(Minghui.org) A Panzhihua City, Sichuan Province resident stood trial on October 27, 2021, for her faith in Falun Gong. Neither Ms. Wu Min nor her lawyer was allowed to speak during the hearing.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
The trial of Ms. Wu, a 62-year-old former employee of Panzhihua Iron and Steel Group, stemmed from her arrest at home on July 12, 2020.
About five or six plainclothes officers from Bingcaogang Police Station showed up at her door that morning. Her outside door was open but her inside screen door was closed. A female officer surnamed Su claimed to be her neighbor upstairs. She said she'd accidentally dropped something in Ms. Wu’s backyard and asked to come in to pick it up.
Ms. Wu knew the woman wasn’t her upstairs neighbor, but before she could make sense of this uninvited visit, Hu Wei, a police station chief, said they were there to search her home. He and other officers then entered Ms. Wu’s home and searched it. One officer used her kitchen knife to cut open seven locks on her cabinets and confiscated dozens of Falun Gong books, a photo of Falun Gong’s founder, her computer, printer, MP3 player, contact book, and many other personal belongings.
Ms. Wu pointed out that no law ever criminalized Falun Gong in China. Hu didn’t allow her to talk and ordered a subordinate to drag her to another room. They pushed her against the floor, held her arms behind her back, and handcuffed her. Her skin was broken and her arms swelled up. The pain didn’t go away until two weeks later.
After Ms. Wu was released on bail after seven days at the Yanbian County Detention Center, she went to the police station and demanded the return of her belongings. Hu ignored her.
When Ms. Wu went to the police station for the third time on August 3, the police interrogated her.
Ms. Wu’s mother, in her 90s, witnessed her arrest and was traumatized. The elderly woman became very slow and she was unable to recognize her son for a week when he came to visit her. Worrying about Ms. Wu, she suffered high blood pressure and a subsequent stroke. She was hospitalized in September 2020 and became paralyzed afterward.
The police and residential committee staff members returned on April 8, 2021, to harass Ms. Wu. As her niece was at home by herself when the police came, they slandered Falun Gong in front of her and asked for her ID number.
The police harassed Ms. Wu again on April 12, before arresting her on June 22. Office Li Xiaohan and two policewomen from the police station were responsible for her arrest. She has been held at the Mianshawan Detention Center since.
Ms. Wu appeared in Dong District Court on October 27. The presiding judge, Wang Juan, didn’t allow her lawyer or her to talk. The hearing quickly ended in an hour.
Ms. Wu began practicing Falun Gong in November 1998 and her myriad of health problems, including tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), cervical osteophytes (bone spurs in the neck), chronic rhinitis, pharyngitis, arthritis, neurosis, and insomnia, soon disappeared. She also became a more considerate and tolerant person by following the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
She was targeted for upholding her faith after the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999. She served five years in prison and was terminated by her employer, Pangang Group Yejian Mechanical & Electrical Equipment Materials Company. While held at Panzhihua Detention Center, guard Zeng Xiaomin forced her to wear heavy shackles weighing up to more than 80 pounds for weeks. She was also once tied up in a bed in a spread-eagle position for 12 days. The guards constantly beat and verbally abused her, in an attempt to force her to renounce Falun Gong.
Prior to her latest persecution, she was arrested on August 19, 2019, after being reported for talking to a student about Falun Gong. She was briefly detained and harassed again on September 29, 2019.
Perpetrators’ contact information:
Wang Juan (王涓), officer of Dong District Court: +86-812-8880661Liao Juan (廖娟), prosecutor of Dong District Procuratorate: +86-812-2242481Wu Yingkang (吴应康), head of Bingcaogang Police Station: +86-812-3333984
(More perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)