(Minghui.org) Security measures were intensified to the highest level before the 19th National People's Congress in October 2017. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entered many Falun Gong (also called Falun Dafa) practitioners' personal information into its Identity Information database. This created a permanent record that could be used to identify practitioners when checking their government-issued identification (ID) cards. Thus, some practitioners were harassed, or even arrested, when they showed their ID cards at the train station.
Assuming that police had been indoctrinated by the Party against Falun Gong, Ms. Sun Xiumin, a retired 64-year-old railway engineer, has told the officers the facts about Falun Gong. She asked them to stop persecuting practitioners.
Ms. Sun told the police on September 7, 2017 that revealing personal information is against the ID law and was illegally arrested for speaking up. The Harbin Railway Procuratorate did not accept her case file, but reversed the decision after the police provided her previous prison records.
Ms. Sun had been imprisoned for a total of about eight years since the initiation of the persecution and suffered torture through most of that time.
Ms. Sun was repeatedly told to give up her faith when the persecution against Falun Gong was launched in 1999. Additionally, her supervisor had taken her to brainwashing classes in February 2000.
She tried to inform the public about the propaganda against Falun Gong by debunking it on an exhibition board in May 2000. She was taken to the Harbin Railway Detention Center for one month and demoted from her engineering job. Her monthly wage was cut by two-thirds to 330 yuan. After deduction for pension and housing provident fund, she only received 110 yuan a month, far below a living wage.
Ms. Sun was again demoted, this time to a worker from a cadre position, in April 2003. At this time, she took an early retirement. The pension payment she received was 75% of her wage as a worker. Her total financial loss over those years was about 140,000 yuan.
On her way to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong on December 14, 2000, Ms. Sun and other practitioners were taken off the train in the Changchun Station and transferred to the Harbin Railway Detention Center. She went on a hunger strike and was force-fed.
Then, she was sentenced to two years in prison and taken to the Heilongjiang Province Detoxification Camp on April 22, 2001. The persecution had escalated prior to the 16th National People's Congress in 2002.
Ms. Sun was tied to an iron chair for five days for reciting “Falun Dafa is good” on October 1. She was then made to squat on an iron board for a long time. The guards put a pot filled with water on her head, which doused her with water if the pot fell off her head. She was deprived of sleep and the use of restroom, as well as was beaten. Collaborators abused her and other Dafa practitioners verbally.
Her sentence was extended for an additional month.
Ms. Sun was arrested by officers from the Huayuan Police Station on May 12, 2005 for distributing Falun Gong materials. She was secretly tried by the Nangang District Court without her family present. She was sentenced to five years and taken to Heilongjiang Women's Prison on August 31.
Like other practitioners, Ms. Sun had to sit upright on a small stool. She was closely monitored, not allowed to go the restroom alone, and forbidden to talk to other practitioners and inmates. She was beaten for sending righteous thoughts and practicing the Falun Gong exercises.
She went on a hunger strike three times to protest the persecution.
She was arrested again on November 1, 2012 for handing out Falun Gong materials and sentenced to 18 months. She was transferred to the Harbin Qianjin Labor camp on November 22 and released on August 14, 2013 because the labor camp was shut down.
During the nine months of detention, she has endured electric shocks, was hung up with both hands behind the back, and had to sit on a small stool for many days.
She was arrested again for clarifying the facts to police officers on October 23, 2015, and detained at Harbin Detention Center for 15 days.