(Minghui.org) Ms. Qian Youyun, 54 years old, is a resident in Wuhan City, Hubei Province. She has been repeatedly arrested for keeping her faith in Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, a mind-body practice based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since July 1999.
Ms. Qian was tortured during her four years of imprisonment. Just three months after she was released from prison, she was unlawfully arrested again on April 23, 2019, for telling people about being tortured and about the benefits of practicing Falun Gong. Her whereabouts still remain unknown to date.
Falun Dafa Changed Her into a New Person
Ms. Qian was born in Wuhan City on June 8, 1965. She used to be an employee of an associate of the Grain Bureau of Jiangxia District of Wuhan City. Before she started practicing Falun Gong, she had come down with asthma and some other illnesses. She was also a gambler who played mahjong all day long. Her family argued and had conflicts all the time.
Ms. Qian was introduced to Falun Dafa on May 13, 1998, and became a Dafa practitioner. She recovered from her illnesses and gave up many bad habits. She felt that both her mind and body were constantly elevating as she assimilated to the Falun Dafa principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
Falun Dafa turned Ms. Qian into a new person. She took on the household responsibilities and her family life became harmonious. Witnessing the positive changes in her, some of her family members also started practicing Falun Dafa. One family member was able to walk again after having to rely on crutches for years, while others gave up gambling and other bad habits.
Persecution
After July 1999, Jiang Zemin, the former head of the communist regime, set up the 610 Office and started persecuting tens of millions of innocent Falun Gong practitioners.
Like many fellow Falun Gong practitioners, Ms. Qian went to Beijing in January 2000 to appeal for justice for Falun Gong, as she believed that there was nothing wrong with striving to be good people by following Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
She was taken back to her hometown by two officers from the Jiangxia District Police Station and has been persecuted ever since.
Ms. Qian was imprisoned for more than five years in different facilities, including detention centers, labor camps, prison, and brainwashing centers, where she was tortured.
She was hung up for days, monitored by “personal monitors” around the clock, forced to stand for long hours every day for over six months, beaten, deprived of sleep, force-fed, and verbally abused.
Ms. Qian's parents tried to rescue their daughter, citing China's Constitution to defend her, but their efforts failed.
Unlawful Conduct by the CCP Police
Staff from the local police station and neighborhood committee went to Ms. Qian's house several times with the excuse of checking household registration. When she refused to open the door, they tried to use other excuses.
One day, the police turned up and surrounded her apartment building. She tore up some sheets and made them into a rope to try to escape. She fell and injured herself but managed to get away.
Later, police officers began to hide near her home until 3:00 a.m. every night. They also went to her husband's workplace, threatening that they would cut off his source of income if he failed to hand her over to the police. They also claimed that she had abandoned her family because of her belief.
However, her family members had witnessed her repeated arrests, detentions, the unlawful trial, her battered body, and other evidence of torture. All this plus the intense pressure from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) subjected her family to unbearable pain and anxiety over the years.
Ms. Qian came home a month later because she was worried about her husband, who had a heart problem. Less than two weeks after she returned, the police came again to arrest her. When she refused to open the door, they sent for a locksmith to force open the door. They also contacted her husband at work and threatened that if he didn't come back home straightaway, they would tell his employer to fire him.
In the end, they managed to get into her house and took Ms. Qian to the police station, where she was interrogated for 24 hours. She was detained for 15 days in a detention center, before being illegally sentenced to a 4-year prison term.
Appeal: Original Sentencing Upheld
Ms. Qian appealed against the sentence and decided to sue the local police and members of the 610 Office for her illegal arrest and the torture. But, the detention center refused to give her pen and paper, telling her that she could either appeal verbally in court or accept the sentence.
The Jiangxia District Court held an illegal trial against Ms. Qian on May 27, 2015. She shouted “Falun Dafa is good” as she walked up the stairs.
Chinese New Year greetings that said “Falun Dafa is good” were considered as evidence to sentence her. When her husband's testimony was presented, he immediately denied having said whatever the prosecutor claimed. When Ms. Qian spoke of the benefits she'd derived from practicing Falun Dafa, the judge told her that such comments were not relevant.
