(Minghui.org) A Changchun City, Jilin Province, resident was admitted to the Jilin Province Women’s Prison in January 2024 to serve a 4.5-year term for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Liu Liying, 54, was arrested by officers of the Qitamu Police Station on July 19, 2023. Her Falun Gong books, portrait of Falun Gong’s founder, laptop, printer, cellphone, ID, bank cards, travel luggage, and over 30,000 yuan in cash were confiscated. The police later returned her ID and bank cards at her sister’s strong demand. The police left a mess at Ms. Liu’s home, including a lifted bedboard, as well as broken cabinet doors, hinges, and desk drawers. Her clothes and comforters were thrown on the floor. Her refrigerator and freezer were unplugged.
Ms. Liu was held at the Xinglongshan Detention Center. Her family confirmed in early January 2024 that she was sentenced to 4.5 years by the Kuancheng District Court and has been admitted to the Jilin Province Women’s Prison.
Past Persecution
This is not the first time that Ms. Liu has been targeted for practicing Falun Gong, which she credits for restoring her health. Before she took up Falun Gong in May 1996, she often fell ill and her migraine headaches were especially debilitating. Every time she had a flare-up of migraine, she would feel so dizzy that she could not walk, eat, or drink, on top of vomiting all the time. Her suffering ended with her practice of Falun Gong, but she became a target after the persecution began in 1999. The local police and street committee harassed her both at home and at work. To not implicate her employer, she quit her job and struggled to make ends meet.
Ms. Liu went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in mid-June 2000 and was arrested. After a day of detention in Beijing, she was taken back to Changchun, detained for 15 days and fined 2,000 yuan.
Wang Dali, an officer of the Gongnong Police Station, seized Ms. Liu on September 28, 2001. She was held at a brainwashing center for an unknown amount of time. Wang revealed that the authorities detained her in order to prevent her from returning to Beijing to appeal during the October 1 National Day holiday.
The Changchun police carried out a group arrest of local Falun Gong practitioners one night in early March 2002, prior to the annual political meetings of the communist regime. More than ten officers scaled Ms. Liu’s fence and jumped into her courtyard. They pounded on the door and she let them in. They searched everywhere and Ms. Liu’s mother, who lived with her, was so terrified that she had an episode of her heart condition.
The police did not arrest Ms. Liu that night for some unknown reason, but she decided to live away from home to avoid being harassed again.
Ms. Liu was arrested again on November 26, 2002, by five officers from the Jiutai District Domestic Security Office. They took her to the Jiutai District Detention Center, where they interrogated her with torture. They forced her to sit on a long bench with her legs resting on it, her back straight, and her arms tied behind her back. They next blindfolded her and covered her head with a plastic bag. They then pressed her head down hard and tightened the plastic bag. She almost suffocated. In the meantime, the police pulled her arms as far as possible causing excruciating pain. Her arms didn’t recover until after a year. The police ordered her to tell them the names of fellow Falun Gong practitioners. She refused to comply and they slapped her in the face and punched her on the head, all the while verbally abusing her.
Torture illustration: suffocation
The Jiutai District Court sentenced Ms. Liu to nine years on January 9, 2004, and she was soon transferred to the Jilin Province Women’s Prison. The guards there forced her to watch anti-Falun Gong videos and subjected her to various forms of torture, including sitting on a small bench for long periods, electric shocks, solitary confinement, the death bed (her four limbs would be tied to bed posts in a spread-eagle position suspended in the air as the guards pressed down on her), sleep deprivation, and no restroom use. She lived in fear every day.
Torture illustration: deathbed
Three other practitioners jailed in the same prison, including Ms. Yu Cuilan, Ms. Xiang Lijie, and Ms. Yu Yongzhen, all suffered the deathbed torture. Ms. Yu Cuilan became crippled while walking and Ms. Xiang was unable to lift her arms.
For filing a criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin, the former communist regime leader who launched the persecution of Falun Gong, Ms. Liu was arrested again on September 3, 2015, by officers of the Gongnong Police Station. She was detained at the Jiutai Lockup for ten days.
Prior to her latest arrest, she was seized by the Gongnong Police Station officers another time on June 8, 2017, and detained for an unknown amount of time.
Related Report:
After Nine Hellish Years in Prison, Woman Gets Another 4.5 Years for Her Faith in Falun Gong
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Category: Torture of Women
