(Minghui.org) A 71-year-old mother and her disabled daughter are facing prosecution for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Tuo Wenxia and her daughter Ms. Niu Xiaona, of Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province, were arrested on April 19, 2021. Although Ms. Tuo was released shortly thereafter, she was taken back into custody on June 10, 2021, and has since had her arrest approved. Ms. Niu has been held at the Harbin Detention Center since her April arrest. She struggled to cope with the pressure from constant police interrogation and had a relapse of an old medical condition that had been cured by practicing Falun Gong.
When Ms. Niu’s lawyer visited her in early June, she was unable to walk on her own and had to be carried around by inmates. Unable to walk up the few steps in the restroom, she was forced to relieve herself in her pants a few times, and she dared not eat or drink. At the same time, she also has chest tightness and extreme pain all over her body, including in her head and eyes. Her hands are deformed, and she is emaciated.
Taking Up Falun Gong
When she was still a college student in the 1990s, Ms. Niu developed progressive rheumatoid arthritis, the same disease that killed her grandfather. Tormented by the disease, she became emaciated and lost almost all her hair. Her knees were extremely swollen and remained bent nearly 90 degrees. Her arms were also swollen and crossed in front of her chest. Her finger joints were deformed from the swelling as well. Confined to bed, she bore constant excruciating pain all over her body.
After trying various medicines, her disease wasn’t cured, but the side effects damaged many of her internal organs. Spending many nights sleepless, she developed thoughts of suicide.
At that time, Ms. Tuo, a school teacher, heard about the recovery of a former student from practicing Falun Gong and she recommended that Ms. Niu give it a try. Both mother and daughter started to practice Falun Gong.
Unable to stand up, Ms. Niu sat in bed and followed the hand movements of the Falun Gong exercises. Soon, the pain disappeared and the swellings subsided. But as her joint periosteum, the membrane that covers the outer surface of bones and provides attachment for muscles and tendons, had already rotted, she couldn’t fully stand up on her feet anymore and she stayed at home most of the time.
Persecuted for Remaining Firm in Their Faith
After the persecution started in July 1999, Ms. Tuo was arrested seven times and had her home ransacked several times.
Ms. Tuo was first arrested on January 19, 2000, and detained for 15 days. She was arrested again weeks later on March 3 and detained for 40 days. While she was still detained, Ms. Niu sought help from another practitioner, Mr. Wang Jiguo, to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong on March 5, only to be arrested and taken back to Mudanjiang on March 9. Ms. Tuo’s husband paid a 200-yuan fine.
Ms. Tuo was arrested one more time on October 6, 2000, and detained for 60 days. The police extorted 5,000 yuan out of her.
On January 17, 2001, Hu Xiaosong, Gao Huazhi and another official of the local residential committee ransacked Ms. Tuo’s home. Around the same period, the authorities often called her home phone number to check whether Ms. Niu was at home. As long as Ms. Niu answered the call, the person would hang up without saying a word.
In early March 2001, officer Hu harassed Ms. Niu and asked her to write her understanding of the Tiananmen self-immolation hoax, a staged propaganda stunt put on by the communist regime to demonize Falun Gong. Ms. Niu instead wrote about how her health recovered from practicing Falun Gong.
Ms. Tuo was arrested on October 17, 2001 and had her home ransacked again. She held a hunger strike and was released 12 days later. To avoid further persecution, she was forced to live away from home on April 23, 2002. During the time she wasn’t home, the police twice arrested her husband, Niu Guoxue, who doesn’t practice Falun Gong.
Ms. Tuo, Mr. Ning Jun, Ms. Ye Lianping and Mr. Wang Yongqiang were put on the police’s wanted list with a 50,000-yuan reward if any of them were arrested. The other three practitioners were later persecuted to death after they were arrested.
In order to arrest Ms. Tuo, the police forced her neighbor to move out of their rental apartment and moved in themselves to monitor Ms. Niu and her father’s daily activities. Any local Falun Gong practitioner who went to visit them would also be monitored.
In late 2003, the police deceived Mr. Niu’s father into going to the police station when she just went out. With no one at home, the police sneaked in and installed a listening device. Through monitoring their phone calls, the police located Ms. Tuo in Beijing and also found out that she had bought electronic readers for practitioners in Mudanjiang.
Ordered by Li Changqing, head of the Mudanjiang 610 Office, and Li Fu, head of the Domestic Security Office, the police orchestrated a mass arrest of over 100 practitioners in October 2003. Around two dozen practitioners were sentenced to prison, with five of them, including Mr. Wang Xinmin, Ms. Jiang Chunmei, Mr. Liu Zhiyuan, Ms. Wang Shue and Ms. Niu, sentenced to 14 years. Another two practitioners, Mr. Kang Yuncheng and Mr. Jin Youfeng, who were arrested and sentenced, later died as a result of torture in custody.
Ms. Tuo was arrested in Beijing at the same time as the above practitioners. As Ms. Niu was allowed to serve time outside of prison, both the mother and daughter later lived away from home to hide from the police.
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