangzhou City. He had been previously detained at the Huangpu Brainwashing Center and Sihui Prison and is currently being held at the Panyu Detention Center. It was said that Procuratorate officials have prosecuted him and scheduled a trial. Ms. Zhang is currently detained at the Tangang Brainwashing Center. Procuratorate officials are planning to prosecute her as well.
Ms. Deng was born in Hunan Province. Both she and her brother were stricken with congenital hepatitis B. As a teenager, she saw her mother pass away from this disease. After beginning to practice Falun Gong in 2004, Ms. Deng adopted a hopeful outlook on life, and her physical health also improved. When she had a medical examination in 2006, the lab report showed that the hepatitis B was gone.
Ms. Deng owned a leather furniture design business in Baiyun District in Guangdong. On January 13, 2010, she received a phone call from the Haizhu District Residential Committee, requesting that she return to her shop. She was immediately taken into custody for having purchased tickets to the Shen Yun performance in Hong Kong. Staff from the Residential Committee told her husband and brother that they would release her as soon as “things are cleared up.” They nonetheless took Ms. Deng to a detention center and later secretly transferred her to the Guangzhou Brainwashing Center. They also ransacked her shop and confiscated Falun Gong books and informational materials. Soon afterward, the Haizhu District610 Office shut down her shop and forbade the landlord from continuing to lease to her. Her brother, who helped run the shop, also lost his job.
Presently, Ms. Deng remains steadfast in her faith and has gone on a hunger strike to protest against the abuse. The guards tied her to a chair with her limbs constrained and inserted a tube through her nostril for force-feeding. They also forced her to urinate and defecate in front of the monitoring window, without allowing her to clean up. Such humiliation and physical mistreatment is aimed at breaking down her will.
Ms. Deng has now been on a hunger strike for more than 100 days; her weight has dropped from 132 lbs. to 99 lbs. Panyu Detention Center guards are continuing the brutal forced-feeding.