(Minghui.org) Ms. Wang Fuhua, a woman in her 60s, was released from Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison on November 6, 2020, after serving two years for telling people about her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice also known as Falun Dafa that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. She was emaciated and looked much older than her age.
The attempt to force Ms. Wang, a resident of Suihua City, Heilongjiang Province, to renounce her faith continued after she returned home. The social security office demanded that she pay back the pension she received during the two years in prison, threatening they’d suspend her future pension, citing a new policy that banned all Falun Gong practitioners serving time for their faith from receiving any retirement benefits.
Additionally, the pension increase Ms. Wang received during the two-year period was erased and her monthly pension was lowered to the level before her arrest. Left with no choice, Ms. Wang’s family paid the required 60,000 yuan in order for her to receive her pension again.
In April 2021, Ms. Wang was harassed again and ordered to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong. The authorities threatened to take her to a brainwashing center if she didn’t comply.
Ms. Wang and four other local Falun Gong practitioners, including Ms. Zhao Tingting, Mr. Yang Chuanhou, Ms. Wang Fang, and Ms. Bai Xia, went to the nearby Lanxi County to hand out information about Falun Gong on October 3, 2018, and were arrested.
They were interrogated at the Lanxi County Detention Center. They all refused to tell their names. Terrified by the police, Ms. Wang passed out.
The police later found out that the practitioners were from Suihua after discovering a receipt in Mr. Yang’s car. They took pictures of each practitioner and sent the information to the Suihua 610 Office, an extralegal agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong. The 610 Office then found out all the practitioners’ names.
Police officer Rong Li from Lanxi County Domestic Security Office took the five practitioners to the Lanxi County Police Department and interrogated them separately. Each practitioner was placed in a separate room and made to sit in a metal chair with their hands and feet restrained.
Ms. Wang explained Falun Gong to the two police officers who interrogated him and urged them not to participate in the persecution. The police refused to listen and instead recorded her words and used them as prosecution evidence against her.
Later, officer Rong Li took the practitioners to Lanxi County Hospital for a medical checkup. Even though Ms. Wang was found to have dangerously high blood pressure, she was still admitted to the Lanxi City Detention Center.
The next day on October 4, the police raided Ms. Wang’s home. They confiscated a printer, toner, paper cutter, and 1,000 yuan in cash. They almost arrested Ms. Wang’s sister who happened to come and visit her during the raid, but relented upon finding out that she was not a Falun Gong practitioner.
On October 10, 2018, three other practitioners, including Ms. Song Hongwei (Mr. Yang’s wife), Ms. Wu Jinghua, and Ms. Gao Jinshu were also arrested and taken to the detention center when they went to deliver clothes to the detained practitioners.
On October 15, the female practitioners were taken to Anda Detention Center, which refused to accept Ms. Wang and Ms. Gao after discovering they had dangerously high blood pressure. The police forced the detention center to measure the two practitioners’ blood pressure three times before allowing them to be released. Ms. Wang was fined 1,000 yuan.
On November 23, 2018, one month after Ms. Wang was released on bail, three police officers took her and Ms. Bai, who had also been released on bail, to Lanxi County Police Department, and then to the Anda Detention Center at midnight. Ms. Wang was held in the detention center for a year.
The environment in the Anda Detention Center was harsh, dark, and humid. A cell usually held 20 to 32 people. All the detainees had to shower, eat, defecate, and sleep in the same cell all day. As the window in the room was very narrow and it didn’t have much sunlight, many people developed scabies due to the filthy and poorly ventilated environment. The food was very little and of poor quality. Sometimes the soup was mixed with dirt.
It was cold in the cell room, but an inmate named Chen Dandan stripped off Ms. Wang’s clothes down to her undergarments, leaving her shivering from the cold.
Every morning, Ms. Wang was ordered to memorize cell rules. She refused since she believed she was innocent.
Whenever she crossed her legs while sitting down, Chen Dandan beat her on the chest. Chen also attempted to force Ms. Wang to write a statement to renounce her faith.
The detention center doctor forced Ms. Wang to take medicine to lower her blood pressure. However, the medicine made Ms. Wang dizzy and uncomfortable. When she refused to take more medicine, Chen threw Ms. Wang’s water cup into the toilet bowl and punched her in the lips. Ms. Wang’s mouth became swollen.
