(Minghui.org) After being forced to live away from home for seven years to avoid persecution for her faith in Falun Gong, Ms. Qiang Weixiu was arrested again and is scheduled to appear in court on March 12, 2019.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a meditation and spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Qiang, a former employee of the Agricultural Machinery Bureau in Zhenyuan County, Gansu Province, had been repeatedly arrested for her faith and twice sent to forced labor camps during the past two decades. The authorities tortured her as a way to force her to renounce her faith.
Her husband was forced to divorce her during her first detention in 2000 when their daughter was only six years old.
Ms. Qiang was summoned to supervisor Wang's office at work on May 6, 2011. Wang gave her one day to write statements to renounce her faith, threatening to send her to a brainwashing center. The center would require her to pay 30,000 yuan–a sum equal to her annual income–in “education fees.” She fled home that night.
The police then intimidated her daughter, who was attending middle school. They talked to the young girl for half an hour and asked her many questions about her family and her mother's situation. The middle schooler was deeply scarred by the experience.
After six years on the run, Ms. Qiang was arrested again on October 1, 2017 while helping a young woman who had fainted on a bus. She was held in a hotel and monitored around the clock by her former colleagues. She escaped one morning after her colleagues fell asleep, only to be arrested again nine months later on July 4, 2018.
The police ransacked her home and sent her to Ning County Detention Center, where she has been held since. She is now facing further prosecution with her scheduled court appearance. The court prevented her lawyer from reviewing her case documents.
Ms. Qiang was about to get off the bus on October 1, 2017, when a woman came to her for help–her daughter had just lost consciousness and was unable to move.
Ms. Qiang helped the woman to get her daughter off the bus. The young woman collapsed to the ground. While the anxious mother was calling her husband, Ms. Qiang whispered to the girl, “Falun Dafa is good; Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance is good.”
After she recited the words, the young woman woke up. While her mother was still on the phone, Ms. Qiang left and got on her transfer bus.
Just as Ms. Qiang sat down, the girl's father rushed onto the bus, dragged her out of her seat, and hit her hard behind her left ear. He then dragged her off the bus and told his wife to report her to the police.
According to the father, his daughter told him that Ms. Qiang had whispered “Falun Dafa is good” in her ear. He blamed Ms. Qiang for his daughter's sudden episode.
With the communist regime’s propaganda demonizing Falun Gong to justify its persecution, including the Tian'anmen self-immolation hoax, many Chinese have become hostile toward Falun Gong practitioners.
Two friends of the young woman's father, both with a strong build, came over. They stood in front of Ms. Qiang with their hands on their hips, ready for a fight.
The police soon arrived. They pushed Ms. Qiang into the police car and searched her and her purse. Officers also took the young woman to the hospital for an exam. She and her parents left after a doctor confirmed that everything was fine.
Ms. Qiang was taken to the basement of Xifeng Police Station in Qingyang City. Officers forced her to sit in a special metal chair for interrogation and placed a blindingly bright light bulb in front of her. She couldn't see anyone sitting in front of her but only heard them shouting at her.
The police searched her bag again. An officer named Yang Fan hit her head dozens of times, leaving her head badly swollen and her face disfigured.
Ms. Qiang was sent to Xifeng Detention Center the next day and given 15 days of detention.
Because she refused to wear an inmate jumpsuit, guard Yang Long locked her in a cold hallway for hours with only a thin layer of clothes on her.
The guard savagely beat her when she refused to sign her name on a statement slandering Falun Gong.
Instead of releasing her after her 15-day detention expired on October 18, the authorities transferred her to Shenghuafengge Hotel.
The police never returned the items confiscated from her home, including her two cellphones and some internet devices. They also withheld her ID after checking in at the hotel.
Her former colleagues took turns monitoring her around the clock for ten days.
Fearing further persecution, Ms. Qiang escaped after her colleague fell asleep on the morning of October 28, 2017.
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