(Minghui.org) A 72-year-old resident of Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province was sentenced to two years on September 29, 2024 for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Zhu Yamei’s prison sentence stemmed from her arrest at a residential area in Longsha District on May 2, 2024. As the arresting officers from the Caihong Police Station didn’t notify her family of her arrest, her husband reported her missing with their local Jianshe Road Police Station in Jianhua District on the morning of May 13. He was summoned to the police station in the afternoon. The police asked him to call their son and Ms. Zhu’s sister to see if she had gone to stay with them.
Ms. Zhu’s husband didn’t make any calls and was asked to wait at the police station. A few officers from the Caihong Police Station came after 5 p.m. and said they needed his wife’s household registration book. They then drove him back home to raid his residence. They confiscated six Falun Gong books and a few other Falun Gong-related items.
The Caihong Police Station then turned the case over to the justice bureau overseeing the state-owned Qixingpao Farm, where Ms. Zhu’s household registration is. The person in charge of the case at the justice bureau later called Ms. Zhu’s husband to confirm this development. He went to the Caihong Police Station around July 2024 and learned that they had submitted his wife’s case to the Jianhua District Procuratorate and notified the Qixingpao Farm Justice Bureau of the submission. It is unclear why the police station did the submission when they had turned over the case to the justice bureau.
Ms. Zhu stood trial at the Jianhua District Court at an unknown date and was convicted on September 2, 2024. She is likely still being held at a local detention center.
Previously Given 1.5 Years of Forced Labor in 2007
Ms. Zhu took up Falun Gong in the summer of 1998 and recovered from her stomach issues, heart disease, asthma, leg pain, and back pain in a few months. Her vision also improved. After the persecution began in July 1999, she remained firm in her faith and used various means to debunk the regime’s propaganda against Falun Gong.
Three officers from the Qixingpao Farm Police Department arrested Ms. Zhu on September 6, 2007. They kept her handcuffed and shackled in a metal chair during the interrogation. She was not allowed to sleep that night. The next morning, they took her to a local detention center, where she was again restrained in a metal chair with her limbs cuffed. The guards did not give her enough food to eat, and she was always hungry. Fifteen days later, she was given one and a half years of forced labor. Before her transfer to the Shuanghe Labor Camp on September 22, 2007, she was forced to pay more than 460 yuan to the detention center as living expenses.
While being held at the labor camp, Ms. Zhu was forced to watch videos smearing Falun Gong. She was also deprived of sleep and forced to do hard labor, including making handicrafts using toxic powder, which caused her to cough even with two masks on. The toxic powder also fell on the steamed buns and formed colorful spots, yet she still had to eat those buns as she wasn’t given any other food. She started to run a fever, and her eyes turned red. The labor camp insisted that it was not poisoning from the toxic powder. They still forced her to work for more than 14 hours a day. She suffered unbearable pain in her chest and back, but was never allowed to take a break.
Officers Ding Guowei, Ni Bo, and Liu Zhaowei from an unknown police department, along with a community worker, raided Ms. Zhu’s home at around 3 p.m. on August 27, 2013. They seized her TV, Falun Gong books, designer backpack, and 200 yuan in cash. They kept her at the police department for hours before releasing her after 8 p.m.
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