(Minghui.org) Ms. Yan Baoping was making informational materials about Falun Gong at a rental apartment on July 10, 2020, when a group of officers broke in and arrested her. After nearly ten months of detention, she was recently sentenced to four years and fined 20,000 yuan.
This is the third time that Ms. Yan, a former account of the Panzhihua Electromechanical Institute of Vocation and Technology in Sichuan Province, has been incarcerated for practicing Falun Gong since the Chinese communist regime ordered the nationwide persecution of the spiritual discipline in 1999.
For upholding her faith, Ms. Yan was fired by her workplace and given two labor camp terms for a total of nearly four years. Her parents died in agony six months apart, in December 2006 and June 2007, respectively. Her only daughter, Ms. Yan Hong, was given one year of forced labor in 2002 when she was 20. Both the mother and daughter served time together in the same labor camp.
Before taking up Falun Gong in 1996, Ms. Yan Baoping suffered many ailments, from constant headaches to pain in her hand joints that kept her awake at night. She also had pain in her calves before being diagnosed with hepatitis and irregular heartbeat. All of her symptoms disappeared shortly after she began practicing Falun Gong.
Filled with gratitude for Falun Gong, she volunteered her time to organize local practitioners to do the Falun Gong exercises together on weekends. More and more local residents joined them.
In May 2000, eleven months after the onset of the persecution, Ms. Yan went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong and was arrested at Tiananmen Square. After being taken back to Panzhihua City, she was held for 40 days at the Panzhihua Detention Center.
Ms. Yan was arrested again in December 2000 and given 1.5 years at the Nanmusi Forced Labor Camp. The guards used all kinds of torture methods trying to force her to renounce Falun Gong, including beating, long hours of standing and sitting without moving, and denial of showers. In the winter, they left her standing outdoors with only a thin layer of clothes. In the summer, they forced her to wear a thick jacket and stand under the scorching sun. Her term was extended for two months as she stayed firm in her faith.
In September 2002, less than two months after she was released on July 23, she was studying Falun Gong teachings at home with her daughter when a group of officers broke in with handcuffs, shackles, metal clubs, wooden clubs, and rope. They arrested the mother and daughter and took them to the police station for interrogation.
A month later, Ms. Yan was given another two years and her daughter one year at the Namusi Forced Labor Camp. The older Ms. Yan was once deprived of sleep for three days and forced to stand with her nose and toes touching the wall. The torture caused her menstrual period to pause for nine months.
Other torture Ms. Yan suffered included sitting on a small stool without moving, brainwashing, and constant threats of “being cremated” for not giving up her faith. The guards also denied her the use of a restroom and forced her to relieve herself in her pants. The urine soaked her socks and shoes and caused her toenails to deform. She developed high blood pressure and a heart condition as a result of the torture.
When Ms. Yan’s daughter was released from the labor camp, she was allowed to have a brief meeting with her mother. She said her mother, who once radiated energy, looked haggard and emaciated. Her hair was unevenly cut, her head was severely swollen, and she was wearing boxy clothes and looked very messy because she was not allowed to wash herself.
Despite the persecution, the daughter said the perseverance and conviction in her mother’s eyes inspired her and encouraged her to bravely start a new life by herself after she was set free.
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