(Minghui.org) Two residents of Cangzhou City, Hebei Province were stripped naked twice a day to be searched for “contraband” following their arrests earlier this year for their faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Li Li and Ms. Shi Rui were both arrested on April 17, 2024 (another report put the date at April 11), with the former seized on her way to work and the latter as soon as she arrived at work. At least ten other local Falun Gong practitioners were arrested that same day.
Both Ms. Li and Ms. Shi were taken to the Cangzhou City Detention Center later that day. Upon admission to the detention center, Ms. Li was ordered to remove her clothes for a search. She refused to comply and the guards instructed several inmates to strip her naked. The same process happened again in the evening.
Ms. Li went on a hunger strike to protest the twice-a-day strip-search and became emaciated after about two weeks. Only then did the guards stop the humiliating body searches.
According to insiders, Falun Gong practitioners and non-practitioners alike are subjected to such strip-searches in the detention center, which took effect around the time Ms. Li and Ms. Shi were taken there. While there was no report of Ms. Shi’s situation, she was undoubtedly facing such strip-searches on a daily basis under the new policy.
The new policy also required inmates to be filmed naked before being released or transferred to a different facility. They must turn their naked bodies around to face the camera and answer questions like “were you given enough food to eat while here?” and “were you ever beaten here?” Anyone who did not answer the questions “correctly” would not be released as scheduled.
Arrests and Ongoing Prosecution
Vice captain Li Yi from the Yunhe District Domestic Security Division and his deputies were responsible for Ms. Li’s arrest. They raided her home when no one was home. Her husband returned that night to see a big mess and was unable to reach Ms. Li on the phone. He reported the situation to the police. Li Yi called him back to inform him of his wife’s arrest.
Captain Niu Ben and instructor Gao Fusong from the Xinhua District Domestic Security Division oversaw Ms. Shi’s arrest. Before storming into her office, they cut off her company’s power supply, so the surveillance system would be shut off. They then drove her to her rental home and confiscated her computer, printer, Falun Gong books and other valuables. An officer later revealed that they had been monitoring her for two years and that the arrest was long-planned. Her landlord was notified before the home raid.
The Xinhua District Procuratorate issued a formal arrest warrant for Ms. Shi on April 30. Her case was then submitted to the Xinhua District Procuratorate, which forwarded the case to the Cangzhou City Procuratorate, which then put the Yunhe District Procuratorate in charge. Prosecutor Fu indicted Ms. Shi in mid-September 2024 and forwarded her case to the Yunhe District Court. Her ex-husband, who divorced her after fathering a child with his mistress, never paid child support for her son (China does not have a system to directly garnish child support from one’s pay or bank account). While she is in detention awaiting trial, her college-age son struggles to pay his tuition and her elderly mother has no one to take care of her.
Ms. Li was issued a formal arrest warrant on May 22. Her case was submitted to the Yunhe District Procuratorate, which returned it to the police for further information. It is unclear whether she has been indicted. Ms. Li was previously sentenced to three years with five years probation following an arrest in 2009. After another arrest on August 17, 2014, she was sentenced to six years in prison on December 30, 2015.
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