(Minghui.org) A 54-year-old resident of Jiaohe City, Jilin Province was released on bail on March 26, 2024, after more than one month of detention for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Sun Yuying was arrested at home around 6 p.m. on February 5, 2024, four days before the Chinese New Year, by three officers (one of them named Wan Fujian) from the Minzhu Street Police Station. They raided her home and took her to their police station. Two days later, they took her to a local detention center, which initially declined to admit her but relented after being pressured by the police.
Ms. Sun was transferred to the Jilin City Detention Center on February 29, 2024. Officers Wan and Luo Ning interrogated her there days later.
A staffer from the Jiaohe City Procuratorate deposed Ms. Sun at the detention center on March 22, 2024. She refused to admit guilt for practicing Falun Gong, so he threatened that her son would be implicated, and he could lose his job, but she held firm to her faith.
Her son returned from out of town to celebrate the Chinese New Year, only to see his paternal grandparents distraught over his mother’s arrest. His father did not know how to cook, so their relatives helped cook the New Year dinner.
While Ms. Sun was in detention, the police questioned her fellow villagers in hopes of gathering evidence against her. What they heard, however, was high praise for her. The villagers told the police that as her husband and son both worked out of town, she did all the farm work by herself on top of taking meticulous care of her parents-in-law.
The police also asked Ms. Sun’s parents-in-law what kind of daughter-in-law she was. The elderly couple said she treated them better than their own daughter did. They couldn’t stop crying every time they thought about how they might never get to see her again if she ended up being jailed for her faith, given their advanced age.
Given the feedback from the local villagers, two officers, including Wan, picked Ms. Sun up from the detention center on the afternoon of March 26, 2024 and took her to their police station. Her family filled out some paperwork there, and she was released on bail that night.
This is not the first time that Ms. Sun has been targeted for practicing Falun Gong, which she credits for curing her lumbar osteoporosis and turning her into a better person.
Earliest Persecution (1999-2002)
Ms. Sun decided to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in July 2000, but was intercepted at the local train station by Wang Chunfu (deputy secretary of her local Xinnong Township) and several officers from the Xinnong Township Police Station. They took her to the Xinnong Township government and fined her 3,000 yuan. After holding her there for a few days, they took her to the Jiaohe City Lockup, where she was kept for 15 more days. After her release, officers Zheng Xuegong and Wu Jun from the Xinnong Township Police Station often searched her home for Falun Gong books and harassed her around major political events or anniversaries related to Falun Gong.
The Jiaohe City 610 Office held a brainwashing session in the local Longsheng Hotel in the spring of 2001. Ms. Sun was deceived into going there and held for an unknown amount of time.
The Jiaohe City Police Department ordered a mass arrest of local Falun Gong practitioners on the night of November 28, 2001. Ms. Sun was seized at home by officers Yun Xianbo and Zheng from the Xinnong Township Police Station. They cuffed her to a basketball goal in the courtyard of the police station for more than two hours, when the temperatures was -30°C (-22oF). After bringing her inside, they cuffed her in a washroom. She managed to remove her handcuffs and escaped from the police station.
The police raided her home many times after that and staked outside to try to catch her.
In August 2002, Wang Qignhai, deputy mayor of the Xinnong Township, and officer Zheng traveled more than 300 miles to Huichun City (also in Jilin Province) in an attempt to catch Ms. Sun, who was doing odd jobs there at the time. They failed to find her.
After returning to Jiaohe, Wang and Zheng harassed Ms. Sun’s parents-in-law, who lived with her family, numerous times. Every time the police showed up, her father-in-law cried and her mother-in-law had a relapse of her heart disease. Ms. Sun’s husband was so stressed out that his hair turned gray in his 30s. The couple’s son was also deeply traumatized.
Two Brainwashing Center Detentions (2008 and 2011)
At 4 a.m. one day in late August 2008, mayor Zhou Shuyan of the Xinnong Township, Han Yongmin from the Comprehensive Management Office, and chief of the Xinnong Township Police Station pounded on Ms. Sun’s door.
She refused to let them in and they called in about twenty more people to surround her home. A little after 10 a.m. that day, officer Guo Yubai smashed a window with an ax and broke in. They took Ms. Sun to the local brainwashing center.
The police coerced Ms. Sun’s mother and two sisters to the brainwashing center and threatened to give her forced labor if she refused to renounce Falun Gong. Ms. Sun’s mother had a relapse of her heart disease, and only then did the police let the older woman and her two others daughters go. Ms. Sun was detained for five days.
At 5:20 p.m. on August 1, 2011, Ms. Sun was arrested at a rental place by officers Wang Gen, Zhang Li, and Xu Wenming from the Xinnong Township Police Station. The police had followed her son, then a high school senior, home that day. As soon as the boy opened the door, the officers barged in. Ms. Sun learned later that the police went to her son’s school and had his home room teacher identify him before following him home. Ms. Sun was held at the local brainwashing center for nine days.
Harassed Once in 2017
At about 1 p.m. on May 17, 2017, three officers from the Xinnong Township Police Station harassed Ms. Sun at home. They questioned her about her criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese dictator who launched the persecution of Falun Gong. She refused to answer their questions. They left, only to return in 30 minutes. They recorded her in audio and video secretly. After she found out, she ripped up the paperwork they showed her. They then left.
Harassed Twice in Two Months in 2021
At the directive of Gao Tong from the Xinnong Township Political and Legal Affairs Committee, the secretary of Nanhuangdi Village harassed Ms. Sun at home on March 22, 2021. He ordered her to write statements to renounce Falun Gong and threatened to implicate her son if she did not comply. She held firm to her faith.
Gao, his deputy secretary Tang, and a woman surnamed Xu showed up at Ms. Sun’s home on the afternoon of May 17, 2021. She was doing farm work, and they called in the local women’s affairs committee director to take them to the field. They could not find her there and threatened her husband and father-in-law instead. Gao complained that he received numerous phone calls from Falun Gong practitioners outside of China, condemning him for persecuting Ms. Sun back on March 22, 2021.
Targeted in a Group Arrest in 2023
Five officers from the Minzhu Street Police Station broke into Ms. Sun’s home on October 27, 2023. She was not in, so they forced her father-in-law to call her husband. The police told her husband that they needed her back home to verify some things.
Her husband said there was no way that he would allow his wife to go back home to be arrested by them. The police then demanded to talk to Ms. Sun directly. She refused. About ten minutes later, the police forced her father-in-law to take them to the field to look for her. After failing to find her there, the police returned to her home and confiscated all of her Falun Gong books and a laptop, as well as a flash drive containing her son’s wedding photos and videos.
The police returned at around 5 p.m. that evening to see if Ms. Sun had come back. Her husband, who had been home by now, refused to reveal her whereabouts. The police left. Ms. Sun learned later that more than thirty local Falun Gong practitioners (the oldest in their 70s) were arrested that day. Almost all of them were interrogated with torture. Some of them were held in cages, where they would neither stand nor squat. They were also denied restroom use.
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