Another time when Ms. Wang refused to take the medicine, Chen pressured her by ordering all inmates to sit with their legs crossed.
When Ms. Zhao, in her 20s, was transferred to Ms. Wang’s cell, she and all other practitioners in the same cell room decided to protest the persecution by refusing to wear the inmates’ vest. Chen started to beat Ms. Zhao angrily. She threatened to beat Ms. Wang too if she didn’t put on the vest.
Ms. Wang said, “We are good people and committed no crimes. We are not supposed to be persecuted like this. We did nothing wrong. I am not a prisoner. I will not put on the vest!” The inmates were afraid that Ms. Wang would be beaten. They held her and put the vest on her.
Ms. Wang was always kind to the inmates and often shared her food with them. There was a teenager in her cell, who beat her stepfather for treating her badly. Then her stepfather reported her to police and got her sent to the detention center. The father didn’t send her any daily necessities or make cash deposits for her. Ms. Wang always took care of the juvenile, and even the guards were touched. One of the guards commented that all kids would be well-fed if they had parents like Ms. Wang.
Ms. Wang Fuhua and the other six practitioners (including Ms. Zhao, Mr. Yang, Ms. Wang Fang, Ms. Bai, Ms. Song, and Ms. Gao) appeared in the Anda City Court on April 16, 2019. They were dragged to the courthouse with their heads covered with black hoods. They were also handcuffed and shackled. Minutes into the hearing, Ms. Gao vomited and fainted. The hearing was then canceled.
The second hearing was held on May 14, 2019. Each of the seven practitioners was represented by a lawyer, who all entered not-guilty pleas for them. The lawyers argued that the persecution of Falun Gong has no legal basis. They also emphasized that Falun Gong practitioners live by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, which could only benefit the society without causing harm to anyone.
The judge sentenced all the practitioners to one to two years in prison. Ms. Wang Fuhua was given two years with a 10,000-yuan fine. The practitioners appealed to the Suihua City Intermediate Court, but judge Liu Yankun ruled to uphold their original verdict.
Sitting on a Small Stool
The female practitioners were transferred to Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison on November 29, 2019. Ms. Wang Fuhua was assigned to team one of the ninth ward and ordered to write “guarantee statements” renouncing Falun Gong. As Ms. Wang refused, she was punished by being made to sit on a small stool, a very common form of torture used against practitioners in the prison.
The stool is only 10 cm high and has a very narrow surface no more than 20 cm wide. Practitioner are forced to sit on the stool with their legs pressed together and hands on their knees. If the inmates see the practitioners closing their eyes, they would kick or beat them.
Ms. Wang was forced to sit on the stool on her first day in the prison until 10 p.m. At 12 a.m. she was forced to continue sitting. When as she closed her eyes, the inmates verbally abused her. Ms. Wang’s legs hurt from sitting. It became difficult for her to get up or sit down. Her back was sore and her chest felt very tight. Many practitioners had pain all over their bodies, and their buttocks were blistered and bruised.
Verbal Abuse
Ms. Wang was the only Falun Gong practitioner in her cell. Inmates were rewarded with term reductions for torturing Ms. Wang. Inmate Wang Xiuli taped a piece of paper written with sentences slandering Falun Gong’s founder on Ms. Wang’s back. After Ms. Wang took it down, several inmates pushed her down and verbally abused her. She was later forced to sit on a small stool again when she refused to slander Falun Gong.
Forced Labor
In addition to the physical and mental torture, prisoners were made to do unpaid labor.
In January 2020, the prison assigned every inmate in Ms. Wang’s cell to work with tin foil inside the cell room. The room was filled with a pungent smell. At the end of the day, their nostrils were filled with a black substance. Most of them coughed badly, and their sputum was black too.
They were also assigned to to package 800 to 900 disposable gloves a couple of times. The inmates started working from 6 a.m. and would stop for a meal at 7:30 a.m. before continuing to work again. They ended work at about 6 or 7 p.m. The work stopped before the Chinese New Year in 2020 and was later put on hold when the pandemic began.
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