(Minghui.org) The authorities in Shaanxi Province Women’s Prison have participated in the persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners who refused to renounce their faith since December 2002.
The prison facility is located on East Chengnan Road in Xi’an City, the capital of Shaanxi. The prison guards torture the practitioners to grind down their will and force them to give up their practice. The torture tactics used on the practitioners include injection of poisonous or nerve-damaging drugs, isolation, exposure under the scorching sun, beating, wearing a straitjacket, standing or sitting still, being shocked with electric batons, force-feeding, round-the-clock brainwashing, sleep deprivation, and denied bathroom use.
Falun Dafa is a spiritual discipline persecuted in China since July 1999. The guards in the prison tormented the practitioners and treated them worse than other inmates. The practitioners were not allowed to talk to anyone or look up when they walked down the hallways. When they needed to wash up or use the toilet, it had to be arranged by the collaborators. They could only go one at a time accompanied by a collaborator after their names were called. If a practitioner saw another practitioner in the hallway, a collaborator would yell at them not to look up. Fearing retaliation from the collaborators, no inmates dared to greet or talk to the practitioners.
The following is a brief summary of seven of the practitioners who were tortured in the prison since 2019. Five of them were over 60 with the oldest being 84. Their sentences ranged from three to nine years.
1. Ms. Li Minfang in Baoji City
Ms. Li Minfang was born in September 1939 and retired from a fire department in Baoji City in the same province. The police arrested and put her in a brainwashing center on November 29, 2018. She was released on bail on February 2, 2019, and was put on house arrest on August 10, 2019, by the Jintai District Procuratorate.
A judge at Jintai District Court sentenced her to five years on November 9, 2020. At first she served the term outside of prison and was frequently harassed and terrorized. After she refused to pay a 5,000-yuan fine, the police put her in Baoji City 2nd Detention Center on June 11, 2021, and transferred her to the prison in 2022. At the time she was 83 years old.
When Ms. Li got to the prison, the guards made her read books with content slandering Falun Dafa every day and forced her to write thought reports and memorize the so-called correct answers. A collaborator in her 30s often forced her to stand for a long time and slapped and insulted her. The collaborator blamed her for moving too slowly and pushed her. A few months after she was imprisoned, she was diagnosed with tuberculous and isolated from others. Her family worried about her health condition.
2. Ms. Jin Rong in Xi’an City
Ms. Jin Rong, 62, is retired from an electronics company in the Lintong District of Xi’an City. She has no family members and lives alone. She’s been sentenced twice for a total of ten years because she refused to renounce her faith, including a four-year term given in September 2014 and another six-year term she is currently serving.
Ms. Jin’s latest arrest took place on April 21, 2020, when she told people about the persecution of Falun Dafa. The Baqiao District Court in Xi’an City sentenced her to six years on December 2, 2021.
After being transferred to the prison on February 22, 2022, two collaborators often tortured her and the guards turned a blind eye to what happened. The collaborators found out that she wrote an appeal letter and turned it in to a guard. For a while the guard made her stand still for hours every day without bathroom breaks, and she many times wet her pants. When she could not stand any longer, the collaborators made her sit still on a small stool until her buttocks ruptured and bled. Her blood stained her pants and the collaborators would kick her on her wound.
Before she ate, drank water, and went to a bathroom, a collaborator would make her sign her name and put the word “criminal” in front of it. If she refused to do so, she did not get to do any of these things.
One time a collaborator made her pee in the bowl she ate with when she had to use the toilet in the middle of the night. The next morning the collaborator would not let her wash the bowl before putting her breakfast in it and forced her to ea.
Another time a collaborator put a handful of salt in her food and beat her after she couldn’t finish eating. The collaborator also put dirty mops in her bowl before she used it. She soon became emaciated.
The collaborators often terrorized and yelled at her, “You will never get out of here. You will stay in this prison until the end of time.”
3. Ms. Wang Yanzhi in Baoji City
The officers from Weibin Police Station arrested Ms. Wang Yanzhi in May 2019. She was given seven years by the Jintai District Court after a hearing in July 2020,.
For the first 18 months in Shaanxi Province Women’s Prison, she was put in the “new prisoner ward” and tortured by the collaborators. For a month she was forced to kneel down and stay still with both hands on her knees from 4 a.m. to 2 a.m. the next morning every day. She had only a small bun and a cup of water each day and could only go to the bathroom three times. One time a collaborator slapped her face repeatedly for half an hour. The collaborator often pinched her until she was covered in bruises because she refused to follow instructions.
She’s been transferred out of the new prisoner ward and now works in a sweatshop making clothes every day.
4. Ms. Ma Yunhua in Xi’an City
Ms. Ma Yunhua, now 74, was twice arrested and sentenced to prison terms for a total of 16 years. She was arrested in February 2018 when an officer from Daminggong Police Station found her talking to people about the persecution. A judge from Lianhu District Court sentenced her to nine years in August 2019.
Because she refused to renounce her faith, the guards at Shaanxi Province Women’s Prison kept her in the new prisoner ward to torture her.
5. Ms. Chen Defang in Baoji City
Ms. Chen Defang was arrested on November 29, 2018 and held in Baoji City Second Detention Center. The then-65-year-old was given three years in prison after a hearing by the Jintai District Court on November 9, 2020.
A collaborator often beat and verbally abused her in prison. She was also forced to stand or squat for long hours or even days, and often had her meals taken away. She has been released at the time of writing.
6. Ms. Liu Qiaomei in Xianyang City
Ms. Liu Qiaomei is in her 40s and used to work in a textile equipment company in Shaanxi Province. The officers from Weicheng Police Department arrested her on September 8, 2019 and held her in Taerpo Detention Center. She was given six years in prison after a hearing at Weicheng District Court in November 2020.
For passing a note to another inmate in the prison, she was held in the new prisoner ward for an extended period of time.
7. Ms. Xu Mingxia in Fengming Town, Qishan County
Ms. Xu Mingxia, around 66, was twice sentenced to a total of 7.5 years for refusing to renounce her faith. Her first 3.5-year term came after an arrest in 2005. She was arrested again on July 10, 2019, when she was studying the Falun Dafa teachings with other practitioners. The Qishan County Court sentenced her to four years.
A collaborator in the prison often beat her until her face was swollen and covered in blood. An inmate described it as the most vicious beating she’d ever witnessed and said that Ms. Xu’s blood was all over her face and the floor after the beating.
One time Ms. Xu said “Falun Dafa is good” and a collaborator forced her to squat from 4 a.m. to 2 a.m. every day for two months.
Ms. Xu has been released.
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