(Minghui.org) Once a sufferer of severe heart disease and high blood pressure, Ms. Yang Shengzhu credits Falun Gong with returning her to health, and giving her joy and peace. She had to endure a different kind of suffering however, about two years into her practice of Falun Gong, when former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin launched a nationwide campaign against the practice that had so positively transformed her life.
Ms. Yang, a law-abiding citizen, was forced to serve one year in a forced labor camp in 2001, and sentenced to a three-year prison term in 2010. Her employer, Fujian Province Finance and Trade System, suspended her pension during her labor camp detention. Shortly after her prison sentencing, Ms. Yang's employer completely disqualified her for retirement benefits, despite her 38 years of service.
As Fujian Province's 1995 Worker of the Year, Ms. Yang couldn't comprehend the fact that she was incarcerated and lost her retirement simply for practicing Falun Gong. She holds Jiang responsible for launching the persecution that relegated her from a model worker to a prisoner of conscience.
She mailed her criminal complaint against Jiang to the Supreme People's Procuratorate on July 27, 2015. Below is an account of the persecution she has endured, as recorded in her lawsuit.
ID Confiscated for Three Years—One Year of Forced Labor
Ms. Yang was summoned to her workplace on July 22, 1999 and pressured to write a guarantee statement promising not to contact Falun Gong practitioners or appeal for Falun Gong. The next day her ID was confiscated, and wasn't returned to her until three years later. Any time she had to do something that called for the use of her ID, she had to go back to her workplace to temporarily “check out” her ID.
Her employer stopped her pension in October 2000, two months after her 15-day detention. They didn't resume her payment until 25 months later, resulting in a total loss of 2,500 yuan for Ms. Yang.
Ms. Yang was given one year of forced labor on August 17, 2001, for distributing Falun Gong informational material. The police did not provide her with a written forced labor decision notice. This effectively deprived her of her right to appeal against the labor camp sentence.
Once at the labor camp, Ms. Yang was subjected to intense brainwashing, and bombarded with slanderous materials defaming Falun Gong every day. She could not bear the pressure, and renounced her belief after more than a month. She was then sent to do forced labor, making plastic balls using toxic materials.
Ms. Yang's workplace again suspended her pension and health insurance benefits following her labor camp detention, resulting in a total loss of income of about 21,000 yuan between September 2001 and April 2002.
Threatened by Police, Ms. Yang Framed for Something She Didn't Do
Ms. Yang heard a knock on her door at around 9:00 a.m. on June 29, 2009, then silence. She peeked outside from her second-floor apartment and saw deputy police chief Zhou Dengsheng and another officer standing on the only path leading out of the building.
She stayed home for the entire day, only to see the police eventually break in around 7:00 in the evening. She refused to open the door of the room she was in, and the officers kept shouting for more than 30 minutes until she called in an official from her workplace to come to her rescue. After the police finally left, Ms. Yang was left shaking, and had trouble standing.
The police didn't give up and turned to her daughter instead. The next morning saw the daughter come begging her mother to go to the police station so she wouldn't lose her job.
Ms. Yang had no alternative but to visit the police station accompanied by her daughter. Zhou Dengsheng and his officers kept pressuring her to admit that she had distributed Falun Gong flyers the day before. She questioned them, “I was home all day yesterday. How could I go out to hand out flyers?” They wouldn't listen, and insisted she admit to this “fact.”
Ms. Yang couldn't think well after the trauma of the prior day. Moreover, she was worried about her husband, a cancer patient, if she were to be arrested again.
She signed the interrogation record stating that she distributed more than ten copies of Falun Gong materials. Ms. Yang was next sent to a detention center, but the police never gave her the written notice of ten-day administrative detention.
The police released Ms. Yang on bail on July 6, after forcing her daughter to write a document admitting to her mother's “crime.”
Sentenced to Three Years
Ms. Yang was summoned to the local Procuratorate one day in March 2010. She was so traumatized by the experience the year earlier that she admitted to the same thing–that she went out to distribute Falun Gong flyers on June 29, 2009. She found out later that the whole “confession” had been videotaped.
The Procuratorate issued an indictment against Ms. Yang on May 4 that year. Only after reading the document did she realize that the police had found an old colleague of hers as a prosecution witness. Zhou Jianhui, a man who was always at odds with Ms. Yang when she worked at a now-defunct department store many years prior, “testified” that he saw her distributing flyers on that said June day.
Ms. Yang was arrested on June 3 and tried several weeks later. The day before the trial, a court clerk asked her to sign a document, but refused to disclose the contents. Thinking about her ill husband, Ms. Yang felt like she was going to have a mental collapse. She signed without knowing what was on the document.
Her former colleague Zhou Jianhui showed up at the hearing. He testified that he saw Ms. Yang in a certain place on June 29, 2009, but stopped short of saying she was passing out flyers. On the indictment, however, Zhou was cited as saying that he witnessed her distributing Falun Gong materials.
Ms. Yang explained how she was coerced into signing various documents and admitting to things she never did, but the judge ignored her plea and sentenced her to three years, citing Zhou Jianhui's “testimonial,” documents signed by her and her daughter, and the videotape showing her admitting to her “crime.”
She was transferred to Fujian Women's Prison on September 17, shortly after the local higher court rejected her appeal against the verdict.
Unable to stand the non-stop onslaught of brainwashing, Ms. Yang renounced her belief, against her will, four days after she was sent to prison. Soon she had a relapse of her heart disease and high blood pressure, and was hospitalized twice as a result.
Family Suffers Along the Way
Ms. Yang's husband passed away three months into her imprisonment, but the prison rejected her family's request to allow her to attend the funeral. She didn't find out about her husband's death until much later.
Even when Ms. Yang was not in detention, she was constantly harassed at home, and her phone was tapped. Her daughter and two sons lived in terror.
Her employer disqualified Ms. Yang from receiving her retirement benefits shortly after she was imprisoned. Instead of receiving her more than 3,000-yuan monthly pension due to her status as a model worker, she has been living on a low-income government subsidy for the past five years. With her husband deceased, her day-to-day life is very difficult.
Background
In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.
The persecution has led to the deaths of thousands Falun Gong practitioners over the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.
Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law now allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.
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