After Losing Her Husband and Serving a Three-year Sentence, Former Pharmacist Sentenced Again for Her Faith
(Minghui.org) Five years after Ms. Huang Xiaofen’s husband died in the persecution of Falun Gong, she was arrested and sentenced to three years in 2017. Two years after she was released, the former pharmacist in Chenzhou City, Hunan Province was arrested again and sentenced to another prison term of two and a half years.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Huang Xiaofen and her late husband Mr. Chen Yiyuan
Ms. Huang, 71, was arrested on July 20, 2022, with another practitioner, Ms. Gu Zhifang. Ms. Huang’s home was ransacked that evening. They were held in the Chenzhou City Detention Center for a month and then released on bail. Fearing the persecution, the women’s families didn’t allow them to contact other local Falun Gong practitioners.
One of Ms. Huang’s relatives revealed on March 12, 2023, that she had been sentenced to two and a half years about ten days before. It’s not clear if she has yet been transferred to prison or if Ms. Gu was sentenced as well.
Ms. Huang’s husband, Mr. Chen Yiyuan, was sentenced to eight years after being arrested on April 20, 2003. He was forced to work at least 14 hours a day without pay and given unknown drugs in prison. He passed away in March 2012, only a year after he was released.
Ms. Huang’s Previous Prison Sentence
Ms. Huang was previously arrested at home on April 11, 2017. She was sentenced to three years by the Beihu District Court and admitted to the Hunan Province Women’s Prison in April 2018.
Because Ms. Huang refused to renounce Falun Gong, the guards held her in a special ward, where she was forced to sit on a small stool all day long and watch TV programs slandering Falun Gong. The guards hit her on the head, slapped her in the face, and stepped on her feet whenever she refused to watch the videos.
When Ms. Huang was released on April 10, 2020, she had pain in her knees and back. She also had a constant headache, high blood pressure, and poor hearing.
The social security bureau suspended her pension in December 2019 and ordered her to return the 106,407 in yuan of pension benefits she had received during her term. The bureau claimed that she wasn’t entitled to any retirement benefits while serving time and threatened to sue her for pension fraud if she didn’t repay them.
Ms. Huang argued that no Chinese labor law has such a stipulation, but her daughter, fearing further persecution, paid the required amount to the social security bureau on January 21, 2020. Despite that, the hospital where Ms. Huang worked still refused to reinstate her pension.