(Minghui.org) Ms. Yang Xiaoming was notified on January 25, 2023 that she was scheduled to stand trial on February 1 for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the communist regime since 1999.
It remains to be investigated whether the hearing has indeed taken place.
Ms. Yang, a 54-year-old Kunming City, Yunnan Province resident, suffered from eye disease since childhood. She had to quit school after finishing the sixth grade. In 1984, at the age of 15, she found a job at the Kunming Medical College and later took on a role in logistics management in 1993. Shortly after she took up Falun Gong at the end of 1995, her eye condition recovered.
After the persecution started, Qin Deyong, the Party secretary of the department she worked at, threatened to suspend her father’s pension and force her husband’s workplace to fire him, if she didn’t renounce her faith.
In January 2000, upon hearing that Ms. Yang was pregnant, Qin forced her husband to take her for an abortion. Her husband also divorced her a month later, in order not to be implicated.
For distributing informational materials about Falun Gong, Ms. Yang was arrested on December 29, 2001 and given two years at the Yunnan Province Women’s Forced Labor Camp. She was arrested again on February 1, 2005 and given another three years of forced labor. Due to a savage beating and other physical torture, her vision significantly declined and she became completely blind in 2012.
Ms. Yang’s latest arrest took place on May 28, 2022. The police attempted to deceive her into opening the door by claiming to be from property management to check whether her pipes were leaking. When Ms. Yang refused to open the door, the police broke in and handcuffed her. Without showing any ID or proper paperwork, the police raided her place and confiscated her valuables and 16,000 yuan in cash.
The police took Ms. Yang to the Zongshuying Police Station and interrogated her in a small room. She refused to answer any questions, but urged them not to participate in the persecution.
While taking her to the hospital for a physical examination, the police pushed Ms. Yang from behind. She fell and hit her left eye on the ground, resulting in severe bleeding. The police also handcuffed her hands behind her back and taped her mouth shut to prevent her from talking.
After the doctor found multiple severe diseases while examining Ms. Yang, the police took her back to the police station and held her there overnight, while keeping her handcuffed and shackled.
Despite her condition, the police took her to the Kunming City Detention Center the next day at noon. As the guards refused to admit her, the police put a black hood on her head and took her back to the police station. She was released on bail later in the afternoon. The police withheld 2,000 yuan from the cash confiscated from her as bail bond and refused to return her other valuables.
The Xishan District Court scheduled a hearing for February 1, 2023. The presiding judge in charge of her case was Zhu Dandan, with the court clerk being Wen Xiaolan.