(Minghui.org) With Ms. Yu Yanlan’s four-year prison term for practicing Falun Gong set to end in March 2022, the police threatened her family that they would take her to a brainwashing center upon her release because she refused to renounce Falun Gong in prison.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Yu, of Wuhan City, Hubei Province, was arrested on March 10, 2018, for talking to people about Falun Gong. Her arrest came just after she had finished serving a previous three-year term, also for raising awareness about the persecution.
The police confiscated Ms. Yu’s purse and home keys and ransacked her residence without the presence of her family. She was brought to the Etouwan Detention Center in the evening and denied family visits. The Hanyang District Court later sentenced her to four years.
Past Persecution
Prior to Ms. Yu’s two recent prison sentences, she has been arrested multiple times and served another three-year term in the earlier years of the persecution.
Ms. Yu was first arrested at home on August 9, 2001 and held at the Qinduankou Police Station. The police later returned to ransack her home. Her Falun Gong books and other personal belongings were confiscated.
The police kept Ms. Yu in a metal cage and interrogated her for three days without allowing her to sleep. After she was transferred to the Wuhan City No. 1 Detention Center, the guards also deprived her of sleep and forced her to stand for long hours when she refused to recite the detention center rules.
Torture reenactment: hung up
When Ms. Yu did the Falun Gong exercises one morning in her cell, guard Lu Hua rushed over and hung her up from the top rail of the bunk bed, with her arms pulled up behind her back and her feet off of the ground. She was hung up in the air for three days and not allowed to use the restroom.
After one and a half years of detention, Ms. Yu was sentenced to three years and transferred to the Wuhan City Women’s Prison in January 2003. The guards ordered her to recite the prison rules and watch propaganda videos smearing Falun Gong. Inmates were assigned to follow and monitor her around the clock. She wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone and was forced to do unpaid labor for over ten hours each day. The guards frequently searched Ms. Yu’s bedding, sometimes cutting open her comforter open to look for Falun Gong teachings. She was denied family visits as well.
In May 2008, Ms. Yu was arrested one more time at home and taken to the Taojialing Brainwashing Center. She was monitored by two staff members and forced to watch videos slandering Falun Gong. The guards constantly ordered her to write “thought reports” and statements renouncing Falun Gong.
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