(Minghui.org) Today is Mother’s Day and it reminds us of the innocent women who were killed or are still incarcerated because of the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Dafa.
Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is an ancient spiritual discipline based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. It was introduced to the public by Master Li Hongzhi on May 13, 1992. Due to its immense popularity, the communist regime ordered the persecution in 1999 and is still targeting the practitioners for their faith today.
A total of 4,793 Falun Gong practitioner deaths have been documented by Minghui as of May 7, 2022. But due to the strict censorship of information in China, the actual number is most likely much higher.
My wife was one of those who lost her life in the persecution that is still going on 23 years later. She was tortured to death for refusing to give up her faith 10 years ago.
The 2022 Annual Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which was released on April 25, found that “the religious freedom considerations in China deteriorated” in 2021. As defined by the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA), the report again designated China as a “country of particular concern (CPC)” for “engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.”
The report noted that peaceful groups like Falun Gong are even more vulnerable to persecution. “Falun Gong source Minghui reported that in 2021, authorities harassed and arrested thousands of Falun Gong practitioners and sentenced 892 to prison terms. At least 101 practitioners died as a result of government persecution,” wrote the report. Many of them were women.
Below I would like to highlight a few recently-reported cases of mothers who have been persecuted to death for upholding their faith in Falun Gong as documented by Minghui.org. They are only drops in the ocean, but they are evidence of just how wicked and heartless the CCP persecution is. I’d like to call on the international community to help end this persecution as soon as possible.
Ms. Qu Cailing from Fushun City, Liaoning Province, was tortured while in a forced labor camp for a year and a half and later sentenced to nine years in prison for upholding her faith in Falun Gong. Unable to bear the pressure of the persecution, Ms. Qu’s husband divorced her and was given sole custody of their teenage daughter. Her employer suspended her pension in 2000, after she was first arrested for her faith. After suffering years of mental distress and financial difficulties, she passed away on January 22, 2022. She was 70 years old.
Ms. Ye Zhongqiu was a teacher at Liaozhong County Urban No. 2 Middle School in Liaoning Province. For raising awareness about the persecution, she was sentenced three times to a total of 12 years. When Ms. Ye was released from prison in November 2020 after serving a four-year term, she couldn’t walk or speak clearly. The former physics teacher died on January 25, 2022. She was 54.
Ms. Zhang Siqin, 69, from Dalian City, Liaoning Province, died on January 27, 2022, in the Yaojia Detention Center, eight days after her arrest. Ms. Zhang’s ordeal dated back to November 12, 2019, when she was reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong near a farmer’s market. The Jinzhou District Court sentenced her to two years with a 5,000-yuan fine on August 27, 2021.
Ms. Ji Yunzhi from Chiefeng City, Inner Mongolia, and mother of a U.S. resident, died in Bairin Hospital on March 21, 2022, seven weeks after she was arrested on Chinese New Year’s Day (February 1). She was 66. While in detention, she was brutally beaten by guards and inmates until she was on the verge of death. “If I die, it will be the result of torture,” Ms. Ji once said to her cellmates.
Ms. Wang Liuzhen, a retired metallurgical engineer with the Chang’an No. 2 Factory in Chongqing, was given two labor camp terms and held in a psychiatric hospital three times. She was fed and injected with toxic drugs, which damaged her internal organs and made her blind. Ms.Wang died on January 1, 2022, capping decades of suffering persecution for her faith in Falun Gong. She was in her 80s.
Ms. Huang Sulan of Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, was arrested outside of her apartment building on January 20, 2022. She was held at a secret detention facility in Pengzhou. Three days later on January 23, the police informed her family that she had died earlier that day. Her body was moved to the Pengzhou City Funeral Home. Her family has seen her body, but further details about her death remain to be investigated.
Ms. Yang Xiurong of Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, had endured repeated arrests, harassment, incarceration, and torture over the last 20 years for refusing to give up her faith. The authorities suspended her pension in 2020, claiming that she wasn’t entitled to it because she’d been sentenced to prison. She succumbed to the physical and mental distress of the persecution and died on February 25, 2022. She was 77.
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Category: News Commentary
