(Minghui.org) Over the past 24 years of persecution of Falun Gong, a 66-year-old Xingguo County, Jiangxi Province, resident has been incarcerated four times for a total of 17.5 years for upholding her faith.

Ms. Li Lanying served a 3-year labor camp term and three prison terms of 1.5 years, 5 years and 8 years. She suffered relentless torture while in custody. Below are the details of her persecution.

Ms. Li was arrested multiple times between July 1999 and 2000 and held in brainwashing centers. She was sentenced to 1.5 years following an arrest in October 2000 for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. Because she wrote a letter of appeal while in prison, detailing the benefits she had enjoyed from practicing Falun Gong, the authorities gave her a 3-year labor camp term after she finished her prison term.

Ms. Li’s next arrest was on October 18, 2006. Her home was also ransacked by the police.

For talking to people about Falun Gong while taking the train from Nanchang (capital city of Jiangxi) to Xingguo on April 20, 2008, Ms. Li was arrested yet again. As the train was operated by the railroad agency in Guangdong Province, she was held in the Huizhou City Police Railroad Detention Center in Guangdong. The Guangzhou City Railroad Transportation Court in Guangdong later sentenced Ms. Li to five years. 

At the Guangdong Province Women’s Prison, Ms. Li was verbally abused, force-fed and given unknown drugs against her will. The guards also constantly ordered her to renounce Falun Gong.

Only two years following her release, Ms. Li was arrested again in April 2015, after she was reported for printing informational materials about Falun Gong in her rental place in Xingguo County. The police confiscated her computer, printer, projector and motorcycle. She was tied up on a tiger bench and interrogated at the Domestic Security Office. The Xingguo County Court handed her an eight-year prison sentence in December 2015. 

The guards in the Third Ward in Jiangxi Province Women’s Prison never stopped trying to force Ms. Li to renounce Falun Gong. She always remained firm and was brutally tortured as a result.

For several days in July 2016, the guards tortured Ms. Li around the clock in another attempt to “transform” her. As she still didn’t give in after nearly three weeks of torture, the guards hung her up by the wrists to a high window frame, leaving her body dangling in the air. She passed out due to the pain. The long hours of hanging eventually disabled her left arm. 

The guards also denied Ms. Li the use of restroom and force-fed her a large amount of water. Then they hit her abdomen, causing her to vomit water while having urinary incontinence. The guards tried many other torture methods on her, including stabbing her abdomen with their fingers. 

Torture illustration: hanging up by the wrists

Ms. Li was later forced to do slave labor, making shoes. She had to work from 5: 30 a.m. to 7 p.m., with only one restroom break in the morning. Inmate Wu Xiaojin who was assigned to monitor Ms. Li often beat her and verbally abused her. 

In addition to the intensive forced labor, Ms. Li was also made to attend brainwashing sessions for two afternoons each week. In the summer, the guards barred her from taking showers and sometimes even washing her face was not allowed. They often gave her no food or very little food to eat. She was emaciated and weak by the time she was released.

Related reports:

Falun Gong Practitioners Tortured in Jiangxi Province Women’s Prison

At Least 32 Falun Gong Practitioners Still Jailed in Jiangxi Province Women’s Prison

Human Rights Abuses in Jiangxi Province Women's Prison