Later, the intermediate court upheld the original judgment. When Ms. Qian proposed to continue to appeal, she was told that she could only use a lawyer appointed by the local government, who, as a precondition, must enter a guilty plea on her behalf. In other words, Ms. Qian must admit that she is guilty of practicing Falun Gong as a precondition.
Tortured in Prison
Ms. Qian was taken to Wuhan Women's Prison on August 21, 2015, after which she was transferred to the second team of the No. 2 Ward. When she refused to recite the prison rules, Li Ran, the instructor of the ward assigned drug addict Zhou Meili and inmate Yuan Cheng to monitor her. Guards ordered that she be tortured by the two monitors.
Ms. Qian was initially forced to stand still from morning until 10:00 p.m. for several days in a row, and then the time was changed to midnight. When she still refused to recite the reporting rules, the two “monitors” beat her and deprived her of sleep.
She was injured, but the guards ignored her, and the prison administration ordered the monitors to keep torturing her. Zhou pulled Ms. Qian by her hair, and punched and kicked her hard. When Ms. Qian screamed in pain, Zhou stuffed her mouth with dirty socks, and her mouth was bleeding. The monitors continued to torture her.
The long-term mental and physical torture made her mentally disoriented, and she became emaciated. She was forced to perform manual labor. When she showed her injuries to instructor Li Ran and team leader Zhang An, Li said indifferently, “I can't see any injuries. You look very well.” Li also said, “We're a law-enforcement facility. If you don't obey our orders, we have the right to use violence, and we don't take any responsibility for whatever happens to you.”
Surgery and Continued Mistreatment
After two years of detention, Ms. Qian's uterus became so severely detached that it required surgery at the Hanyang Railway Hospital. Her family was not allowed to visit her but had to pay all her medical expenses.
The operation lasted six hours, and before she regained consciousness from the anesthetics she was put into shackles and handcuffs again.
Doctors said that she had lost a lot of blood during the surgery and needed more days of rest and nutritious food, but the prison urged the hospital to discharge her. She was taken back to the prison on the third day after the operation.
Her husband paid all her medical expenses, totaling over 18,000 yuan plus 500 yuan transport cost. However, the prison refused to give him the receipts, saying they needed them for account keeping.
Conditions in the prison hospital were not only poor, but the place was also very dirty. Doctors often wrote prescriptions or gave injections without an examination of the patient. Falun Gong practitioners were also forced to have blood tests.
When having a bed sore checked on her thigh, director Chen of the prison asked her repeatedly if she had been “transformed”.
“If you have, we will take a proper look at your sore, if not, I'll make sure you suffer today,” said Chen. When the medical staff changed her dressing, they poked a cotton swab into her wound and twisted it around, causing her unbearable pain and bleeding.
The hospital had Ms. Qian undergo several health “checkups”. When she refused, they took several tubes of blood from her. The doctor prescribed a few injections without even asking her symptoms.
Financial Persecution
Ms. Qian returned home on November 6, 2018, after four years of imprisonment. Her husband had just had a heart bypass surgery and the family was having a difficult time financially.
To make things worse, they received a phone call from the Social Security Bureau towards the end of February 2019, telling her to pay back the basic pension her family received while she was incarcerated, otherwise they would suspend her entitlement. The sudden financial persecution cast a new shadow over her family, which had just started to recover from the earlier ordeal.
Ms. Qian went to talk with the Social Security Bureau and was told that according to Article 12 of the No.143 Document issued in 2001, payment to retirees who are receiving basic pension would be suspended if they are sentenced to criminal detention or imprisonment.
They also told Ms. Qian that the reason they did not suspend her entitlement when she was in jail was because they were not aware of her imprisonment.
Ms. Qian explained to the staff that Falun Gong practitioners are not criminals and her imprisonment was completely due to the unlawful persecution.
“I have not violated any law, and I just try to be a good person and follow the principles of 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance'. I was subjected to torture in prison, and now you want to take away my basic pension. How would I live? Being treated so unfairly, I would appeal,” she said to the staff.
The staff told her it would not get her anywhere by appealing because they were following instructions from above. The staff also showed her a list of dozens of people, and Falun Gong practitioners' names were marked.
Clearly, the financial persecution Ms. Qian encountered is not an individual case, as it directly targets Falun Gong practitioners. It is known that members of the 610 Office stated that if Falun Gong practitioners refuse to “transform,” their salary and pension would be suspended.
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