(Minghui.org)
Name: Liu YongfenChinese Name: 刘永芬Gender: FemaleAge: 72City: ZhuzhouProvince: HunanOccupation: Retired kindergarten teacherDate of Death: December 1, 2023Date of Most Recent Arrest: October 30, 2016Most Recent Place of Detention: Zhuzhou City First Detention Center
Because of her faith in Falun Gong, a retired kindergarten teacher was detained over ten times, given three labor camp terms, and sentenced to four years in prison. Facing another prison sentence in early 2023, Ms. Liu Yongfen was forced to live away from home to hide from the police, despite her poor health. Because the police monitored her family’s phone calls, she couldn’t contact her family. Struggling with ever-declining health, she couldn’t eat or relieve herself. She passed away in misery on December 1, 2023. She was 72.
Ms. Liu Yongfen
In addition to Ms. Liu’s own ordeal, her two daughters, who also practice Falun Gong, were arrested, detained and sentenced as well. Even now, her older daughter is still serving time in the prison. Ms. Liu’s husband, Mr. Liu Ying’e, whose late-stage prostate cancer disappeared after he took up Falun Gong in 1999, was traumatized by the persecution and stopped practicing. His health declined again and he passed away in 2004.
Four-year Prison Sentence
Ms. Liu, a retired kindergarten teacher in Chaling County, Hunan Province, took up Falun Gong in 1999 and soon changed from being short-tempered to calm and considerate. Her strained relationship with her husband improved, and her hyperthyroidism and uterine fibroids disappeared.
After the Chinese Communist Party ordered the persecution of Falun Gong only months later in July 1999, Ms. Liu put up informational posters to debunk the regime’s slanderous propaganda about Falun Gong. She was arrested in December 2000 and sentenced to four years. She was taken to the Hunan Province Women’s Prison after a year in the Zhuzhou City Detention Center.
All Falun Gong practitioners who refused to renounce their faith were subjected to strict management and intensified torture in the prison, including Ms. Liu. Because she refused to admit that she was a criminal during a roll call in October 2003, the guards forced her to engage in extensive physical exercise from 6 a.m. to 12 a.m., including running, doing push-ups, squatting stance, and standing at attention without moving.
In addition to the physical torture, the guards also forced the practitioners to work without pay. Some practitioners were ordered to peel nearly 18 kg (about 40 lbs) of broad beans and make tofu skewers every day. Some of their fingers bled as a result. The guards beat or hung up those who refused to work.
During her entire three years in the prison, Ms. Liu was held in an isolated room with a bed, sink, and toilet. Another inmate watched her around the clock and didn’t let her leave her room. With a big water bucket used to soak the broad beans in the room, it was always very humid year around.
First Labor Camp Term
Ms. Liu was arrested again in May 2005 and given a two-year term at Baimalong Women’s Forced Labor Camp. Upon arrival, she was forced to stand and deprived of sleep for three days. Her feet became extremely swollen. The inmates warned her, “We have all kinds of ways to torture you if you don’t renounce Falun Gong.”
Every day, she was forced to watch videos and materials smearing Falun Gong, while enduring constant beatings and verbal abuse. Later on, she was transferred from the “73 Team” to the “71 Team,” where she was forced to work for over ten hours a day without pay and no days off, until she was released in January 2007.
Second Labor Camp Term Overlaps Daughters’ Terms
Only eight months after her release, Ms. Liu was arrested one more time in September 2007, after being reported by Chen Nianxin, her supervisor at work, for talking to him about Falun Gong. The Chaling County Domestic Security Office gave her another two-year term in the Baimalong Forced Labor Camp.
For a few months, Ms. Liu and her two daughters, both of whom were arrested earlier, were all held in the same camp. (Her older daughter Ms. Liu Chunqin was arrested in November 2006 and held in the labor camp until December 2007. Her younger daughter Ms. Liu Xueyin was arrested in April 2007 and given a one-year term. For details about her daughters’ persecution, refer to the related reports listed at the end of the article.)
Ms. Liu legs became paralyzed from being abused in the labor camp and she was unable to walk. She was released in April 2009 on medical parole.
Third Labor Camp Term
Ms. Liu was next arrested, again by Chaling County Domestic Security Office personnel, on July 6, 2012. Because she was still unable to walk, the labor camp twice denied her admission before finally admitting her on August 18 on the police’s third attempt.
After a month of detention, the muscles in Ms. Liu’s legs atrophied and she had a herniated lumbar disc. She was emaciated and incapacitated. Yet the authorities refused to release her, with the excuse that the CCP was about to hold its 18th Congress. She was held in her place of work, and two male employees with criminal records were paid to watch her around the clock. Her employer suspended her pension, confiscated her and her daughters’ bank deposit books, and her daughters’ accountant certificates. When her older daughter insisted that Party secretary Liu Yongxin return the certificate so she could find a job, Liu ridiculed her and turned her away.
On November 16, 2012, seeing that Ms. Liu had mostly recovered, her employer sent her back to the labor camp. A month later, a camp guard called her daughters and told them they had to sign a consent for their mother to have surgery. Her daughters rushed to the labor camp but weren’t allowed to see Ms. Liu. The guards kept pressuring them to sign the form.
Ms. Liu’s daughters received call on March 27, 2013, from their mother’s employer, who told them that she was in the Zhuzhou City First Hospital and about to be discharged. The daughters went there to pick her up. She was still very weak and struggled to keep her balance. Officer Chen from the Chaling County Political and Legal Affairs Committee, who was also at the hospital, ordered Ms. Liu to sign a statement to renounce Falun Gong. She refused to comply and left with her daughters.
A Few More Arrests
For talking to people about Falun Gong, Ms. Liu was arrested twice more—on August 27, 2016 and October 30, 2016, and given 15 days in the Zhuzhou City Lockup each time.
Before she was released the second time, the Zhuzhou City Domestic Security Office changed her administrative detention to criminal detention on November 9 and transferred her to the Zhuzhou City First Detention Center. The Zhuzhou City Procuratorate approved her arrest. She was released on bail on November 22, 2016.
On April 12, 2017, the prosecutor dismissed her case and cleared her of prosecution.
Passing Away
Mo Kun and a few other officers from the Lusong District Domestic Security Office broke into Ms. Liu’s home on April 13, 2022, and confiscated over 50 of her Falun Gong books and a portrait of Falun Gong's founder. She was held in the police station for a day and released the next afternoon. She was put under house arrest for six months.
Mo and the officers arrested Ms. Liu again months later, with the excuse that she’d been reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. At her daughters’ insistence, the police released her but still placed her under house arrest.
Xiao Feng of the Nan District Procuratorate summoned Ms. Liu in early December 2022 and indicted her shortly after. The Nan District Court returned her case to the procuratorate around mid-December, citing insufficient evidence.
For the next few weeks, the police kept harassing Ms. Liu at home and threatened to take her back into custody and sentence her. She was forced to live away from home to hide from the police in February 2023.
Years of persecution took a toll on Ms. Liu’s health. She was unable to eat or relieve herself. Her weight dropped quickly, and her legs were so severely swollen that she was unable to walk. She then returned home.
The last three days of her life, Ms. Liu was unable to fall asleep. She worried about her daughters and was saddened by the perpetrators’ blindly following the communist regime to persecute good people. She passed away on December 1, 2023.
Related reports:
Hunan Woman Secretly Sentenced to Four Years After Lawyer Arrested and Barred from Defending Her
Family Torn Apart as a Result of the Persecution
The Persecution of Liu Yongfen and Her Family in Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province
Mother and Daughters Repeatedly Imprisoned During the Past Eight Years
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